Death 7 Choking （Change of Life）
Choking
(Change of Life)
The clock on her dresser read eight ten. The bed next to her was empty. Since Artie was born Carmelo had slept in the armchair downstairs in front of the television. He would have left for work three hours earlier in any case.
Stella put her feet on the floor, feeling blood pooling in the soles.
Lately her feet were tender in the morning.
She didn’t wonder too much what the soreness meant.
Her body was a ruined mess, covered in scars: the burns on one arm, the surgery seam on the other; the crescent in her now-silver hairline; the sutures across her abdomen from the pig trampling; suckle-heavy breasts and torso thickened by eleven term pregnancies; stretch marks on her loose-skinned upper arms she didn’t even understand (why would that skin have stretched?); bunions so extreme her big toe turned toward the other four like it was addressing a panel of judges.
Her ankles were as thick as her calves, like the tree-trunk ankles of the old mountain-climbing village ladies she and Tina had smirked about in their youth.
Stella had used herself up, and now it was her time of life to sweat out her passage into cronedom. Sweat and sweat.
Stella did not look at the old-looking woman in the mirror as she tied a handkerchief over her hair.
She tightened the knot in the back so the cloth squeezed at her tannin-throbbing temples.
Somehow, this gave her some relief from the hangover—a trick she had learned in the last two years.
She pulled on a pair of ankle-high nylons and stuck her feet into the powder-blue slippers she would wear until she had to leave for her night shift.
The door to the boys’ bedroom was still closed.
The teenagers would sleep all day unless someone woke them up, but someone wouldn’t be Stella.
She liked to enjoy this peaceful morning time before all the activity kicked up, even if enjoying mornings meant sitting through instead of sleeping off her wine headaches.
She shuffled down the blue pile carpeting of the stairs—carefully; the stairs were narrow and the carpeting too thick for perfect safety—and fixed herself breakfast in the kitchen: two pieces of chewy bread and a cup of wine.
She didn’t toast the bread, just pulled out the soft interior with her fingers, then sucked on the crust, grinding it against the empty sockets in her gums, using the bread to scratch an ancient itch.
MEANWHILE, UPSTAIRS IN THE HOUSE’S only full bathroom, Stella’s daughter, Bernie, was buttoning up the striped shirt of her work uniform.
Bernie had just finished her junior year in high school and had a part-time job as a cashier at Gardener’s Market.
She was supposed to be at work at eight thirty and had only just woken up, but since she didn’t wear makeup or blow-dry her hair or anything like that, she didn’t need much time in the mornings.
Her last chore before she ran out the door was to leave food in Penny’s dog dish.
None of her brothers would remember, except Nicky, but he was thirteen and could easily sleep until 4 P.M. and then poor Penny would starve all day.
Bernie ran down the stairs and through the living room, paused to give her mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, a kiss on the forehead, and snatched two slices of bread from the plastic bag.
Mouth full, Bernie continued out onto the covered porch, where they kept the dog food and Penny’s bowl. The bowl was full.
Chewing the bread, Bernie considered what she was seeing.
Why hadn’t Penny eaten her food? Normally she was clamoring for her breakfast, yipping and snuggling Bernie’s knees as she tried to scoop.
But Penny wasn’t even here. Was this her food from yesterday?
But wait—Bernie had slept over at her friend Patty’s the night before, so she hadn’t fed the dog since Wednesday morning.
In fact, she hadn’t seen the dog in days.
But someone must have. There were eleven full-time people living in this house, and plenty of passers-through.
“Mommy, have you seen Penny?” Bernadette asked the unlit kitchen before she realized her mother wasn’t there anymore.
Bernie went stomping up the stairs—not with any particular emotion; her work shoes were just bottom-heavy—and ventured into the den of the snoring and farting.
The den, where the older teenagers slept, was definitely the worst place in the house.
She knocked hard first—she did not want to have to see anything unpleasant her brothers might be doing in their teenage sleep—and then opened the door to let the room air a little bit before she stuck her head in.
“Ey!” she said. There was no sign of life, but she knew the drill.
“Ey. Quit faking. Have any of you seen Penny?” No movement from either set of bunk beds.
Bernie smacked a bare calf protruding from the top bunk closest to the door, just about at eye level.
It belonged to Freddy, who kicked out blindly but meaning it.
Bernie stepped back in time. “Freddy. Have you seen Penny?”
“No. Go away.”
“Guy?” She reached into the lower bunk and shook her brother’s shoulder. Guy didn’t respond at all. He would pretend he was asleep even if the house was on fire, just to make his point.
She tried Nicky. “Nicky,” she said as he rolled over sleepily. “Nicky, Penny’s missing. Have you seen her?”
“Penny’s missing?” he said, his voice sharp and upset, but his eyes were still closed. He might or might not remember any of this conversation after Bernie left.
She was going to be late for work, but the more she thought about Penny, the worse she felt.
Unless Bernie saw the dog with her own two eyes, there was no way she would be able to believe Penny was anywhere but in a ditch on the side of Farms Boulevard; the traffic that whizzed right by had claimed countless Maglieri family pets over the years.
But Penny was special. Everyone loved that dog; she was the sweetest thing, with her coppery little face.
From her mother’s bedroom, Bernie dialed next door.
Auntie Tina and Uncle Rocco were at work, of course, so no one answered.
She tried the number for her grandfather’s house across the street, but no one answered there, either.
They had probably unplugged their phone. She would have to go in person.
Swallowing the last of her dry bread breakfast, Bernie crossed Alder Street and knocked on the door of number 4, then let herself in.
Sure enough, everyone was home, although the house was almost silent.
Auntie Mickey and her daughter Betty, seventeen, were sitting on the couch, watching the television at a very low volume.
The other girls must have been asleep, or maybe out in the backyard.
“Hi, Auntie Mickey,” Bernadette said. “Hi, Betty. Have you guys seen Penny?”
“Hi, honey,” Mickey said in her nasal, accented English. “We saw your penny?”
“Penny, our dog.” On the television, Captain Kangaroo was singing. “Did our dog come over here?”
“No, honey, I haven’t seen no dog,” Mickey said. “Not over here.”
Betty regarded Bernie with no expression.
They should have been friends—they were almost the same age—but Bernie had never seen her cousin exhibit any personality.
For example, here she was with nothing to do but watch television on a Friday morning.
Betty was supposedly training to be a hairdresser, but she had some nervous problems and no one seriously thought she would ever hold down a job.
Well, Bernie might as well be thorough and ask her grandfather.
Grandpa Tony was never nice about the family pets, seemed to find it amusing that the children became so attached to animals—to teach them a lesson last summer, he had killed Stella’s white pet goat and roasted her in the backyard, cackling as he ate her.
That was such a shocking story; Bernie had gotten a lot of mileage out of it with her girlfriends.
But the fact that Grandpa Tony didn’t love family pets didn’t mean he hadn’t seen Penny.
In fact, it might mean he knew exactly where Penny was.
Bernie felt a tickle of suspicion. “Where’s Grandpa Tony? ”
“In his room, honey.” Mickey’s eyes were fixed on Captain Kangaroo.
Nursing her bad feeling, Bernie walked down the yellow-papered hall and to the last room on the left. Doing her best not to picture her grandfather in any of his states of dishabille, she knocked on the door and called through it, “Ey. Have you seen Penny?”
There was a long moment of silence before Tony’s voice came through the door: “Forget the little beech. She shoo’ run into the road. We don’ need no more puppies around here.”
Typical. Mean old man. But Bernie was going to be late for work. She would have to worry about the dog later. She let herself out the back door so she wouldn’t have to say good-bye to her aunt or cousin.
Later, standing behind her register and waiting for the occasional customer to come through with their produce, Bernie would turn over what her grandfather had said to her, and she’d realize he hadn’t told her he hadn’t seen the dog.
THE REASON MICKEY AND JOEY were living in 4 Alder was because their apartment in Hartford had burned down in the summer of 1967.
Not only had they lost all of their worldly possessions, insurance was refusing to honor the claim, because Joey had purchased the coverage too recently, or something like that.
The truth was, the insurance company had told Joey they would commission an investigation if he requested one, but that if they did so he needed to be prepared for whatever their inspector might find.
In other words, if the inspector found certain kinds of evidence, Joey should be prepared to go to jail for arson and insurance fraud.