“My brother lived with my mother until the day he died,” Aunt Jo said, twisting the hem of her apron.
“Ma, that’s a bad example.” Dominic came in the room carrying his son, who he handed to Elsa. He took a seat in the rocking chair. “Uncle Jimmy fell off the roof and landed on his head when he was fifteen. He was never right after that. He couldn’t leave the house. You can’t compare him and Nicky.”
“It was an example of someone who never left, that’s all I was saying,” Aunt Jo retorted.
“No offense taken,” Nicky assured her. “To me or Uncle Jimmy.”
Gio edged into the crowded room. “When you come back to us, and you will, don’t bring home a fancy New York girl.”
“Please don’t!” Mabel pined. “They’re fast.”
“Why would I do that? Only Philly girls, Jersey girls, or Polish girls,” Nicky promised. “Let us not forget the Irish. Nothing like an Irish lass.”
“Nothing wrong with a New York girl. I have cousins in Brooklyn,” Lena said defensively.
“Don’t get your feelings hurt—they don’t mean your particular cousins.” Nino sat next to his wife on the bed. “Your family is a gallery of saints.”
“I couldn’t figure out where the hell everybody went,” Uncle Dom said, ambling into Nicky’s room, his bad knee crackling softly. Dominic Jr. got up from the rocking chair and offered it to his father, who took a seat.
“That’s because you never come down to the basement. This is where we make the homemades, Pop. And can the tomatoes. And ferment the peaches in wine.” Mabel sniffed.
“I know where the work is done in this house.”
“Do you know who does it?” Aunt Jo joked.
“Yes, Joanna, as matter of fact, I do.”
“You could show your appreciation once in a while.”
“What do you want? I bust my coolie for you.”
“Here we go,” Gio said under his breath.
“You have the best equipment. The best appliances.” Dom flailed his arms.
“They don’t do the work, Dominic.”
“I run a good business to keep your sons and their families close.”
“True.”
“I put the Western Union in for you.”
“What kind of a present is that?”
“I’d rather have jewelry,” Mabel barked. The girls laughed.
“No, it was the best gift my husband ever gave me. I never wanted that man to walk up to the front door and tell me I had lost a son in the war. Western Union went in, and it was good luck. You all came home.” Jo kissed Dom on his head.
“We did.” Gio thought about the odds.
“I live for you, Jo. Look at me. A prize. A joy to live with. I make love to you like we’re on our honeymoon.”
Their sons moaned in disgust. Mabel looked off into the distance, repulsed; Lena looked at her nails, while Elsa shook her head.
“That, too, is true,” Aunt Jo admitted.
“I’m happy for you, Uncle Dom, and Aunt Jo, my deepest sympathy.” Nicky placed his wallet in his pocket.
“But with all you’ve done for me, you couldn’t keep Nicky here.”
“I tried,” Dom said.
“He did. Offered me all the airport runs I could do. Very tempting.” Nicky snapped his suitcase shut.
“How can you leave us, Nick?” Nino said. “We have such a good time.”
“I’ll visit. New York is close. When I get my first play, I hope you’ll come and see it.”
“You let me know date, time, place, I’ll alert the AFL-CIO in the city, and we’ll pack the house.”
“Thanks, Uncle Dom.”
“If there’s ever anything we can do for you, will you let us know?” Elsa’s voice broke. From the moment she arrived at 810 Montrose, Nicky had made her feel a part of things. Elsa would miss him most of all.
“There is something you can do for me.”
“Of course,” Elsa agreed.
“You’re such a good sport. You go to mass every Sunday, and you hand out the doughnuts afterward. You press the altar linens for the church and the vestments for the priest and make the crowns for the May Day celebration.”
“She does a lovely job with the altar flowers,” Aunt Jo said appreciatively.
“People probably think you’re Catholic,” Nicky said.
Elsa blushed.
“But what about you and your traditions and the things you did growing up?”
“Elsa enjoys our holidays. Don’t you?” Mabel asked.
Elsa nodded.
“What’s your point, Nick?” Dominic asked impatiently.
“Elsa, I guess what I’m saying is, everything you are, and everything that you come from, is just as important as who we are and what we come from. It matters just as much. I lost my parents, and Uncle Dom and Aunt Jo took me in. My cousins are like brothers. And whatever I wanted to do, I didn’t do because I wanted to do it, but because I needed to fit in and please the good people who were kind enough to let me stay. I was so grateful to them for taking me in that I didn’t think about what I wanted. And I was so in awe of Dominic and Gio and Nino that I wanted to be just like them, so I buried my true heart. But it turns out that even when you try to hide what you are, it finds a way out. And that gets tricky, because when you’ve buried the truth, when it’s revealed it can hurt some people you care about. So forgive me for that. But not for admitting it. I’ve realized there’s no reason to hide; it makes you what you are, and that’s what we love about you. You can be yourself here. That’s what it means to be in a family. You’re safe. So before I go, I just want to say, let everyone know who you are. You deserve that. Be a Jew.”
“Elsa is a Jew. Dominic brought her from the camp,” Aunt Jo said softly.
“Don’t say camp, Aunt Jo,” Nicky corrected her. “Can’t you see it hurts her?”
Aunt Jo turned to Elsa. “It hurts you?”
“When you say it as though it is the place that I come from, yes, it hurts me. I am not from the camp. I am from Lanckorona in the south of Poland, south of Kraków.”
“The big city,” Mabel commented.
“Our town was small. My father was a teacher. His name was Ben. We lived at Fifteen Gris Street in a house the color of gingerbread, with pale green trim. We had a stream in our front yard and four pear trees.”