They're Always With You Read online

  Gramps sang every note of every song. He could carry a tune and, believe me, he was better than the ladies in the choir.

  “Gramps, you really should try out for lead singer of the choir,” I said just about every week. “Your voice could drown out Mrs. O’Neill’s and maybe she’d give up singing forever.”

  Gramps said with a laugh, “Don’t you know that Italians love opera. You should too.”

  “If that’s opera, I’ll just have to pass.”

  Certain songs made Gramps cry. I’d hear him sniffling and then I’d sneak a peek at him and he’d be wiping his eyes. Sometimes, I just put my arm around Gramps and we stood together while he sniffled and wiped his eyes.

  “Are you thinking about Italy and all the family you left,” I asked him once.

  “No, Bella,” he said, “I’m thinking about your Grandmother Rose.”

  I didn’t like Gramp’s nickname for me because I couldn’t picture a “Bella” girl playing basketball. She’d probably play with dolls and I didn’t like dolls. Not at all. Anyway, I was just going to ask another question when I heard Gramps say, “Shh. Pay attention.” He bent down and put his finger to his mouth.

  This Sunday, the Mass and even Father Walsh’s sermon flew by because I was trying to picture Aunt Florence playing basketball. It was still pretty difficult. I wondered if Aunt Florence had ever played one-on-one. Or if she knew how to shoot a jump shot.

  As we walked out of the church, I saw Sally and her family. The eight of them went to church every Sunday. I enjoyed sitting behind them because Sally’s two little brothers, Eric and Joe, poked each other and made faces from the time people started saying “Lord Have Mercy.” It was only about five minutes into the Mass and by the time people were singing the “Gloria” it was full-fledged warfare in the Reynolds family. Eric and Joe were then moved to the outside with one parent beside each of them. Even with that the boys wiggled and wriggled until they caught sight of each other. As soon as they did their tongues pointed at each other and the parents pulled each of the boys towards them while whispering into their ears.

  Gramps was too intent on his responses to the priest to even notice but my mom always looked at my dad and kind of smiled. If Aunt Florence was there she tsked, tsked very quickly, one tsk running into the next until I couldn’t figure out how many tsks she was actually making. I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing.

  My mom would say those two boys were surely a handful and that she admired women like Mrs. Reynolds who could raise so many kids and keep their sanity. Then she’d look at me and say it was times like this that made her really appreciate her one child. I would say, “Well, Mom, it’s never too late to change that.”

  “Sal, what are you doing later?” Sally and I stood in the back of church while our parents talked. Mrs. Reynolds shook her head back and forth while looking at her two boys. My mom listened intently and then shook her head back and forth in sympathy for Mrs. Reynolds.

  “We have family coming over for Anna’s birthday,” Sally said. “I’ll call you after they leave.”

  Gramps liked going out to breakfast on Sundays. We usually went to a little neighborhood diner and Gramps had bacon, eggs over hard, and hash browns. I always had pancakes.

  “How’re your pancakes, Colette?” Gramps asked. He asked me the same question every single time we went out to breakfast.

  “Fine. How’re your eggs, Gramps?” I asked him the same question every time we went out to breakfast.

  “They’re great, just the way I like them.” Gramps had a forkful of hashbrowns just waiting near his mouth. He placed the forkful inside his mouth and said, “Mmm.” Then he chewed with a happy look on his face. My mom said that she had never seen a person who enjoyed meals more than Gramps. She was right. He raved every night about my mom’s meals.

  “I’m shocked that you like them.” I said. “In fact, it’s a real surprise.” Gramps stopped eating long enough to make eye contact with my dark, where-are-the-pupil eyes. He didn’t have to smile. His dark, where-are-the-pupil eyes did it for him.

  “When is your big game?” my dad asked.

  “In nine days. We’re playing St. Margaret and they’re really, really good.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “I think so. I probably won’t even play and if I do I’ll have the wonderful misfortune of having to pass to the Bloomer so she can shoot like a crazy person. Sometimes I wave my arms and yell to let her know I’m open and she still shoots it.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t see you,” my mom said. “What I mean is, maybe she needs glasses.”

  “I never thought of that.” I took a bite of my pancake and thought about it. Maybe the Bloomer really couldn’t see. “You may be right, Mom. The Bloomer might be blind as a bat. That would explain her never shooting or passing anywhere near the basket.”

  “Do you still want to interview me for school?” Gramps asked. “How about this afternoon?”

  “Okay. That would be great.”

  On Friday, my teacher, Mrs. Bosworth, had hung a world map in front of my class. She asked each of us to put a tack in the country where our ancestors came from. I put a tack in Italy for Gramps and Ireland for my other grandparents. Some of the kids put tacks in four different countries.”

  Anyway, we were supposed to find out as much as we could about our ancestors. Why they left their countries and then what they did once they came to America. She said to go to the library to find out about each country. I was so happy because I had Gramps living right in my house.

  “Should we meet in the sunroom, Colette?” Gramps asked as we drove home.

  “Sure.”

  “One o’clock. I’ll see you there.”

  Chapter Six

  Gramps leaves Italy

  Our house wasn’t huge or anything but I loved it. It had a small sunroom off the kitchen that caught every ray of sunlight. I loved to sit in the big stuffed armchair while stripes of sun came through the windows and landed on me, warming me from the outside in. My mom loved to curl up in the loveseat with a book. There was a writing desk in the corner that my dad used for drawing his building projects and for paying bills. Gramps said the room was well-used.

  At exactly one o’clock, I walked into the sunroom with a notebook. Gramps was waiting for me.

  “Do you want the chair?”

  “No. I’ll take the loveseat.” I opened my notebook and looked at the questions I had written down. “First of all, if there’s anything you don’t want to answer, don’t feel like you have to.” Even though Gramps had talked about Italy and Ellis Island before and I had asked him lots of questions, this seemed different.

  “Fire away.” Gramps sat down in the big armchair.

  I cleared my throat. “Well, Gramps, why did you come here?”

  “I grew up on a farm with my parents and my sister, Sofia. We didn’t own the land so my Papa was always worried about money and taking care of us. I saw nothing in my future but working the farm and barely surviving.” Gramps ran his hand through his hair. “And I wanted to see what America was all about.”

  “What had you heard about America?”

  “That you could work and make money. That appealed to me.”

  “What year was it?”

  “1923.”

  “How old were you?

  “19.”

  “Were your parents upset?”

  “My Papa was very angry. He asked me who was going to help him work the farm over and over. My mother wouldn’t come to Naples to see me off because she said her heart was broken enough.”

  “Was it hard to say good-bye?”

  “Very hard. I can still see my mother crying.” Gramps dabbed his eyes with a tissue he was holding. He cleared his throat.

  I hoped Gramps didn’t cry because I never knew what to say if someone started crying. I looked at my notebook again. “Who took you to Naples?”

  “Papa and Sofia took me. We had a donkey and a cart so it took almost half a
day to get to Naples. Papa and Sofia dropped me off at a dorm and then they turned around and went home.” Gramps ran his fingers through his snow-white hair.

  I was writing as fast as I could. I didn’t want to miss a word. “What was the dorm for?”

  “The ships demanded that we stay in a dorm for two weeks. They only wanted to transport healthy people so my head was shaved for lice and I had a full medical exam.”

  I tried to picture myself all alone without my family. And then going to a brand new country. I couldn’t do it. “Was it scary in the dorm?”

  “It was a little scary. But I was young so I only thought about the possibilities. And I met a boy my age named Giovanni. We were together in the dorm and on the ship. That helped a lot. We talked and talked about what we were going to do in America. He was going to live with his Uncle Geno in New York and I was going to live with Papa’s cousin, Beto, in Chicago.”

  “When did you get to New York City?”

  “Our ship arrived in New York City on June 7, 1923. I stood with Giovanni as we pulled into the harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty. People on the ship were waving and crying and everyone was smiling. Giovanni slapped my back and said, ‘I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe we’re here.’”

  “I bet the Statue of Liberty is really cool.”

  “She’s cool all right. She was a beautiful sight.”

  “Was Ellis Island there too?”

  “Yes, it’s close to where the Statue of Liberty is. Giovanni and I walked into the huge, main room in Ellis Island and saw lots and lots of people standing in lines. There was so much noise that I couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying. We moved along slowly until we met the first inspector. He waved us upstairs.” Gramps stood up. He liked to use his hands when he talked. “There another inspector had a piece of chalk he used to mark people. A woman who was limping was marked with an L, a man who held onto his lower belly was marked with an H, another man who seemed confused by all the commotion was marked with an X.” His fingers drew each of the letters in the air. “I guess they went into different lines.”

  “So what did you do upstairs?”

  “We had to read in Italian and put wooden blocks in the right sized holes. We had to stand still while an inspector with a buttonhook pulled our eyelids down.”

  “What for?”

  “They were looking for an eye disease called trachoma. The disease was very, very contagious. If you showed any evidence of it, the inspectors might send you right back where you came from.”

  “So they would have sent you back to Italy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that the last inspector?”

  “No. One more inspector asked me if I had a job. He also wanted to know if I had a place to stay and enough money to get there.”

  “Did you?”

  “Giovanni had convinced me to come with him and work in his uncle’s tile factory. And I had $5.20.”

  “Oh, Gramps.” I stopped writing in my notebook.

  “Five dollars was a lot of money in 1923. I was happy I had that much. They wanted you to have a little more but I told them I had a place to stay.”

  “Did the inspector say anything else?”

  “He compared my name with the ship list and then wrote it down. He said, ‘Good luck. Welcome to America.’”

  “How long did it take you to get through Ellis Island?”

  “About four hours.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “We took a ferryboat across the bay. Giovanni’s Uncle Geno was waiting for us. Giovanni introduced me to his uncle and then asked if I could work in the factory. Uncle Geno said he had a place for me too.”

  “Did you stay with them?”

  “Yes. And Giovanni and I went to work at the tile factory. We loaded and unloaded trucks.”

  “How long did you work there?”

  “For just three weeks.”

  “How come?”

  “Giovanni was in a terrible accident. He was crushed by a truck that was backing up. The driver didn’t see him. He died before the ambulance came.” Gramps stopped talking.

  “How sad.”

  “It was terrible. Uncle Geno was beside himself. He didn’t know how he was going to tell his sister in Italy. So I left. I wanted to get to Chicago as soon as possible.”

  “That must have been hard for you, Gramps.”

  “It was very difficult. Giovanni was so young and full of life. He had so many dreams. He will always be with me.” Gramps put his hand over his heart.

  My throat felt kind of tight, almost like one of those huge boa constrictors was squeezing it. I didn’t want Gramps to see my eyes brimming with tears so I cleared my throat and blinked my eyelids hard. I was afraid he wouldn’t tell me any more of his stories if he thought he was making me feel bad. And he’d be right because I felt so bad for Gramps right then.

  “Did you ever see your parents again?” I asked.

  “Never. I didn’t have the money to begin with, then the Depression hit and World War Two happened.”

  “Plus, you met Grandma Rose.”

  “And that’s a whole different story.”

  He seemed kind of tired after all the talk about leaving Italy, going through Ellis Island, and especially Giovanni. I looked in my notebook. On the last page was the question, WHO IS DANIEL? I had underlined it twice and circled it. I covered it with my hand before Gramps saw the question. “I guess we’re finished, Gramps. Thanks a lot.” I closed the notebook.

  “Okay. That’s probably enough for today. Should we meet next Sunday?”

  “Sure. I want to know all about Chicago.”

  It was weirdest feeling to know that Gramps had done all kinds of things long before I was born and he had known all kinds of people I would never meet. He had people inside him like Giovanni who were always there even though Gramps only knew him for a couple of months. I guess it was lucky for us that Gramps met him. Otherwise, he would have been so homesick that maybe he would have gone right back to Italy. Then, he wouldn’t have met my grandmother, my mom and Aunt Florence wouldn’t be here, and neither would I.

  Chapter Seven

  Aunt Florence’s Hook Shot

  After Gramps and I finished our interview, I didn’t quite know what to do since it was too early in the day for homework. I went out into the kitchen to see what my mom was up to. She was rolling out the dough for the greatest rolls in the world; crescent rolls.

  “I’ll help, Mom,” I said.

  “Okay.” She finished rolling out a circle and then cut it into wedges.

  I rolled the wedges from the wide end to the skinny part. I put each one on a tray.

  “How was your interview?”

  “Good. Gramps told me about saying goodbye to his mom.”

  “I haven’t heard that story in years. When I was little he would talk about going to Italy.”

  “Gramps said he never saw his parents again.”

  “He didn’t. By the time the Depression and World War Two were over both Grandpa and Grandma Rossini were dead. Gramps went to see Aunt Sofia after the War.” My mom had a second circle of dough ready. She cut the wedges and motioned to me.

  I nodded. I was almost done with the first circle. “Did Aunt Sofia ever come here?”

  “Once.”

  “What was that for?”

  My mom handed me another tray since mine was full. She covered the rolls with a cloth. They had to rise again. “She came to see all of us.”

  “I know she’s alive because she still writes to Gramps.”

  “Yes, she’s alive. Her four children and seven grandchildren live in Italy.”

  “Do you think we could go over there to visit them?”

  “Maybe someday.”

  When my mom said, “maybe someday” that really meant the conversation was over. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go to Italy. How could I get Gramps to go to Italy to see his sister?

  When Au
nt Florence got home she went downstairs to change her uniform and put her hat away. That was the routine every day she worked. I thought I heard her say hi to me before she went downstairs but I didn’t say hi back because I wasn’t really sure if that’s what I heard.

  Aunt Florence came upstairs and hung around in the kitchen with my mom. I could hear them talking as they filled the dishes with steaming mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn. My dad brought the rump roast over to his place and set it to the left of his plate. Once, when I was seven, I asked what part of the cow the rump was and everybody started laughing. When my dad finally told me that it was the rear end of the cow, I couldn’t believe it.

  “You mean their butt?” I asked. Thankfully, I didn’t have any rump roast melting in my mouth when I asked or I would have spit it onto my plate. I decided right then and there that rump roast was not for me. I put aside my plate with the two slices of rump and didn’t eat any more that night. Three weeks later we had a rump roast again and after my initial resistance, my nose sniffed the air, my mouth watered, and I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything if I had one slice. One thing led to another, and pretty soon, I was eating like this rear end was what I’d been waiting for my whole life.

  Well, that was five years ago and although I’ve had to wrestle with myself more than once I have to admit that there aren’t too many things that taste better than a cow’s butt.

  “Colette, get the rolls from your mother,” my dad said.

  “I’ll take the rolls,” I said. My mom handed me a basket with a linen napkin folded across the top.

  I walked into the dining room with the basket. Gramps always sat across from me at the table and since he was already sitting in his spot, I walked over to him and opened the linen napkin so he could take a roll. He took one, grabbed the plate with the butter stick on it, sliced a generous chunk of butter off with his butter knife, and proceeded to butter his roll while putting his finger up to his lips and saying, “Shh.”

  “Yep, it’s our little secret.” I put the basket by my mom’s place and went back out in the kitchen.

  “Get the milk and water, would you, Colette?” my mom asked. She walked into the dining room carrying the mashed potatoes. Aunt Florence was in hot pursuit with the gravy and corn.