The yellow Formica table with the silver rim and matching chairs looked almost new because that was the way she kept her house.
She dished out a ladle of broth, the same ladle she brought from San Francisco to the suburbs in 1948, thirty-one years now in her home. Even the soup pot, with a blackened wooden handle, had a history and so too, the salami, bread, cheese, and chianti which were already out on the table. She looked at Popolo, “So, you don’t call your mother!”
Popolo tore some bread, “Ma.”
“Last night you didn’t come home.” Popolo sat still in his morning clothes. “You don’t call the mother.” She tore a piece of bread as well. He chuckled.
“Ma, I am fifty-eight years old.”
“You were out again with that Spechacula.” Her face reddened like a tomato ripening in her garden.
Popolo cut a piece of salami, “Manga, Ma.” She slurped the broth right from the bowl, toothless. She only wore her dentures when out. In some ways Popolo was embarrassed by her peasant upbringing, yet she coveted him like a sacred text—if she believed in a God. But the priest ruined her faith when he came to her family’s farm in Italy, in the late 1800’s, taking the biggest chickens home for the other priests.
“Popolo, you didn’t change the light in the hall.”
“For Christ’s sake,” he sipped some chianti.
“With my cataract, I could fall in the night. You forget the mother with that spechacula.”
He laughed again. “I’ll take you shopping at the QFI,” he smiled. He hated taking his mother shopping. She was 90 and walked at a slow pace making a jogging turtle seem fast, squinting, checking all the prices as she pushed the cart down the wide aisles. “I needed to go yesterday, but you can always find something for one person. I ate eggs.” She wiped her face with an embroidered dish towel.
“Well, we will go after lunch.” He broke more bread and then pointed to his back tooth, “It needs work.”
“Well, look at me, I had to pull mine out. I had pyorrhea. And I had beautiful teeth.”
“You’re making it worse, Ma. Basta Cosi.”
Theodora, her real name, went into the bathroom, took a sponge bath, straightened her soft white cotton ball-looking hair, and placed her dentures in her mouth. She dressed in a pink checked cotton dress. She came out of the bathroom, “Allura.” Popolo was reading on his bed. Steinbech, The Winter of my Discontent. “Allura,” she said again.
Popolo was often found with a book—scholarly in many ways, could read in three languages. When married, with his six kids, he would lie on the patio chaise, oil smoothed across his body, getting a tan while reading. His kids would pass by; he said very little. A bohemian of sorts, he had made several failed attempts at a career, but it seemed that fate or his personality rendered him in restaurant business where he tended, bar in an upscale eatery in Menlo Park.
Closing the book, he slipped into his black dress shoes and came out. “Ready Ma.” he smiled. He took her arm though she was very capable of walking on her own. She carried her navy purse like Queen Elizabeth.
She piped up in the car, “Don’t forget the light bulb.”
“Mama,” he said while waiting at a stop light; “I think I am going to get married again?”
“That spechacula!”
“She is not a lady of the night, but a lady. You have not met her. She has ten times your money and a ranch. Her name is Catherine.”
“Oh, like the Crosby wife. Fake red hair?” She looked straight ahead.
“Grey like yours; well, blond-grey.”
Theodora twiddled her thumbs like she always did when she was anxious, “Pa, he died only three years ago and now you leave me?”
Popolo was quiet and then he piped up, “You want me to be alone the rest of my life? Live with my mother? It’s been almost two years.”
She wiped her left eye with her handkerchief, “Give me some time.”
After the shopping, Theodora put away the groceries, canned soup, pasta, pork chops, and butter cookies. Popolo helped her shelve the cans and pasta in the high places. “I use a stool when you’re not here—don’t bother.” But he ignored her.
It was around three. “I am going to get ready for work; Popollo put the grocery box by the kitchen door.
“Good do something for money rather than use mine. Don’t drink too much on the job. A bartender, can a be a dangerous for the man.”
Popolo showered, shaved and dressed in his black pants, white shirt and tie not yet knotted around his neck. He looked up at the hallway light. “Ma!” She came out of the kitchen. He kissed her quickly, pointed to the light, “Tomorrow,” and left.
The house was still and hushed; she had grown use to it. Pa, I miss you. She whispered to her entombed husband. Deciding to sit on the porch and read the newspaper, she unlocked the screen door. In many ways, she was self-taught for the most part–learned English on her own after coming from Italy, got tutored in reading at age twenty-two. She even managed her own money keeping her eye on the bank trust. Her stocks kept her in good standing, and she never spent beyond her means. She was married to Pa for sixty-five years. But she rarely mentioned him. Yet occasionally, with a tear, she would say to her grand kids, Pa, he was a good to me.
Popolo, on the other hand, liked to spend his money, place bets on a horse at the racetrack as often as he could, enjoyed several stiff Old Fashion’s and would take from her checking account to keep afloat. Theodora knew when the money was missing and kept watch. He was charming, gracious, everyone’s friend except with his children. Although when they used to be together on Sunday evening, he cooked amazing cuisine, veal scallopini, porter house steaks with garlic bordelaise, crab cioppino and spaghetti a la Pesto. He stopped cooking when he moved in with Theodora.
Theodora sat quietly on the whicker-white chair, that she coveted for half a century. The camellias, tall and rhododendrons wide, hid her from the neighbor’s view. In her chair between short naps and random thoughts, she passed the time. She stood and peeked between the Camalia trees and was proud of the Snap Dragons she planted along the thirty-foot fence, and that she could still get up from the grass on her own after planting them.
It was now about six and the light was fading, so she took her glass of water and went inside. She already had decided she would fry a hamburger. She ate at the table alone, in silence except for the musing about Popolo and his marriage. She wondered if life, as she now knew it, was worth-her keeping on. It is too lonely like this; she petted her right hand. But I am not a quitter.
Rinsing the dishes and wiping the porcelain sink with a cotton towel, she sighed, walked to the living room, turned on the TV, mostly for noise, pulled the chain of the brass lamp with a green glass shade and was soon asleep in her recliner.
The house grew dim and darker. She had earlier closed the blinds. Awakened by the phone, It’s Popolo, out with that Spechacula, she spoke to the air. Then she stumbled up and entered the hallway. She didn’t know the time. She flicked the light switch. The bulb was still out. Her ankle twisted, her head spun, her left foot grew numb. She tried to grab the phone with her right hand when her legs buckled. The phone stopped ringing although she couldn’t hear.
It was 11:00 am when Popolo unlocked the front door. Still prone on the hallway rug, her legs twitched intermittent tremors, her mouth was dry and she was unable to speak. With her grey blue sad eyes, she looked at him. He could smell the stale urine under her. He squatted down, felt her hand. “Allura, Mama.” She closed her eyes. He looked at his watch, then covered her with a crocheted afghan, almost as old as she.
Andrew Pelfini has been writing in multiple genres for many years and has been a member of the Intergeneration Writers in San Francisco. Andrew published an anthology honoring the members writings. In addition, he continues to seek consultation and peer review of his prose. Andrew is a psychotherapist in San Francisco.
