Worn Masks (8 page)

Aunt Elena

Chapter 20

ELENA WAS A beautiful woman with long salt-and-pepper hair,
intense light brown eyes, and a large mouth that filled her thin face out. Mary
Grace saw that Elena was the sister of Teresa. She saw her mother in the
shape of the face, and the mouth, but the eyes were
op
posites. Her mother’s dull, Elena’s sparkling with smile in every
photograph.

Elena wrote more about Giuseppe, now the only living full sibling
of her mother. More about the visit to America he took to see his beloved
Teresa, and how as a boy he clung to his sister, Teresa, when their mother
died, and when Christina first came into the family. He struggled accepting
Christina as Momma. The first time
Giuseppe
spoke badly of Christina, crying for his sis
ter, Papa beat him, but
Christina eased his wounds with cool compresses, and promised him she would
help him keep close with Teresa.  

But Teresa was angry with her papa, and when she could she left
for America. Christina arranged it through their
cugina
Rosalie
Giordano, daughter of Giovanni’s brother, to send Teresa away. “They only meant
to help her,” Elena wrote.

Rosalie kept connected to Teresa with her letters, even after she
married into the Maschere family. It was against Papa’s will. Mary Grace
wondered how much her mother had answered the letters? She felt uncer
tain. When she had the translations done of those
let
ters, each time Rosalie questions how is America, tell us about the
bambina
?

In Elena’s letter she apologized for her sister, Teresa, and that
she had caused the family turmoil, and yet they loved her and always wanted to
reconnect with her. Unfortunately, Rosalie had passed away and they had no
evidence of letters sent back to her from Teresa. So, maybe Aunt Maggie was
right, that her mother didn’t write back to her. But, Elena did confirm that
she had written and received letters from Aunt Maggie, written in the years
after Uncle Paul had passed away.

Letters Mary Grace still could not find. And she could not imagine
how nervous it must have made Aunt Maggie having these letters come to the
house. She would have to get the mail before Teresa, not chance Teresa seeing a
letter from Italy with a return address of a Giordano. And later would she even
have known her sister Elena’s marriage name? Still, just the fact that Aunt
Maggie was getting letters from Italy would have sparked Teresa’s curiosity.
Poor Aunt Maggie, hiding, always hiding.

And why couldn’t Mary Grace recall the visit that Aunt Maggie and
Elena seemed to remember so well? Mary Grace felt the Italian words in Elena’s
letters were sweet and loving. In a way, for Mary Grace, it made perfect sense
that she had no memory of the visit. She learned early it was better not to be
engaged, just to be quiet. Not to ask questions. Mary Grace’s mother may have
warned her not to bring it up again, and in time it became buried, like
everything else.

Mary Grace was embarrassed, not because she didn’t remember, but
because it sounded like her mother had been rude to them, no worse, cruel to
her own younger brother and little sister. Mary Grace felt the old anger
stirring. She closed her eyes to hold back her emotion,
and her fear. Was she like her mother–did she shut ev
eryone out?

She wrote back to Elena, “
Grazie
, I am grateful to know all
of this. Tell me more about Giuseppe.”

Elena visited Giuseppe again and together they wrote another
letter. Giuseppe was ill and his body was drained from fighting, but his mind
was still sharp. He loved his,
mia cara, mia sorrella, mia Teresa, mia bella
.
His descriptions were not of a woman Mary Grace had ever known. “And I still
cry, again and again,
mia bella, mia sorella
, so much she suffered,”
wrote Elena for her brother.

Toward the end of the letter in a shaky hand
were his own words,
“bambini soffrano i loro genitori.”
Mary Grace had
an eerie feeling, like somehow Giuseppe knew her, not just her mother, although
that was nonsense.

Was this family? She felt the breath fill her lungs, and she felt
her heart thumping against her chest, as if it had just begun to beat for the
first time.

Elena often talked about her husband, Federico, and their
eleven-year-old son, Mario. She was so proud of both of them. “I met Federico
at university, and my momma supported me telling my papa that she would
not lose another daughter. It may have helped that
Fed
erico’s family were successful exporters and they knew I would be
well taken care of.” She told Mary Grace she had hoped for a second child, a
girl, but that was not to be. “No sister, and no daughter.” She then
apologized: “Not that my brothers aren’t wonderful, but a girl wants a sister.”

They arranged to Skype together. There in front of Mary Grace was
the beautiful Elena.

Mary Grace tried to ask Elena why her mother would name her after
the twins and yet never tell her about them? Of course, it wasn’t a question
Elena could answer. Although, she seemed to understand how it troubled Mary
Grace. Elena kindly talked around the question to how difficult it must have
been to be so alone in America, to have such a heavy heart. She did admit, “I
was so angry with Teresa. Everybody in the house talk about her. Her brothers
missed her. And Papa warn me not to misbehave like my sister, Teresa.” Yet,
Elena also related that she felt Teresa had led the way for her to break from
the family, in a good way. The brothers would always stay close to home, “but I
go away to university and then move
sud
with
mia amore
,
Federico.”

Mary Grace questioned Elena about all that Gi
useppe had said,
especially in the end of the letter about some
thing
concerning children and parents–and Elena
explained it was a saying–
bambini
soffrano i loro genitori
, which explained that it is not the children’s
fault that the parent sometimes doesn’t know or understand, and the child
suffers because of it. Elena said that Guiseppe
had relayed to her that their mother, Elenora, had al
ways told
them, Guiseppe and Teresa, that they could be something and they could go to
America and have a good life. Teresa had tried to live that but she was so full
of anger from her losses she couldn’t find that happiness. Mary Grace shuddered
with a strange sense that she knew this already. She had heard the phrase or
seen it, or there was something about the putting together of it. It was
probably just that she was exhausted from all of this, feeling one moment angry
with her mother, and the next sad for her.

The house was almost ready to put on the market.
She sat at the piano, playing the old tunes Aunt
Mag
gie had taught her, and deciding if she should take the piano or sell
it along with everything else.

Finding Home

Chapter 21

MARY GRACE’S FEELINGS about seeing Elena, the effort between them
each time they would Skype, when they spoke together, half in Italian and half
in English, coaxing each other with smiles and pantomime, left her feeling
uneasy.

Was this a resistance to belonging? Was it what her mother could
never find, a feeling of belonging in her life in Italy or in America, with
either family?

One night, as Mary Grace became more comfortable to ask questions,
she broached the subject of her
father again.
“Why was your father so against your sis
ter, my mother, marrying my
father, just because he was from the south?”

Elena took a long gulp from a glass of wine before answering. “My
father, Giovanni, he couldn’t accept it. There is so much. He had a
sorella
who had married a man from the south, and it didn’t go well, and then he didn’t
want his daughter to do the same. He felt they are not good enough. In the end
I do the same, too.” 

Mary Grace could see that for the first time it was Elena who was
uncomfortable. She pushed further. “Did he know anything about my father’s
family?”

“It is complicated. We need to talk with Giuseppe again, and maybe
you understand more.”

“What? Does Giuseppe know about my father’s family?” Mary Grace
was using the little information that Aunt Maggie had told her. Now she wanted
to see what Elena knew about her Uncle Paul.

Elena hesitated, filling her glass again. “When your mother turned
Uncle Giuseppe away when he came to
America,
he had to find a way to know his beloved Te
resa was well, do you
capsici
?”

“Yes, it sounds like you all cared very much for her.”
The pieces of Mary Grace’s mother’s life story were
fi
nally coming together, but how did this part of about her father’s
family fit in?

Elena talked about how Teresa had taken care of her siblings when
her mother, Elenora, died. “So much for a young girl, when her mother, and then
her dear twins were gone. She couldn’t accept my Momma, Christina.”

Elena felt that Teresa never forgave herself, although, of course,
there was nothing she could have done to save her mother or the twins. She had
sat with the twins through the time of their fevers, and tended to their every
need. She was just devastated when they,
Maria e Graziella
, died. 

Then the rift between her and their papa began and grew. Teresa
never forgave him, and he never forgave her, both mad about things they had no
control over, sickness and death, and the pain of living.

Mary Grace felt a new mix of feelings tearing at her. Her mother
had loved the twins, but couldn’t love her. Her head was swimming.

That night she couldn’t sleep, and the next day after work she
went to talk to Aunt Maggie, but Aunt Maggie didn’t want to hear about, or
didn’t understand, that she had “seen” Elena. 

All she would say was, “We did it for you, Gra
cie. First Uncle
Paul, and then, well, I promised him I wouldn’t let the families lose you too.”
Mary Grace realized that Aunt Maggie, like the women Mary Grace had seen in the
nursing home previously, was just living now in her own world of memories. Aunt
Maggie and Uncle Paul had done their best to give Mary Grace a family and
better memories. But, Aunt Maggie couldn’t take on anything more.

Back at her apartment that night, Mary Grace looked at the
painting she had on the wall in her bed
room.
It was of the
chiesa
, the one Uncle Paul had hang
ing on the wall
in his otherwise stark room. The church he had sketched over and over again in
his books. Mary Grace couldn’t form the words to explain what it meant to her.
The aging ochre
stone surrounded by the tall cypress, with the open fields behind it, the
church rose large and stately.

She felt lighted-headed at the sight of it.
It was so
familiar. She had sat on the floor in the attic room and looked at it so many
times. She had gone up to it and run her hands along the lines of the church,
the spirals
of the trees. Mary Grace felt
emotional, what was hap
pening to her?

Then she realized there was nothing to hide about Uncle Paul, or
that she had been in
Uncle
Paul’s room and had taken the painting of this church from
there. She didn’t have to keep any one’s secrets anymore. All the worn masks
were being let go.

Elena sent another letter with photographs she had gotten from
Giuseppe,
photographs of Uncle Paul when he was in their town before the
war.

Elena explained, “He was Guiseppe’s
amico
. He cared a great
deal about your uncle. He talked about the beautiful pictures that your Uncle
Paul would draw. Guiseppe said your uncle loved Caterina and loved you, Maria
Graziella, more than anyone else. He wanted you to be happy.”

Mary Grace felt her breath catch, her eyes filled with tears.
Uncle Paul had seen what was happening between Teresa and her. He was watching
her more than she knew. Had anyone ever grieved for Uncle Paul, for his losses?
Had she ever grieved for Uncle Paul? And, had anyone ever known her so well as
he knew her?

Suddenly Mary Grace remembered. The memory
flooded in. Uncle Paul was walking on the avenue with her and she was crying.
They were walking away from a girl, a woman, and a strange man with her mother.
It was her mother who told Uncle Paul to take Mary Grace home. “Take her out a’
here. No reason for her to know them.” But Mary Grace had wanted to play with
the little girl. She had cried. Teresa had lifted her hand in warning toward
Mary Grace, but Uncle Paul had circled his arm around her and taken her home.

Then, Mary Grace remembered Giuseppe. She saw him, young, with a
full mustache smiling at her, and holding the hand of the little girl.

And now she knew that he and Uncle Paul had made a pact, had kept
the Giordano family attuned to Mary
Grace’s
life. Mary Grace felt at once exhilarated and sad
dened. This was what
she had to know, that someone had always watched over her.

The nursing home had called and suggested she make final plans for
Aunt Maggie. Aunt Maggie would be leaving soon. There would be no one left that
Mary Grace had lived with, no one who knew her.

She refused a Skype invitation from Elena. Mary Grace stared at
the blank screen for a moment and then went into her room, collapsed on the bed
with thoughts of all of the family she had learned about floating now in her
head and her heart. Mary Grace was thinking about Uncle Paul and how he led her
to all this, but what did it mean now for Mary Grace? After all, wasn’t she her
mother’s daughter?

The movers arrived early and walked around the rooms with Mary
Grace. She pointed to the items that
she was
taking, and those that would stay for the auc
tioneer who would take the
rest, really the bulk of it, to sell. When they got to the living room Mary
Grace paused at the piano, she had thought she would take it, but now she had
decided to leave it. She had all that she needed to know. She couldn’t live her
parents’ lives; she couldn’t connect with families whose memories were not her
memories. She told the mover the piano could stay. He pointed at the piano
bench. “This too?”

She hesitated, and then she opened the bench
cov
er.
Aunt Maggie’s music books, and the letters!
She lift
ed the thick pile of letters out of the bench, flipped through
them, seeing them addressed to Aunt Maggie, and
written in what she now recognized as Elena’s
handwrit
ing. Mary Grace walked out of the room. She dropped the letters
in the garbage can on the way to her car.