Page 65 of The Family Cross

The two runners were neck and neck, chest and chest, stride and stride all the way to the lean at the finish line, where the UConn girl got Jannie by a hundredth of a second.

“Oh!” Nana Mama said. “Oh.”

Her monitor began to make angry chirping noises. We all spun to see the nurses busy around her.

“A little too much time not breathing,” one nurse said, adjusting the cannula on her oxygen line. “Take deep, slow breaths now.”

Nana took two big inhales and then another. “She win? Jannie?”

“She got second! Which means she’s in!” I said, grinning at her. “She’ll be going to Notre Dame for the NCAA finals!”

“Got dream,” my grandmother said, beaming. “We go? Watch?”

“A little over a week from now. Let’s see what Dr. Ames says. It’s a pretty long drive.”

“Go,” Nana Mama said firmly. “No wait ask God. This dream now.”

“It’s a good dream, Nana,” Damon said. “I think we should all go.”

Sampson said, “Willow and I will be there.”

“Everyone,” my grandmother said, smiling as she closed her eyes. “I be.”

For a few hours, anyway, everything felt good and right and full of hope in the Cross household.

58

JOHN SAMPSON AND I made it to St. Anthony’s Catholic Church around five thirty that afternoon. Nine people were already standing in line behind the aluminum grate that led to the basement.

But no Colin O’Hare or Aldous Campbell.

The guy at the front of the line, who could have been thirty or fifty, got lippy with us when we asked him to stand aside so we could go down to the basement. Then Sampson showed him his badge, and the man’s lips slammed shut.

Downstairs in the kitchen, we found Lorraine D’Angelo busy tossing a Caesar salad in a huge mixing bowl while her sister, Stella, checked on long loaves of garlic bread browning in the oven. The air smelled so good, I could’ve been in a world-class Italian restaurant.

Sampson said, “You ladies should open your own place.”

Lorraine and Stella were in their early seventies, and like a lot of twins, they often finished each other’s sentences.

“Our parents spent their whole lives in the family restaurant in Boston’s North End,” Lorraine said. “It was—”

“Too much work,” Stella said. “We don’t mind working hard, but—”

“Mama and Pop never left the place. Seven days a week,” Lorraine said. “We—”

“Didn’t want that life for ourselves,” Stella said. “Our cousin Victor. He took it.”

The D’Angelo sisters had worked at St. Anthony’s School as teachers before they retired. They’d known my grandmother for decades. I told them about her recent health challenges.

They were very concerned and offered to deliver dinner to the house the following week, which I accepted. I knew that Nana would appreciate seeing them—and she’d appreciate their cooking even more.

“Time we headed back outside,” Sampson said, checking his watch.

“Right behind you.”

The line of hungry people had grown to thirty in the past ten minutes, with more coming across the intersections to our south and north. Colin O’Hare was there now, about halfway down the line. He had his back against a lamppost and was sucking a lollipop.

When Bing Bang saw us, he pulled the candy from his mouth and shook his head.