Page 40

“Italianculture, Dad. Marble! Design! Antiquities! Art! The family business! My major made it possible for me to design installations for customers. I work hard.”

“No doubt. But when you blew up your marriage, Louie saved you,” Mom insists. “Don’t forget. Your divorce was the cause of all of this. You gave up your life and for what?”

“I didn’t give up my life; I started over. Dr. Sharon said the divorce was actually positive—it was the only decision I could make to save myself. And it was the right one. Leaving my marriage didn’t make me sick. This!” I wave my hands in the air like my father did. “All of this made me sick!”

I get up and go down into the cellar, hauling the duffel with me. I have no idea how long I’ve been lying on the bed when I open my eyes to find Joe and Connie standing over me.

“I didn’t know it was your money, Jess,” my brother says softly.

“I believe you.”

“You can’t catch a break,” my sister says.

“Connie, your name didn’t even come up tonight. They don’t pay attention to us in the same way they do Joe.”

“Joe is a firstborn son. I wanted to work in retail and have a family,” Connie says. “I got my dream. You should have your dream too. Is there anything we can do for you?”

The basement stairs creak as my parents descend the narrow staircase. Dad almost bangs his head on the low ceiling even though he installed it. They stand back, waiting to be invited into the conversation. My father is seventy-two and my mother is sixty-nine and they look every second of it and then some in the beam of the garish overhead light.

“May we join you?” Mom asks.

Dad looks down at the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry, Jess. I see you could have handled your affairs—past, present, and future—on your own without our interference. We should have come to you about the college fund, but we were cutting and pasting our children’s needs in the moment. Kind of like that dream board thing you put together. A piece here. A piece there. Sometimes we held this family together with nothing but prayer and glue. Sometimes as a parent you do that—you do for one at the expense of the other—it’s a juggling act. But in all of this, we underestimated you. This is, frankly, inexcusable behavior from your father, who makes his living assessing the value of things.”

“Dad, I’m holding you accountable. Mom, I am holding you accountable too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Connie cries. “You haven’t been treated with respect.”

“I feel awful.” Mom clutches her stomach.

Never underestimate the revelation of the truth to change the power grid of a family. I feel my lungs open. “When you respect a person, you assume they will make the best decisions for themself that they can with the information they have at that time. When it was my turn to go away to college, you needed the money to send Joe to law school. If you knew me, you would know that had you come to me, explained the situation, and asked me for the money, I would have given you my last dime. No further questions asked. But you didn’t think enough of me to ask. All these years, I thought I wasn’t worthy of my own dreams because they never seemed to come true. Now I know why they didn’t.”

We sit in silence until Mom says, “Giuseppina, I want you to sleep upstairs.”

“I’m okay.”

“You won’t be for long.” She turns to Dad. “She’s right. This is a hole and I smell fumes.”

Dad inhales the air. “I stored the engine from the push mower in the utility closet. It’s just motor oil. Nothing that could kill you.”

Mom and Dad go up the stairs to the kitchen.

As I watch them go, I know what I have to do.

I look at Connie and Joe. “Don’t let them rent out the basement. It’s awful down here. Sometimes a cellar should just be a cellar.”

Joe sits on the end of the bed. He looks at Connie, who sits in the lawn chair and scoots it toward the bed. They look at me.

“Where will you go?” Joe asks.

“I’ll let you know when I get there.” I lean back on the pillows and inhale the faint scent of motor oil, which will fuel me out of this cellar and into my new life.

9

Il Coraggio

I’ve been in constantmotion in the weeks since Uncle Louie died. As the sole heir to Cap Marble and Stone, I followed Uncle Louie’s mandate to take care of our customers. I delivered a new base for the baptismal font to Saint Catharine’s, followed up with our clients, met with the accountant, and paid all vendors and workmen on outstanding invoices. Cap Marble and Stone is now on hold while the Elegant Gangster is being investigated by the FBI and IRS. I surrendered all of Uncle Louie’s business files to the detectives, but I asked Detective Campovilla if I could keep the photographs of Uncle Louie’s time in Italy. He let me.

I signed up for a Pimsleur course to refresh my college Italian, connected with Conor Kerrigan, and put several calls in to Googs, who has returned none. I went to Lisa’s for a bangs trim and had my nails done, and I’ve been writing journal entries faithfully in my notes app. I have ascended to Exercise 4 with Dr. Pamela.