Chapter Sixteen #2
Nico had been puzzling over that question since his talk with Val at the hotel, tugging at the loose thread in his mind.
“I honestly don’t know. Now that I think about it, the only thing I can remember is being outside the kitchen window.
” He remembered it now, the snatch of memory so distant he wasn’t sure it was real.
But maybe it was, because he could imagine the cool grass between his bare toes in the sliver of shade by the house, the bricks rough on his arm as he bent to grab his Transformer where his cousin Jimmy had hurled it to see how strong Optimus Prime really was.
The robot was in one piece, and Nico remembered the surge of relief as his fingers closed over the hard plastic.
“It was after Mom died. I heard you and someone talking. Aunt Rosie, maybe. She said, ‘She was in bed for so long. After Nico, she was never well again.’ And you didn’t say anything.
I kneeled in the grass, dying to hear more because no one ever talked about Mom.
But that was it. Nonna came in and you guys started talking about dinner or something.
And I guess I thought, ‘That explains it. I was the one who made her sick.’ It made sense to me. ”
“Christ,” Dad muttered. “That’s not what Rosie meant.”
“I know. But I didn’t know it then. Later, I asked Jimmy why Mom had been in bed for so long, and he said something about how I was poison.
I know he didn’t mean it—it was just a dumb insult he tossed out.
But I thought it was true. And later, I couldn’t remember not feeling that way, like I was responsible for Mom dying. It was just something I knew.”
“You should have told me.” Dad’s voice was gruff, and he ran his fingers over the glass in the frame, staring down at the picture.
“When we lost her… It was too hard.” He reached to the table beside him, but the bowl of sunflower seeds was empty.
He curled his fingers into a fist. “I’m no good at this shit.
And now with this queer stuff, I don’t know.
I don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense. Why?”
“Why am I gay?” Nico squeezed the ball of wool, trying to breathe. “I was born this way, Dad.”
Rolling his tongue over his teeth in his familiar way, he nodded. “Okay, so you were always like this. That’s what they say, right? People are just…born different. Is that what they say?”
“Yes.”
“Never really thought much about it. About how it happens. Didn’t have anything to do with me or my family. Those freaks were other people. No one I knew.”
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Nico knew if he spoke he’d lose it, so he waited silently.
Dad said, “But you’re my boy, and you’re telling me you’re one of those people.”
He barely scraped the word out. “Yes.”
“Fitz too, huh? Can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like you’re suddenly from outer space. Like I don’t know you at all.”
Nico’s throat closed, and he blinked desperately to banish the tears.
“But you’re sitting right there, and of course I fucking know you. You’re my kid. You’re the best damn pitcher this league has seen in years. You’re going to be better than your brother and I ever were. And I know I’m hard on you. It’s because I want you to be the best.”
Sucking in air, Nico whispered, “I try so hard to be perfect. To make you proud.”
“No one’s fucking perfect. And you’re damn right you make me proud.
I don’t get this gay thing, and I can’t pretend I’m gonna turn into some granola-crunching liberal loon.
” Breathing hard, Dad looked down at the frame he was still clutching.
After a few moments, he said quietly, “You’re my son, and I’ll try to understand. ”
Nico sniffed, swallowing down the moisture in the back of his throat and nose. “Thank you.”
“Your grandmother’s going to want a drive to Mass every damn day now. She loves you, but what the church says goes. Maybe that hippie pope’s changing things. I don’t know. Just try not to…you know. Don’t do gay things in front of her.”
It hurt—of course it did—but Nico laughed softly. “I’ll try to control myself.”
“Alma’s a good woman. Been good to us all these years.
Worked her fingers to the bone even though we had money for housekeepers and shit.
You know she was going to move back to Italy when your grandfather died?
She and your mother didn’t get along too well.
” He smiled fondly, his gaze distant. “Angela never liked being told what to do, and her mother sure liked telling. Angela’s brothers and sisters were older, still in Italy with their families, so Alma said she was going to go back where she was wanted.
Then Angela had to be in bed for months with you, and Alma moved in to help.
They argued all the damn time, but they never held a grudge.
Then Angela got sick, so her mother never left. ”
Nico rolled around the new information. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you and Nonna argue.”
“Nope.” He laughed, a deep rumble. “I never sassed my mother either. Or my father. My brothers did all the time. I was the smart one.” He scoffed fondly.
“Eh, you know your uncles. Not too bright. Never made it past Buffalo. Me, I couldn’t wait to get out.
Once I hit the minors, people thought it sounded glamorous, being from Niagara Falls.
” He barked out a laugh. “I said they clearly never went past the tourist traps, and even then it’s better on the Canadian side.
” After few moments he abruptly asked, “So what’s the right word? ”
“Huh?”
“What am I supposed to call you? Is ‘gay’ allowed?”
Tucking his foot up under him, Nico unspooled a length of soft wool and rolled it back up. “Yeah. That’s the right word. Some people like to call themselves queer, but you shouldn’t.”
He seemed to ponder this. “Okay. I’ll stick to ‘gay,’ but tell me if it changes.
Words are always changing.” He laid the picture frame gently on the cushion beside him and stared out the window toward the shadowy branches of the oak towering over the winding driveway.
“Wop. You don’t hear that one much nowadays.
Never even knew what it meant, but I used to get it every day at school.
I remember once I was walking home, and there were some biddies sitting on a porch.
Those little concrete pieces of shit with a couple of cheap folding chairs, you know? ”
Nico had grown up in this huge house on the North Shore, so he didn’t really, but he nodded.
“And these were old women and housewives, not kids. I must have been eight or nine. They shouted, ‘Hey, wop! Go back to Italy!’ as I walked by.”
“Seriously?” It was tough to imagine his dad as a child, but Nico felt a swell of anger on behalf of that little boy.
“I was so goddamn confused. I thought, I’ve never been to Italy.
I don’t even know how to get there. How could I go back when I haven’t gone in the first place?
” He shook his head. “Sometimes people threw tomatoes at our house. When we got a color TV—first one on the block—the neighbors sneered that Pop was in the mafia. My dad was a butcher and they knew it. Bought his steaks because they were the best, but whispered behind his back.”
“Wow.” Nico had only been to Niagara Falls once as a kid to visit the dozens of relatives he barely knew. But at that point, Dad had given his siblings more than enough money for them to live in nice suburban houses.
“Junior year of high school, I dated a gal called Samantha. Went over to her house for dinner once. Afterward, her father offered me an Italian liqueur. Just Frangelico or some shit. He was explaining what it was, and I said I’d had it before.
Then it came out that I was Italian. Samantha had told them my last name was Andrews, so this was news to them.
Her father stood there holding that bottle of Frangelico like he wanted to throw it across the room.
Turns out his brother was killed in Italy during the war. He hated Italians.”
“Why were they drinking Frangelico if they hated Italians so much?” No one had ever said a thing to Nico about his Italian heritage, and his mind boggled at the thought of houses being tomatoed because of it.
Dad laughed. “Good question. Who can resist hazelnut, right? Anyway, we sat there sipping from our little glasses, Samantha’s dad not breathing a word, her mom smiling too much, complimenting me on not having an accent.”
“But you were born here.”
He shrugged. “I was still way too Italian for them. ‘Go back where you came from!’ people would shout. And of course we were too American for the Italians in the neighborhood. We only spoke English at home, and my dad read three different newspapers every day. He was determined to lose his accent.”
“Wow. I’ve never heard this stuff before.”
“Eh.” Dad waved his hand dismissively. “No point in rehashing all that business. But I guess this stuff with you has me remembering.” He stared out the window quietly for a few moments.
“Dad took me and my brothers to our first baseball game when I was nine. Just single-A ball, but to me it was the big leagues. The slogan painted on the wood fence said: America’s Pastime.
Big crowd in the stands—or it seemed big to me. ”
His father went quiet. Nico waited in the shadows, the distant ticking of the clock in the hall counting his heartbeats.
Finally his dad went on. “They cheered and clapped so loud when David Parker—I still remember his name—when David Parker hit a three-run homer. Everyone went crazy. We were all on our feet, and I stood on the bleacher so I could see Parker round the bases. That’s when I thought, ‘I want to play baseball. I want them to cheer for me. I want to be a real American.’ The best fucking American they ever saw. ”
In the stillness of the night, the pale moonlight ghosting over his father’s weathered face, Nico couldn’t look away. He’d never seen his father more…real. More human. He wanted to say something profound, but nothing came.
Dad said, “You know, all those years in the majors, I never cared about color or religion or where a guy was from. If he could get his bat on the ball, the ball in his glove, and his feet around the bases, I was proud to have him on my team. Proud to call him brother. But fa—gay guys? Nah, I didn’t want any of them around. ”
The lump in Nico’s throat was too big to swallow, the pain from years of denial and hiding rising, expanding, searching for a way out.
“What a fucking hypocrite I am, huh?” Dad asked. He sniffed loudly, and to Nico’s astonishment, tears shone in his father’s eyes. “Guess we all want someone to look down on. Someone to be better than. But here you are. And there’s no one better than you. You hear me? Huh?”
Nico opened and closed his mouth mutely.
“You listening?” At Nico’s nod, he said, “Good. That’s settled. You better get some sleep. I’ll drive you to the airport in the morning.”
Finally, Nico was able to speak. “It’s okay. I can take an Uber. You probably have stuff to do.”
“I’m driving my kid to the airport. Now get to bed. That Boston lineup’s looking good, but if you can neutralize the top of the order, I think you guys’ll sweep the series. But not if you don’t sleep.”
The familiar tension returned, jamming Nico’s neck.
He rolled his shoulders restlessly. He wasn’t starting for a few days, but he had to get the win—and he hadn’t been doing his training at all.
He’d stayed in bed for more than a day. Unacceptable.
He knew he wouldn’t win every start, but he always did his work.
Maybe it’s okay to get upset and deal with it. Wallow in it a bit. Like Dad said himself, no one’s perfect.
But I can still win Rookie of the Year. I can do it. I can make Dad proud.
Trying to shake off the competing thoughts ricocheting through his mind, he tucked Nonna’s wool back into her knitting bag, the same one with penguins on the side she’d used for years. Why penguins? Where did she even get this bag?
Nico breathed deeply, trying to focus as he stood. He needed to say something to his dad. Something smart and just right. “I… Um…” He went with the only thing that spoke louder than the other noise crowding his mind. “I love you.” No matter what, it was true.
Clearing his throat, Dad said, “Of course you do. I love you too. Now get your ass upstairs.” He wouldn’t look up, but Nico saw the tears overflowing.
He waited until he was back in that tiny twin bed to let his own fall.