Death 6 Exsanguination （Motherhood） #9
Bernie would be Stella’s only daughter and would grow up unintimidated by the prospect of telling whole roomfuls of men what to do.
She would turn up her nose at the various pitfalls of adolescence as she watched her brothers make every mistake in the book; she would eventually become the first person in her family to graduate from college, for which her proud father would insist on paying.
Her no-nonsense personality perfectly suited her career as an accountant at a large Hartford insurance conglomerate, where she would eventually be made a VP.
After years of insisting she never wanted to settle down—just like her mother—she would eventually change her mind, for which I am grateful, since she is my mother.
She would marry an ethnically German computer programmer she met in a business development course at UConn—that’s my dad, the blue-eyed, blond reason I barely pass for Italian.
My mom is a lone renegade branch on the Maglieri family tree, the only offshoot to move out of the Italian ghetto and into the suburbs, to read science fiction novels, and to refuse to baptize her children.
But you would only have heard this story from a quasi-outsider, you know?
A real Maglieri would never have written this down.
IN MAY 1954, AFTER MONTHS of planning and, most importantly, with Assunta’s hard-won blessing, Stella and Carmelo Maglieri moved from Bedford Street to a house Carmelo had bought one town over, in Dorchester. Front Street was a crumbling wreck, and the Maglieris weren’t the only ones heading out.
The new house was about twenty years old and cube shaped, like a bright blue birthday present waiting to be unwrapped.
There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a closed-off back porch that overlooked the marshy grass Carmelo would turn into his arbor and vegetable garden.
There was a carpeted staircase Stella’s boys would charge up and then go sliding down on their bellies for the next twenty years.
Alder Street, the road was called, after a kind of tree, Stella would learn—ontano in Italian, a tree so common in Ievoli but which Stella had never once seen in America.
Eventually the second bedroom would be built out with two sets of bunk beds, a third set of bunk beds would be installed in the landing, and a fourth where the dining room table had been ousted—it wasn’t like they ever used it; the boys usually ate standing up in the kitchen, and Sunday dinners were always at Tina’s.
Stella would convert her walk-in closet into a bedroom for Bernie, so that her daughter wouldn’t have to share space with the hooligans.
Still, the Maglieris would be perpetually one bed short, but there was always a shirtless teenage boy draped over the couch, stinky sock feet hanging off the end, or dozing on his belly on the carpet in front of the TV.
Sometimes there were multiple empty beds, in fact, because some combination of boys hadn’t come home all night, but with that many who can really keep track of them all. Certainly not Stella.
THE HOUSE ON ALDER STREET had a neighbor on its left, but to its right was an empty plot of land, which Rocco and Tina bought.
Rocco didn’t like the marshy quality of the ground and was paying good money to have it filled in with truckloads of soil.
Then they would build a house exactly to their specifications.
They would always be right next door so Tina could help with the babies.
WITH THE MORTGAGE AND THE BABIES he had to buy new shoes for all the time, Carmelo got a second job, working barback at Charlie’s Restaurant Tony had not spoken to Joey since their exodus and Mickey was retaliating by not letting Assunta come visit the baby.
Looking at it another way, Stella realized, she and Carmelo had become the core of the family—everyone else had gathered around them, restructured their lives around the Maglieris’. Was that what they all owed her? They had put her where they wanted her, and now they made her their queen.
Louie and Queenie came over for the occasional Sunday dinner, but still had not started a family of their own.
When Assunta had taken Queenie aside to ask her if there was a problem, Queenie had looked her in the eye and said, “Not that I know of, God willing. We’re just waiting until we have more money. ”
“What does she mean, waiting?” Assunta had whispered to her daughters as they were washing dishes after Louie and Queenie had left.
Stella laughed, but her heart felt cold. She bounced baby Guy on her knee to make the chill pass. The thought flashed through her mind—Queenie had pulled off a trick Stella hadn’t been able to. But the thought flickered away as if it had been someone else’s memory of a distant past life.
“You know what I heard,” Tina said. Her face was already red and Stella knew something wonderful or disgusting was coming.
“If you don’t want to get pregnant, you can have your husband put it .
. .” She hesitated, excited for her revelation but scared to pick out the words.
“In the cul’. He can do whatever he wants there and it won’t make a baby.
Or he can put it here,” she said, making an evocatively thrusting gesture in the direction of her armpit. “Or he can put it in your mouth.”
“Tina! Shh!” Rocco, Carmelo, and Tony were drinking amaro in the living room, not necessarily out of earshot, with the three older children corralled on the floor with their trucks and dolls.
If there was ever something Stella didn’t want Carmelo hearing, it was what Tina had just said. “Who did you hear that from, anyway?”
“The ladies at Silex,” Tina said, secure in the authority of her American and Polish assembly-line friends.
“These are the same ladies who say you can tell the size of a man’s thing by how long his nose is,” Stella said, but Tina didn’t hear her sarcasm.
“Yes, it’s true.” Tina sounded wistful.
“How would any of them ever know that, Tina? Unless they have seen more than one and can compare,” Stella teased. “I think your Silex friends must be loose.”
“No.” Tina’s face defensively flared even pinker. “They heard from their friends.”
Assunta was still stuck on the predilections of her youngest son. “Tina, you mean Queenie lets Louie put it . . . put it in her cul’?” She eyed her daughter, concentrating on this new idea. “Or her mouth?”