Sacred Time (23 page)

“Only you.” Franklin pulled me toward him, hip against hip, as if we were about to pivot in a ballroom tango across the landlady's yellow-and-orange linoleum. “Remember that jingle? ‘Mommy and Daddy take my hand, take me out to Freedomland, two ninety-five is all you pay in Freedomland all day….'”

Franklin was twelve when he fell off his horse, hit his head on the neighbors' stone wall, and rose to his knees, unhurt and certain that God wanted him for the priesthood.

“And he wasn't even Catholic,” his mother told me when Franklin took me to White Plains to meet his parents. “He'd just seen too many young-priest movies.”

His father nodded. “After his riding accident, Franklin insisted on switching to Catholic school. Very uncharacteristic for our Franklin, that level of insistence.”

“Very uncharacteristic,” his mother said.

“Not really,” Franklin said. “You taught me to always be looking for signs.”

His parents glanced at each other, startled, then set their features into expressions of tolerance. Since they were Unitarians, they knew they were supposed to be tolerant. Yet, in the weeks leading to our wedding, they thanked me at least three times for talking Franklin out of being a priest. “We attempted to prevent it.” So much for Unitarian tolerance.

Still, it was more tolerance than Franklin and I got from my relatives—except from Aunt Leonora, of course, who advocates tolerance. For the relatives our marriage was unthinkable—imagine, a divorced woman and a disgraced priest—more unthinkable even that we weren't allowed to marry inside a Catholic church. And yet, the ceremony, held at the VFW hall that Uncle Victor liked to rent for Festa Liguria, felt weirdly Catholic, not just because our guests included several ex-nuns and ex-priests, but mostly because I was terrified someone would step forward when the justice of the peace asked if there was anyone who had final objections. Every Catholic bride I knew had feared that disruption, and our wedding was made for a legion of bishops to intervene.

But the justice of the peace didn't even ask that question, and when Franklin said clearly, “I do,” all I could think was how, when Jonathan said, “I do,” Franklin was still in the seminary, praying in the chapel at dawn, studying the history of belief.

After we ate the food Uncle Victor had catered as his gift to us, after we danced to the accordion band, after Anthony went outside, after we cut the wedding cake, Papa asked us to help him think of yet another new company name.

“It should include ‘Roof' or ‘Roofing' in the name. Something people will remember.”

“CRTDL,” Aunt Leonora said without hesitation.

“CRTDL…” He looked intrigued.

“That's right.” She tapped one crimson fingernail against the white tablecloth as if typing out the letters for Papa.

After his fifth roofing business, Wholesale Roofing, had collapsed, he'd briefly owned a gas station, the only gas station I'd ever seen that had a dry cleaning store with a flashing sign: “Your favorite jacket cleaned for free with fill-up. Minimum 7 gallons.” Then came another combination business: a cavernous bicycle shop that transformed itself into a movie theater at night. Eventually, Papa returned to roofing: it was what he'd learned, what he enjoyed. And since he had Anthony—who'd graduated from cooking school but didn't work as a chef—to handle his office and occasional employees, Papa got to work on the roofs. When Anthony suggested the Yellow Pages, Papa picked names at the beginning of the alphabet, so that potential customers would find him right away—A-Okay Roofing; Affordable Roofing—except both times the name had already changed before the new Yellow Pages were published.

“CRTL…” Papa built a rectangle with his fingers and peered through them as though they framed those letters. Then he shifted them until they framed Mama, who was all in peach, one of the few times I'd seen her wear anything but black. She'd dyed the white gown she'd bought last year, when she married Mr. Thompson—
Call me Julian, please
—and she'd designed a peach colored lace vest to float over it. Her hair was still shorter than it used to be from her wedding haircut on Madison Avenue, the cost of ten Bronx haircuts.

“What do you think of CRTDL?” Papa asked her.

“Depends on what it means.”

Papa nodded energetically.

Ever since their divorce, he and Mama had shown more ease and pleasure with each other than during marriage. Since he was the one who'd been left, I sometimes felt angry at Mama; and even though he had started dating, that too felt like her fault.

With Mr. Thompson I'd felt awkward the day I met him, because he was so eager to leave Hartford, to relocate his furniture shop to the Bronx so he could be near Mama. For me, it was all too sudden. I felt awkward with him the day he married Mama, and I felt it again on my wedding day, that awkwardness, even though Mama and I both were twice-married now. But the way they were sitting there—she all in peach, one shoulder against his as if she couldn't wait to get into bed with this man who'd decided that she wasn't allowed to smoke. I'd argued with him about it, but he said it was so she would live longer. He didn't want to hear that women in my family lived to be old and smoked all they wanted.

I felt Mama looking at me, and when she winked, I thought of the two of us sneaking cigarettes on her fire escape or hunched across her stove, taking quick puffs while the fan sucked up the smoke, chewing cough drops to disguise our breath. As conspirators, Mama and I did well; but our natural stance was flight and chase. I still fled from her sorrow, because I didn't want it to ignite mine. I couldn't be her substitute for Bianca; and yet I was the only one who looked like Bianca. In the mirror, however, it was just me—minus Bianca.
The me that confirms her absence. My likeness rotting beneath the ground. How long does it take? Is there anything left of us? Rib or skull or femur? The heart will already be gone. Perhaps the heart is always the first to go. With Jonathan it certainly was. And the body just has to follow it.
As a small girl I was hefty—Bianca and I both were: hefty and tall—and yet I ended up skinny, as though my twin's death had taken the flesh from me.

Once in a while I hated her.

Because she was dead.

Because they were in love with her absence.

And yet, to taste Mama's excess love, I sometimes let her turn me into Bianca, greedily became Bianca for her, and fed on love not intended for me though I'd never be enough for her, though she couldn't look at me without sorrow. How I fought for that love of hers, tried to make it match the intense and confusing love I felt for her. And how I kept losing, because a dead daughter was more powerful than a daughter still alive. Once, I think, Mama understood what it was like for me, because she cried and hugged me tightly and said, “I don't ever want to do this to you, make you be both daughters to me.” And I stepped out of her arms and said, “I don't know what you mean.”

“CRTDL…” Papa was saying slowly. “It's catchy, Leonora. But what does it stand for?”

“Cheap Roofs That Don't Last.” Aunt Leonora did not blink.

Just then, Anthony came back in. He hesitated by the door, as if about to leave again.

Franklin's parents glanced at each other, startled, then set their features into identical expressions of tolerance.

“You got that from one of your crossword puzzles?” Papa asked Aunt Leonora.

“I made it up.”

“An original. Of course.”

My grandfather started coughing, and Anthony was holding himself tight, wary, as he often did. With him it was either that silence or outrageous banter, when he'd talk on that sharp edge of ribbing as if he wanted us to slap him down.

“We have a few more pieces of wedding cake,” Uncle Victor announced. “Unless anyone would like more stuffed veal breast or—”

“Yes,” Franklin said. “Veal for me, please. I'd also like some more of your spaghetti.”

We all stared at my bridegroom as he cut his spaghetti into two-inch sections, and when my grandfather was the first to glance away, I vowed to myself that I'd teach Franklin to twirl spaghetti around his fork in the curve of his spoon.

“Another toast,” my grandfather suggested in his gentle voice. “Sit down, Anthony. Join me in a toast to our lovely bride and to her—”

“I bet you have other original suggestions,” Papa prompted Aunt Leonora.

“Well, if you prefer a shorter name…”

“Something shorter, then.” As usual, he was punctuating each word with his hands. But only his hands moved. The rest of his body looked stiff. He used to deliver words with his entire body, but ever since the Quality crooks had broken his hands, Papa had seemed without full speech. Playing his accordion had been part of his language, but he'd never played again.

“You could drop the
D
and just go with CRTL,” Aunt Leonora said.

“Cheap Roofs That Last?” He grinned at her like a schoolboy, eager to be praised for the right answer.

But she corrected him. “Leak.”

At least four of the relatives were silently mouthing the words, “Cheap Roofs That Leak,” and that instant I knew we all felt some joy at Papa's dilemma. Along with guilt for feeling that joy. None of us came to Papa's help. Not even I. Because Aunt Leonora had a right to her fury.

Fury at Papa for exploiting her son.

Fury at her son for letting himself be exploited.

I'd never really understood why Anthony would choose work that put him on roofs; but as he sat at my U-shaped banquet table, spookily quiet, observing his mother—each of her words a weapon in her fight to reclaim him—I wondered if he found some odd redemption by trading Papa his labor for my sister's life. Even if Papa was hatching some strange revenge, Anthony had become an accomplice to being used.

Suddenly I was tired of his silence, his miserable silence. I used to think it was a game, daring himself to make it through a family dinner without speaking. One afternoon at Jones Beach last summer, when I offered him my suntan lotion and he shook his head, I decided to find out how that kind of silence felt. I continued to look at him quietly, fully knowing that, unlike Papa, who took what he could, Anthony had trouble accepting even compliments or a second cup of coffee or my suntan lotion. He'd rather burn. Suffer some more.