The windowsill, painted white many years ago, was chipped through to dark wood, like dark stars in a light, foggy sky. The red brick alley was strung with clothesline—stained aprons and navy work shirts and mismatched socks decorated the narrow alleyway like strings of rainbow fairy lights in winter—and in the would-be yard behind the house there was a would-be garden of potted herbs in red ceramic pots laid out on the trample-brown grass of dying summer. Bea couldn’t remember the first time she sat on the counter by that window and looked out at that garden, she’d sat there every other Sunday for as far back she could remember, watching her Aunt Mary cook.
Bea’s Aunt Mary wore a long blue dress and brown sandals. The skin on her shoulders was dark and wrinkled and cracked like crumpled up tin foil, baking in the sun. Every day she wore a paisley scarf in her hair and earrings the size of her eyes that made jangling noises whenever she moved her head too fast, which was often, or bustled between the kitchen and the dining room, the oven and the spice cabinet. She threw her head back when she laughed, and scoffed loudly when Bea was afraid. She talked often of sunlit coffee mornings in back yards, of hot dog stands and lights on the Jersey shore pier – near where she grew up – of secret passageways in her Nana’s old family house – long since sold – and the ugly brown dress her mother dressed her in for her first beauty pageant. She did not talk about her career in fashion (which she left, when she married), about where cousin Tony went after graduation (she did mention the letters he sent, though), about the hole in the basement floor, or about her secret cannelloni recipe.
Bea, of course, never asked about any of these things. She was younger than all of her cousins, and often watched the goings on of 1226 Maple more than she lived them. She knew what not to say from what others said wrong, though she said very little to begin with. Her cousins said very little, too, she thought. They talked loudly, of movies or yellow dresses in shop windows or falling in love, but Bea much preferred to watch. Aunt Mary was graceful in her kitchen, she thought; far more so than in the dining room. She had memorized the way she flicked salt over her shoulder, stirred without looking, and wiped her steam-coated forehead with the edge of the hair scarf that fell over her right shoulder. She changed when Bea’s mother helped to cook dinner. Her shoulders would hunch more, like she was constantly hiding a chuckle against her shoulder blade, her feet shuffle faster over the tiles, her voice—rise and fall with the bubbles in the pasta pot and the click click click of the knife dropping through red peppers and garlic.
Bea had watched her Aunt make breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cakes, and loaves of crusty bread, but dinners were her favorite. She never smelt sweet garlic at breakfast, and the way the light fell across the floor was different when the sun was setting than when it was rising. In the mornings, Aunt Mary smiled more but her eyes were tired, in the evening she laughed more, her eyes glittering like candlelight, he arm raised in a toast every fifteen minutes, all too eager to clink her glass with cousin Alyssa and raise her voice in the all-too familiar chant of, “La famiglia!” After several times the other aunts, uncles, and cousins would lose interest, and roll their eyes or ignore her entirely. She would roll her eyes right back, but continue to raise and refill her glass.
She became course and crass, waving her wooden spoon and cursing—cursing my uncle’s tardiness, the burnt roast, and God—all before plopping herself down at the head of the long, long dining table right beneath a replica of The Last Supper with a brimming glass of red wine, ready to say grace, after which she would both laugh and curse louder. Most nights she would say grace herself, formally, if not a bit solemnly. Bea much preferred her mother to say grace, she didn’t like it much when Aunt Mary was solemn. Her words, when softened in reverence, lost all of their love. Her head, when bowed above her plate, lost all of its power. In the closing of her eyes Bea was sure she meant to be respectful and serious. She sounded hallow. Nothing at all like she sounded when she yelled at Bea for mumbling, or thanked her for clearing the dishes. That, Bea thought, was Aunt Mary’s real voice. She wondered if all of her voices could be true. She didn’t think they could be.
Aunt Mary and her brothers would argue about politics over dessert, and as Bea grew older and added her own glass of wine to her place setting, she realized that it was possible they actually knew very little, and said very little, like her cousins and the yellow dresses. She, admittedly, also knew very little, but their aimless arguments with split flying on the coconut pound cake and forks and knives scraping over already cleaned plates, cutting at food long since cleared away in fits of absent-mindedness as they dreamed up words about far-away economic crises and men in suits they had only seen on Channel 5, sounded a lot like, “That Jimmy next door, you know the one? He talked to me after history class on Tuesday, didn’t you know!” Bea never listened more than half-heartedly, but she watched with diligence. She saw the way Aunt Mary would twist the silver chain and crucifix around her neck and fingers, the way she folded and refolded the cloth napkin in her lap and ran her fingertips over the edges of the tablecloth as her eyes darted between her brother’s reddening face and the kitchen, where her husband would be doing the dishes with a cigarette between his lips. She never did stop talking though, not really, not even when Bea’s uncle was talking, not even when she refolded her napkin again and again. Aunt Mary always had something to say, or something to be laughing at, even when she didn’t. Even when she said nothing, Bea was pretty sure that everyone could hear her.
You couldn’t see him from the dining table, but stale smoke clung to every pillow and chair in that house, made stronger with every new click of his pocket lighter, and Bea knew her Uncle Ray was in there. The cigarettes made Aunt Mary angry, Bea never heard her say it, she saw it in the clench of her jaw. But Bea didn’t mind them so much, they smelt familiar, like a damp summer night and the chipped white swing set out back. Her uncle gave the best hugs, and didn’t laugh when she was afraid. His laugh, she knew, was far less harsh than Aunt Mary’s—she felt it in a different place. It was rough, in a smoker’s way, but kind. He kept a bowl of mixed nuts and chocolate chips next to his chair by the porch door, but he ate only the cashews and gave all of the chocolate pieces to Bea, or the dog. Then Aunt Mary would almost-yell about how chocolate killed dogs, and children. Uncle Ray would respond, always the same, don’t be silly, Mary, chocolate doesn’t kill dogs, and toss a wink in Bea’s direction. He never drank the glass of wine Mary would pour for him at dinner, but she always poured it anyway. Most nights she just drank it herself, and when Bea turned 16, she began letting her have it with a bright little smirk at the corners of mouth. Bea never knew if her mother saw the full glasses or the smirks, but Bea did know that she would not care if she did. Still, she continued to wonder for a very long time, just the same.
Every other Sunday, Bea bowed her head when they said grace and muttered an amen with a potato already on her fork. Sometimes Aunt Mary asked her to say grace, and she always kept it short. She didn’t like the way she sounded when she said the words, sort of empty, sort of false, sort of like Aunt Mary. The words meant less and less to her as her hair grew longer and then shorter again, her clothes got larger, her nails more brightly colored, and there were many other places she’d rather be than in that small, smoky house, listening to her uncles argue over politics or her cousins talk about the size of their engagement rings.
Everyone got older and the kitchen got more crowded and sitting on the counter listening to Aunt Mary rattle off ingredients and measurements as if she was trying to remember them when everyone knew she knew them by heart became a nuisance, rather than an endearment.
Bea sat at the long, long dining table so that she could see the kitchen, where Aunt Mary was making cannelloni and talking to her mother over her shoulder. The counter was covered sink to wall with cutting boards and minced up spices and bowls of fresh vegetables for snacking.
Aunt Mary flicked salt over her shoulder and stirred the pasta without looking.
Her shoulders were dark and wrinkled, her scarf was paisley blue.
She threw her head back when she laughed, and scoffed when Bea was afraid.
In the summertime, the large window over the sink was kept wide open, always. The breeze filtered out the settled smoke, so as supper was being cooked the kitchen smelt only of fresh air, lemon soap, and roasted tomatoes and onion. Bea liked to sit on the counter and swing her knees out and back against the wooden cupboard with a click click click in rhythm to the boiling pots on the stove, dipping bread in olive oil as Aunt Mary narrated her own recipes as she went, as if Bea would remember it all, just as it was.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art though amongst women and blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
