The passage was titled aptly, but next to it, Sam had written “Fine,” which Calla knew in this instance, did not mean “all right” but rather the Italian word that, translated, meant “The End.” She read:
It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain and repent, yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. Oh eloquent, just and mighty Death! Whom none could advise thou hast persuaded, what none hath dared thou hast done, and whom all the world hath flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow words, Hic jacet.*
—Sir Walter Raleigh, The Historie of the World, 1614
Sam added a note to Calla under the passage:
Don’t be afraid of dying. I am not. This is scary stuff – but only for those who live in service to the wrong things. You won’t.
Dad
Calla closed the old book and held it close. She was grateful to her father for everything. She also felt gratitude toward her mother, who had loved her father so much, she’d sacrificed everything for him and his life’s work. Calla was also grateful to Helen and Portia, who valued the things in this world that she did not, and therefore left her with the things she most wanted from her parents’ house, which were, luckily for her, of no interest to them.
Calla would keep her father’s library and his collection of prompt books, which included the scripts and notes from every production he had directed in his long career. She would also take her mother’s sewing basket and her bottle of Trapéze de Corday, with a thimbleful of perfume left at the bottom of the amber flask.
Calla would also remember to take her mother’s red-handled paring knife from the kitchen drawer. In her very first memory, Calla was four years old, in the backyard of the house on Ellsworth Street. Her mother, exacting the small knife, quartered a ripe peach for her daughters to eat one summer afternoon. Vincenza Borelli’s lovely hands moved with dexterity, the blade of the knife making quick work of the fruit as it fell into golden pink velvet pieces.
Vincenza gave each of her daughters a wedge, pierced the pit with the tip of the blade, and flung it into the garden bed. Calla remembered the pit as it flew through the air and landed in the distance. “Let’s see what grows from that,” her mother had said. That night Calla dreamed a tree grew in the garden, a stage tree made with papier-maché, paint, brown velvet branches, gold lamé leaves, and berries made of red glass beads. Everyone thought Sam was the artist in the family, but it was Calla’s mother who had given her imagination birth.
Helen would take their mother’s silver while Portia wanted the wedding crystal with authentic gold trim. There were lamps made of Italian alabaster topped with silk shades and a set of small Florentine study tables. Her sisters would take those too. It wasn’t a teacup or a piece of furniture that Calla needed to remember her parents; she would take tools they had used to build their romantic dreams. Vincenza had created a home and garden that delighted Sam while he created theatrical productions that celebrated love, life, and courage that could only come from the heart of a man who was living it.
Calla wouldn’t expect her sisters to understand how she felt. They had left this old house, the theater, and South Philly without looking back. Helen and Portia worried that Calla lived in the past and that, like their father, their kid sister was obsessed with Shakespeare and would remain in his theatrical grip for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Calla hoped she would; she wanted to be just like Sam, who found purpose in the plays when he was young and wisdom in them at the end of his life.
At least Helen and Portia understood that beauty compelled their parents to create it. And, like the ripe peach the sisters shared on that summer day so long ago, they would taste the sweetness again in memory. Calla would too, and be grateful for it, but because she was an artist she would also take the rest, the parts of the fruit that no one wanted, the soft bruises on the skin, the leaves, and the stem in order to make sense of them. She would also take the pit, from which she would make something grow. There was meaning in all of it and it was an artist’s job to find it.
*
Garibaldi Avenue looked like a red satin ribbon as geraniums spilled out of hanging baskets and rosebushes burst with plump blossoms of burgundy and fuchsia. The summer heat had turned Roseto’s main street into a hothouse garden in full bloom. The banners welcoming the ambassador had been taken down, the streamers yanked from their poles, the flags from their wires, and the scandal was almost forgotten, replaced by a new one: the deacon having run off with his secretary and the collection basket from Saint Rocco’s in Martins Creek.
Mamie Confalone carried two brown grocery bags up the walkway to Minna Viglione’s front door. She rang the bell and waited. Soon, Minna appeared.
“Two bags?”
“I’m going to the shore this week. So I shopped double for you.”
“Right. It’s vacation week at the mill.”
“I live for it.” Mamie followed Minna into the house and back to her kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“Ocean City.”
Minna clapped her hands together. “The beach.”
“My folks rented a little shack down the shore. And I can’t wait.”
“I used to love to go to the ocean.”
“You’re welcome to come. It’s not far. We could take you. We have room.”
“Maybe next year. I want to see the ocean again.” Minna smiled as Mamie began to unload the groceries from the bag. “You don’t have to do that. I can do it.”
“I’m a full-service delivery operation. From Ruggiero’s Market to your cupboard.” Mamie looked out the window. “Your garden is gorgeous. Who rigged the muslin?” Minna’s garden was draped in a canopy of white fabric to protect the plants from the hot sun, and to discourage the birds from eating the grapes.
“Eddie Davanzo.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He’s handy. He’s kind, and he’s handsome.”
“And you have a crush on him.”
“I’m too old for him. But you’re not.”
“You like him for me?” Mamie folded her arms and leaned against the counter.
“He’s a man like they used to make them. Solid.”
“He is a policeman.”
“I am not talking about his job.”
“I know, Minna. But I haven’t thought about him in that way.”