Frankie grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top. “Can’t you do it, Ma? I don’t wanna miss the last quarter.”
“Janie, you fix them up a tray, okay?”
“Why me? It’s not like he’s doing anything useful,” Rizzoli pointed out.
But Frankie had already left the kitchen and was probably back in front of the TV, chugging his beer.
She went to the sink to rinse the flour from her hands, the serenity she’d felt only moments earlier now gone, replaced with a familiar sense of irritation. She cut cubes of creamy fresh mozzarella and paper-thin slices of salami and arranged them on a platter. Added a mound of roast peppers and a scoop of olives. Any more than that, and the men would ruin their appetites.
God, I’m thinking like mom now. Why the hell should I care if they ruin their appetites?
She carried the platter into the living room, where her dad and her two brothers sat like slack-jawed lunks on the couch, glassy eyes staring at the TV. Irene was kneeling on the floor by the Christmas tree, picking up cracker crumbs.
“I’m so sorry,” Irene said. “Dougie dropped it on the carpet before I could catch it—”
“Hey, Janie,” Frankie said. “Can you move outta the way? I can’t see the game.”
She set the platter of antipasti on the coffee table and picked up the tray which was now contaminated with toddler germs. “You know,” she said, “Someone could help Irene watch those boys.”
Michael finally looked up, eyes glazed over. “Huh? Oh, yeah . . .”
“Janie, move,” said Frankie.
“Not till you say thank you.”
“For what?”
She snatched up the plate of snacks, which she’d just set down. “Since you didn’t even notice . . .”
“Okay, okay. Goddamn it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She set the plate down again, hard, and headed back to the kitchen. In the doorway she paused and looked back at the scene in the living room. The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess. The three men planted in front of the TV were stuffing their mouths with salami. The twins were spinning around the room like two tops. And poor Irene painstakingly searched for every stray cracker crumb as strands of her beautiful red hair came loose from her ponytail.
Not for me, thought Rizzoli. I’d rather die than let myself be trapped in this nightmare.
She fled into the kitchen and set down the tray. She stood there for a moment, taking deep breaths, shaking off a terrible sense of claustrophobia. Aware, at the same time, of the fullness pressing down on her bladder. I can’t let it happen to me, she thought. I can’t turn into Irene, worn out and dragged down by grubby little hands.
“What’s the matter?” said Angela.
“Nothing, Mom.”
“What? I can tell something’s wrong.”
She sighed. “Frankie really pisses me off, you know that?”
“You can’t think of a nicer word?”
“No, that’s exactly the word for what he does to me. Don’t you ever see it, what a jerk he is?”
Angela silently scooped out the last of the cannoli shells and set them aside to drain.
“Did you know he used to chase me and Mikey around the house with the vacuum cleaner? Loved scaring the shit outta Mike, telling him he was gonna suck him into the hose. Mike used to scream his head off. But you never heard it, because Frankie always did it when you were out of the house. You never knew how nasty he was to us.”
Angela sat down at the kitchen table and gazed at the little nuggets of gnocchi dough that her daughter had cut. “I knew,” she said.
“What?”
“I knew he could have been nicer to you. He could have been a better brother.”
“And you let him get away with everything. That’s what bothered us, Mom. It still bothers Mike, that Frankie was always your favorite.”
“You don’t understand about Frankie.”
Rizzoli laughed. “I understand him just fine.”
“Sit down, Janie. Come on. Let’s do the gnocchi together. It goes faster that way.”
Rizzoli gave a sigh and sank into the chair across from Angela. Silently, resentfully, she began dusting the gnocchi with flour, squeezing each piece to make an indentation with her finger. What more personal mark can a chef leave but her own angry fingerprint, pressed into each morsel?
“You have to make allowances for Frankie,” said Angela.
“Why? He doesn’t make any for me.”
“You don’t know what he’s been through.”
“I’ve heard more than I ever want to hear about the Marines.”
“No, I’m talking about when he was a baby. What happened when he was a baby.”
“Something happened?”
“It still gives me the chills, how his head hit the floor.”
“What, did he fall out of the crib?” She laughed. “It might explain his I.Q.”
“No, it’s not funny. It was serious—very serious. Your dad was out of town, and I had to rush Frankie to the emergency room. They did X rays, and he had a crack, right there.” Angela touched the side of her head, leaving a smear of flour in her dark hair. “In his skull.”
“I always said he had a hole in his head.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not funny, Jane. He almost died.”
“He’s too mean to die.”
Angela stared down at the bowl of flour. “He was only four months old,” she said.
Rizzoli paused, her finger pressing into soft dough. She could not imagine Frankie as an infant. She could not imagine him helpless or vulnerable.
“The doctors had to drain some blood from his brain. They said there was a chance . . .” Angela stopped.
“What?”
“That he might not grow up normal.”
A sarcastic remark automatically popped into Rizzoli’s head, but she held it back. This, she understood, was not an occasion for sarcasm.
Angela was not looking at her, but was now staring down at her own hand, clutching a lump of dough. Avoiding her daughter’s gaze.
Four months old, Rizzoli thought. There’s something wrong here. If he was only four months old, he couldn’t crawl yet. He couldn’t climb out of his crib, or squirm out of his high chair. The only way for an infant that young to fall is to be dropped.
She looked at her mother with new comprehension. She wondered how many nights Angela had awakened in horror, remembering the instant when she’d lost her grip, and her baby had slid from her arms. Golden boy Frankie, almost killed by his careless mother.
She reached out and touched her mother’s arm. “Hey. He turned out okay, didn’t he?”
Angela took a breath. She began dusting and pinching more gnocchis, suddenly working at record speed.
“Mom, of all of us, Frankie’s the toughest one in the bunch.”
“No, he isn’t.” Angela set a gnocchi on the tray and looked up at her daughter. “You are.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You are, Jane. When you were born, I took one look at you, and I thought: This one I never have to worry about. This one’s gonna fight back, no matter what. Mikey, I know I probably should have protected better. He’s not so good at defending himself.”
“Mike grew up a victim. He’s always gonna act like one.”
“But not you.” A faint smile tugged at Angela’s lips as she gazed at her daughter. “When you were three, I saw you fall and hit your face on the coffee table. You cut yourself right there, under the chin.”
“Yeah, I still got the scar.”
“The cut was so bad you had to get stitches. You were bleeding all over the carpet. And you know what you did? Guess what you did.”
“I screamed a lot, I imagine.”
“No. You started hitting the coffee table. Punching it, like that!” Angela whacked the table with her fist, sending up a puff of flour. “Like you were furi
ous at it. You didn’t come running to me. You didn’t cry about all the blood. You were too busy fighting back at the thing that hurt you.” Angela laughed and wiped her hand across her eyes, leaving a streak of white on her cheek. “You were the strangest little girl. Of all my kids, you made me the proudest.”
Rizzoli stared at her mother. “I never knew that. I had no idea.”
“Ha! Kids! You have no idea what you put your parents through, either. Wait till you have your own, you’ll see. That’s when you’ll know what it really feels like.”
“What what feels like?”
“Love,” said Angela.
Rizzoli looked down at her mother’s worn hands, and suddenly her eyes burned and her throat ached. She rose and went to the sink. Filled a pot of water in which to cook the gnocchi. She waited for the water to heat, thinking: Maybe I don’t really know what love feels like. Because I’ve been too busy fighting it. Just as I fight everything else that might hurt me.
She left the pot on the stove, and walked out of the kitchen.
Upstairs, in her parents’ bedroom, she picked up the telephone. Sat on the bed for a moment, holding the receiver, trying to gather up enough nerve to make the call.
Do it. You have to do it.
She began to dial.
The phone rang four times, and then she heard the recording, brief and matter-of-fact: “This is Gabriel. I’m not home right now. Please leave a message.”
She waited for the beep and took a deep breath.
“This is Jane,” she said. “I have something to tell you, and I guess it’s better this way, over the phone. It’s better than talking to you in person, because I don’t think I really want to see your reaction. So anyway, here goes. I . . . screwed up.” She suddenly laughed. “Jesus, I feel really stupid, making the world’s oldest mistake. I’ll never joke about dumb bimbos again. What happened is, well . . . I’m pregnant. About eight weeks, I think. Which, in case you’re wondering, means it’s definitely yours. I’m not asking you for anything. I don’t want you to feel obligated to do whatever it is men are supposed to do. You don’t even have to return this call. But I did think you had a right to know, because . . .” She paused, her voice suddenly thick with tears. She cleared her throat. “Because I’ve decided to keep the baby.”
She hung up.
For a long time she didn’t move, but just stared down at her hands as she rode a twister of emotions. Relief. Fear. Anticipation. But not ambivalence—this was a choice she felt absolutely right about.
She rose, feeling suddenly weightless, released from the burden of uncertainty. There was so much to worry about, so many changes to prepare for, yet she felt a new lightness in her step as she walked down the stairs and went back into the kitchen.
The water on the stove was now boiling. The rising steam warmed her face, like a mother’s caress.
She added two teaspoons of olive oil, then slid the gnocchi into the pot. Three other pots already were simmering on the stove, each releasing its own fragrance. The bouquet of her mother’s kitchen. She inhaled the smells, aching with new appreciation for this sacred place, where food was love.
She scooped up the potato dumplings as they floated to the surface, set them on a platter, and ladled on veal sauce. She opened the oven and pulled out the casserole dishes that had been left warming inside: Roast potatoes. Green beans. Meatballs. Manicotti. A parade of plenty, which she and her mother carried out in triumph to the dining room. And last, of course, the turkey, which sat in royal isolation at the center of the table, surrounded by its Italian cousins. It was more than their family could ever eat, but that was the point; an abundance of both food and love.
She sat at the table, across from Irene, and watched the twins being fed. Only an hour ago, when she had looked at Irene in the living room, she had seen a tired young woman whose life was already over, whose skirt sagged from the constant tugging of small hands. Now she looked at that same woman, and she saw a different Irene, one who laughed as she spooned cranberry sauce into little mouths, whose expression turned tender and unfocused as she pressed her lips to a head of curly hair.
I see a different woman because I’m the one who’s changed, she thought. Not Irene.
After dinner, as she helped Angela brew coffee and pipe sweet whipped cream into the cannoli shells, she found herself looking with fresh eyes at her mother as well. She saw new streaks of silver in her hair, and a face starting to sag at the jowls. Do you ever regret having us, Mom? she wondered. Do you ever stop and think that you’ve made a mistake? Or were you as sure as I am now, about this baby?
“Hey, Janie!” yelled Frankie from the living room. “Your cell phone’s ringing in your purse.”
“Can you get it?” she yelled back.
“We’re watching the game!”
“I’ve got whipped cream all over my hands! Will you just answer it?”
He stalked into the kitchen and practically thrust the phone at her. “It’s some guy.”
“Frost?”
“Naw. I don’t know who it is.”
Gabriel was her first thought. He’s heard my message.
She crossed to the sink and took her time rinsing off her hands. When at last she picked up the phone, she was able to answer with a calm, “Hello?”
“Detective Rizzoli? It’s Father Brophy.”
All the tension suddenly whooshed out of her. She sank into a chair. She could feel her mother watching her, and she tried to keep the disappointment from her voice.
“Yes, Father?”
“I’m sorry to call you on Christmas Eve, but I can’t seem to get through to Dr. Isles’s phone, and—well, something has come up that I thought you should know about.”
“What is it?”
“Dr. Isles wanted contact information for Sister Ursula’s next of kin, so I offered to look it up for her. But it turns out our parish records are a little out of date. We have an old phone number for a brother in Denver, but that phone’s been disconnected.”
“Mother Mary Clement told me the brother died.”
“Did she tell you that Sister Ursula also has a nephew living out of state?”
“The Abbess didn’t mention him.”
“It seems he’s been in touch with the doctors. That’s what the nurses told me.”
She looked at the platter of filled cannoli, now getting soggy with their filling of sweet cream. “Where are you going with this, Father?”
“I know this seems like a minor detail, tracking down some nephew who hasn’t seen his aunt in years. And I know how hard it is, to locate someone who’s out of state, if you don’t even know their first name. But the church has resources even the police don’t have. A good priest knows his flock, Detective. He knows their families and the names of their children. So I called the priest in the Denver parish where Sister Ursula’s brother lived. He remembers the brother quite well. He performed his funeral Mass.”
“Did you ask him about her relatives? About this nephew?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And?”
“There is no nephew, Detective. He doesn’t exist.”
TWENTY-TWO
MAURA DREAMED of funeral pyres.
She was crouched in shadow, watching orange flames lick at bodies stacked like cordwood, watching flesh consumed in the heat of the fire. The silhouettes of men surrounded the burning corpses, a circle of silent watchers whose faces she could not see. Nor could they see her, for she was hidden in darkness, cowering from their sight.
Sparks flew up from the pyre, fed by its human fuel, and spiralled into the black sky. The sparks lit the night, illuminating an even more terrible sight: The corpses were still moving. Blackened limbs thrashed in the torment of fire.
One among that circle of men slowly turned and stared at Maura. It was a face she recognized, a face whose eyes were empty of any soul.
Victor.
She came awake in an instant, her heart ramming against her chest, her nightshirt soake
d with sweat. A gust buffeted the house, and she could hear the skeletal clatter of shaking windows, the groan of the walls. Still wrapped in the panic of the nightmare, she lay perfectly still, the sweat beginning to chill on her skin. Was it only the wind that had awakened her? She listened, and every creak of the house sounded like a footstep. An intruder, moving closer.
Suddenly she tensed, alerted to a different sound. A scratching against the house, like the claws of an animal trying to get in.
She looked at the glowing face of her clock; it was eleven forty-five.
She rolled out of bed, and the room felt frigid. She groped in the darkness for a robe, but did not turn on the lights, to preserve her night vision. She went to her bedroom window and saw that it had stopped snowing. The ground glowed white under moonlight.
There it was again—the sound of something rubbing against the wall. She pressed as close to the glass as she could, and spied a flicker of shadow, moving near the front corner of the house. An animal?
She left the bedroom, and in her bare feet, she felt her way down the hallway, moving toward the living room. Edging around the Christmas tree, she peered out the window.
Her heart nearly stopped.
A man was climbing the steps to her front porch.
She could not see his face, for it was hidden in shadow. As though he sensed her watching him, he turned toward the window where she stood, and she saw his silhouette. The broad shoulders, the ponytail.
She pulled away from the window and stood wedged against the prickly branches of the Christmas tree, trying to understand why Matthew Sutcliffe was here, at her door. Why would he come at this hour without calling first? She still hadn’t shaken off the last strands of fear from her nightmare, and this late night visit made her uneasy. It made her think twice about opening her door to anyone—even a man whose name and face she knew.
The doorbell rang.
She flinched, and a glass bulb fell from the tree and shattered on the wood floor.
Outside, the shadow moved toward the window.
She didn’t move, still debating what to do. I just won’t turn on the light, she thought. He’ll give up and leave me alone.
The doorbell rang again.