Page 21 of Tape to Tape
We all look up. Nonna is in the doorway with her cane, and is looking at the five of us like we are a problem she is considering.
“Nonna,” I say.
“I am in it. I was in the chair. Why is everyone shouting?”
“Nonna,” Jackie says, “Matteo is being an idiot.”
“Yes. I heard.”
“For four months,” Gina adds.
“I heard.”
“Mama. Sit down,” Ma says.
Nonna does not sit down. She comes to the island, slow, cane first, and sets one hand on the counter. Then she looks at me.
“You have never waited for anything, Matteo.”
She isn’t asking me anything. She isn’t waiting for me to confirm or deny. She is telling me what she sees, the way she has been telling me what she sees since I was old enough to understand her voice, and she has never once been wrong about what she sees. Jackie is still by the island. Gina has stopped moving. Nicole has put the knife down.
“Okay,” I say, which is the least Marchetti-kitchen thing I have said in this room in my life.
“Okay.” Nonna pats my cheek. Once. “You peel your potato.”
She turns and goes back to the living room.
The kitchen takes a breath. Ma goes back to stirring. Gina picks up her wine glass without looking at me. Nicole starts cutting again. Jackie pulls the dish towel off her shoulder, wipes her hands, lays it back on the counter, and doesn’t look at me either.
“What are you going to do?” Gina asks, quietly.
“I don’t know. He said we can’t. I have to respect that.”
“You know what you want though,” Jackie says.
“I’ll go back to Atlanta and see him for my usual sessions and get my shoulder better.”
“And then what?”
I don’t have the answer. The answer is not in this kitchen. The answer is somewhere back in Atlanta, but I am not sure where.
“He’s thinking,” Nicole says, over the onions.
“Matteo.” Ma turns from the pot. “I am proud of you. Whatever you do. Be proud of yourself too.”
“Okay, Ma.”
She lets me go and turns back to the pot. “Set the table. Somebody. Who’s closer?”
“Matteo’s closer,” Gina says.
“Make him,” Jackie adds. “He took off too much potato.”
I pull the forks and the knives and the big silver spoons out of the drawer and start setting the table. The song Zay sent me in November is still playing low under the kitchen. Nicole is cutting at the board. Gina is at the stove now, tasting the gravy she swore was fine. Jackie is yelling at Ma about something neither of them will win. Somewhere in the living room Nonna is in her chair again. I set another fork down on another napkin and I miss someone that I have no right to miss.
Chapter 6 — ZAY
Nan’s porch light is on when I pull up, which means my mama has been at her about the bulb on the side of the steps for at least the last hour. I can hear them before I even make it up the walkway.
