 
Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees

By Grace Mattioli

Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees

By Grace Mattioli

Copyright ©2012 by Grace Mattioli

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data

Mattioli, Grace, 1965-

Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees/ Grace Mattioli

p. cm.

1.Families-fiction 2. New Jersey-Fiction 3. Italian-Americans-Fiction

4. Peace-Fiction

I. Title PS3556.R352 813.54

For my mom, who told me to never throw out anything I wrote

and my brother, Vincent, who told me I had a perfect sense of humor
CHAPTER ONE: THE SOUND OF NOISE

Silvia Greco knew the silence wouldn't last. Any second, her dad would emerge from the bathroom and resume his search for a lost frying pan, with the sound of clattering pots and slamming cabinet doors ringing through the air like a series of small explosions. In the very short meantime, she enjoyed the quiet as she sat waiting for her coffee to finish brewing as if it was all she had left in the world.

She sat at a square wooden table that took over the entire room. It looked good from a distance, but upon closer inspection revealed several nicks and scratches that had given it a memory of its own—a bad one. The table was bare except for an economy sized bottle of TUMS displayed in the middle like a centerpiece. She sat on a chair that was almost too big for her little body.

She was a big girl misplaced inside a little girl's body with a big voice, a big laugh, a big stride, a big Roman nose that sat proud beneath her big brown eyes. Her big head of hair was currently chopped in some crude style of uneven lengths and colored orange on the top and black at the bottom. Her hair style wasn't intended to be any sort of radical statement. It was just due to her current state of apathy. So was her attire—a paint covered T-shirt and worn out Levi jeans that fit her like a puddle.

She usually dressed in bright bold sixties-styled clothing that showed her off to the world as an animated, free spirit. Her hair was usually evenly colored and styled like she cared. But even with her grungy clothes and her chopped hair, she was pretty. And her big nose seemed to add to her prettiness in a strange way. Angie, her older sister, urged her to get her big nose made smaller with simple surgery, but Silvia refused to do such a thing, believing that doing so would be rejecting her Grandma Tucci, who had the same big nose and whom she loved fiercely.

Her dad's nose was in perfect proportion to the rest of his face, which resembled that of an aged Marlon Brando. Despite a life time of working too hard, sleeping too little, drinking too much, and smoking for the better half of his life, Frank Greco still looked good. He had all of his hair and could sweep it from side to side depending on his mood. His physique looked as if he worked out at a gym on a regular basis, but in fact, he'd never set foot in one. The slight limp he developed from being maimed in a motorcycle accident in his early twenties was barely perceptible through his gargantuan personality. This was also the case with his slovenly attire of mismatched outfits and shirts buttoned unevenly with one side hanging down further than the other. Fortunately, he worked as a judge in a local courthouse, so he could hide lack of style behind a thick, black robe.

He came out of the bathroom and wasted no time getting on with his project with a renewed sense of urgency, gallivanting around the kitchen as if he was keeping beat to a polka song. He searched for the lost pan while drinking and cooking something that smelled like a mixture of garlic and garbage left out in the rain. Silvia got up to get her coffee, careful not to get in her dad's way. As she poured some milk into her cup, the greasy container slid out of her hand. She imagined that Frank had previously touched it with his olive-oiled hands.

"I knew you were going to do that," Frank, who was suddenly standing over her shoulder, said. She wanted to say something like "Well, maybe I wouldn't have spilled it if you didn't get your greasy hands all over it," but she said nothing. She just cleaned up the spill and sat down. She could tell Frank was fishing for a fight this morning and would have fished deeper had he not been so preoccupied with finding the lost pan. So rather than fishing, he just continued on his quest, moving from one side of the kitchen to another as if he was accomplishing great things. Banging steel against steel, wood against wood.

The noise sounded like crashing cars to Silvia, but it did serve the purpose of disrupting her thoughts of yesterday when she was fired from her job waiting tables in a Turkish cafe in downtown Philadelphia. She'd overheard her boss say to the cook, "I'm going to have to close the place down if she works here another day!" At hearing this, she'd marched into the kitchen and said, "I heard what you said, Usef." She spoke to him as though he was wrong for being concerned for the survival of his business. Although he was, like most people, much bigger than her, he hunched over and shrunk like a frightened monkey at her confrontation. "I'm sorry Silvia." His sincere apology made her feel bad. She also felt bad because she knew his concern was legitimate. She knew she was a coffee-spilling, plate-dropping wreck of a waitress who'd surprised herself the few times she'd got an order right.

"Why were you still working there anyway after you moved in with Dad?" her older brother, Cosmo said to her when she called him up right after she'd been fired. As usual, he was right. It had made some sense to continue her career as a bad waitress when she still lived in the city, and the cafe was one block away from her apartment. But after she moved into Frank's house in New Jersey, it made no sense at all. She remained at the cafe, however, because jobs were hard to come by. When she told this to Cosmo, he said that she'd find another dead-end job before she knew it. His attempt at consolation, while sincere, made her feel worse. Much worse.

She crumbled into a hunched over position and sipped her coffee that tasted markedly bitter. Just as she was slipping into a comfortable state of misery, Frank said, "Don't you have to be at work? It's eleven o'clock. What happened? Did you get canned again?" She was about to speak, when he swiftly picked up a broom and began chasing a centipede that was speeding across the floor.

"Those God damn bugs run around here like they own the place!" he shouted as the bug disappeared under a cabinet. He threw the broom back in its corner as if he was angry at it. He picked up his half-full drink, looked down at it with an expression of deranged contemplation, and in a quick second, he finished it off. His insensitive remark seemed to have been wiped clean from his mind. She would have normally laughed his comment off, knowing well that it was only his way of attempting to instigate a fight. But a number of factors, including fatigue and the fact that she actually did get fired from her job yesterday, conspired together to cause her to react.

"Why don't you have another drink?" she said, facetiously.

He came alive like Frankenstein's monster, eyes bulging, face reddening and screamed, "Why don't you just get your stuff, and get the fuck out of my house?!"

Her sarcastic response, "Because I know how much you'd miss me," heightened her dad's anger, and his eyes bulged out so far that they looked as if they might pop out of his head. He looked as if he was about to start screaming in the scariest of all his angry voices—one of his great wall-vibrating screams. His voice was deep and heavy and carried long and far. So far, in fact, that she could still hear it no matter how far away she moved: Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Tucson.

Just then, his phone rang, and he forcibly decompressed all that he could and walked quickly towards it, all the while still staring at Silvia as if to say that that their little spat wasn't over yet. He answered the phone, and after a few words, he began telling the caller about the missing frying pan.

"I'm sure it'll turn up, Frank," the voice on the phone said in a volume that was almost as loud as Frank's, so Silvia could hear every word very clearly, as if he was standing right there in the kitchen.

Frank didn't bother asking how his friend was doing. Rather, he just went right into his problems. He went through his usual list of complaints about his children: Vince spoke about two words a year to him; Cosmo was a failure; and Angie broke his heart by moving to North Jersey. Silvia could tell that he was about to start in on her, but that he decided not to as long as she was sitting in the same room as him. So instead, he spoke about how all of his children's shortcomings were the fault of Donna, his wife, for being from a family with bad genes.

When the voice on the phone asked about Donna, Frank walked into the other room, so he could speak about his wife in private in his not-so-quiet, quiet voice. She'd left him a little over one month ago. She'd surprised herself and everyone around her by lasting as long as she did. Silvia knew her mom would have left sooner, but she wanted to wait until her youngest child, Vince, was either out of the house or at least almost out of the house.

For Silvia, there was about one good memory of her parents in the past ten years and it was when they'd all taken their summer vacation to Canada. Silvia remembered the two of them walking arm in arm, both brightly smiling as the horse-drawn carriages had galloped by on the cobblestone street. But this was well before the time he'd hit her. That was the thing that had really seemed to knock out the last bit of love in their marriage.

It was a Saturday night, and Silvia and Vince were in the den watching TV when it had happened. There had been angry mumblings coming from Frank, his voice rising and falling away like a rollercoaster. Then, there was a big shout and a cry from Donna. Silvia and her brother had startled and hopped up out of their seats in sync to run into their parent's room, where they saw Donna crying, holding her cheek that glowed red behind her hand.

"Mom!" Silvia had shouted out as she ran towards Donna, but her mom had run in the bathroom and closed the door, all the while hiding her hand over her face. Silvia stared hate at Frank and stormed out.

Now, she could hear Frank lying to the voice on the phone like he lied to everyone. She could hear him telling the voice that he and Donna just needed a little separation from each other, like they'd made some sort of mutual decision about how to proceed in their marriage. He walked back into the kitchen to freshen his drink and complained about the property taxes that would be due very soon. He ended his monologue of complaints with an expression he used frequently, "I can't complain."

Silvia thought that if Frank spent less time complaining and searching for lost kitchen utensils, he might notice the dilapidated condition of his house. The kitchen sink always leaked. The bathroom door handle fell off nearly every time someone opened or closed it. The floor creaked. The doors squeaked and hung on loose hinges from being slammed one too many times. The cracked paint struggled to cover the walls. The broken chandelier in the dining room could fall at any second.

While the interior of the house was falling apart, it still looked good from the outside, and the yard, in which Frank took great pride, was perfect. Not a bush out of place. Not one uneven blade of grass. All of the flowers and plants were lined up straight and distanced apart from each other as if someone used a ruler to get them that way. His attractive, red-brick house sat on a pleasant tree lined street with other attractive houses with well-kept yards, though none were as well-kept as his own.

The house was on a street not far from the center of town, and the town wasn't too far from Philadelphia, but not quite close enough to be considered a suburb. Frank wouldn't set foot in the city even if it was five minutes away. To him, cities were nothing more than an unnecessary expense with their parking lots that cost ten dollars an hour and their overpriced restaurants and shops full of useless merchandise.

He preferred the smallness of his own town with its practical shops and ample free parking. It had everything a person needed, and it was a real town too, the way towns used to be, with the sweet feeling of being slightly stuck in time. It had a street that could have been named Main Street, with the same dress shop that had been there for over forty years, the same hardware shop for over fifty years, the same grocery store for over sixty years, and the same bank for almost one hundred years.

Silvia used to love the town. It was where she learned to ride a bike, where she had her first kiss from a boy, and where she spent long summer days with her grandma eating snow cones and playing hide-and-seek. But now, she had no place in this town, and she resented it for making her into a misfit. She resented it like some hideous monster who'd stolen something precious from her—a sense of belonging somewhere in the world.

She went in her room, sat on her bed, and stared into the blank space of hopelessness in front of her. Her bedroom offered no sanctuary from the noise in the kitchen that traveled fast and furiously down the hallway as if fueled by Frank's anxiety. She thought if she had more feeling for her old room, it might offer some protection, but she felt nothing for it. It was just a room inside her dad's house. At one time, she and Angie had shared the room. Now, all traces of Angie were gone, but evidence of Silvia still remained, most of which were hidden away like a treasure that no one ever wanted to find. They were shoved in boxes in her closet—crayon pictures on construction paper, beaded jewelry she'd made as a child, her junior prom dress, which she'd sewn herself out of vintage floral curtains, a box of old concert tickets that sat above a collection of vinyl albums she'd inherited from her mom.

Belongings from her present-day life were all out in the open—art supplies and clothing in boxes and orange crates she got from a supermarket parking lot. She'd been at her dad's house for over a month, and it was pretty clear she was stuck there, because she was broke, but her stuff still remained in boxes and crates, making her old room into more of a storage space than a room.

The plastic crates, a bright orange that made her think of Florida for some reason, had been with her through all her moves and were a part of her now, a sort of pitiful comfort. What if she took her clothes out of the orange crates and put them in her old bureau? Doing so would mean surrendering to the fact that she might be living with Frank indefinitely. All too painful to imagine. How could she have allowed herself to move back to this place for any period of time? She thought of what she should have done differently to avoid ending up here by doing her daily practice of recounting all her past mistakes in reverse chronological order.

She should have never been fired from her job. She knew she stunk at her job and should have been hunting for something else all along. Better yet, she should have never taken the job in the first place. It had nothing more to offer her than a scanty paycheck, free hummus, and proximity to where she used to live. She wouldn't have taken the job or even applied for it had she not lived so nearby. She wouldn't have lived so nearby if she hadn't moved in with her ex-boyfriend, which was a huge mistake. She shouldn't have had him as a boyfriend, but there was not much to choose from in Philadelphia.

This lack of selection brought her to her next regret, which was moving to Philadelphia. It was the third time that she had moved to this city. She didn't like it the first time she'd lived there, and she liked it less and less with each move back. The first time she lived there was for art school, which she did like at the time, but now she regretted not studying something more practical than painting. If she'd studied something practical, she would have been able to get a good job.

The feeling that her entire life, from the time that she could make her own choices, had been nothing more than one massive mistake, fell on her like a very tall, brick wall tumbling down. The pain of her life being one big fuck-up immobilized her and made her want to run really fast at the same time. Yesterday, she'd read that according to the Mayan calendar, this year of 2012 would mark the end of the world. This thought brought her a strange kind of comfort. She was sinking once again when her brother, Vince, appeared at the entrance of her room and asked her if she wanted to get some pizza.

"Pizza, huh?" she said, looking at her clock. "It's a little early, and I'm not really hungry, but I guess I can go for a walk." It dawned on her that he should be at school, but she didn't have the energy or concern to ask why he wasn't there.

They snuck out of the house like jewel thieves. If Frank noticed them leaving, he would ask them where they were going. They couldn't tell him that they were going to get something to eat, because he didn't tolerate anyone spending money on food outside of the house when there was perfectly good food at home. He overlooked the major problem with eating at home—as long as he was there, it was nearly impossible to even get a glass of water. He took over the kitchen, monopolizing every inch of it like a frustrated chef. The other reason they had to sneak out was that Frank hated being left in the house alone. It made him more anxious than he was already.

Outside, the trees drooped with heaviness, and the smell of hyacinths lingered in the lazy spring air. Silvia's shabby clothes may have fit her mood perfectly, but they didn't match the sun shiny day, and either did the way she moved through the world—like a Peanut's character dancing. Vince moved in a straight line with precision, his head coming forward every few steps, making his shoulder length hair come loose from behind his ears. He wasn't tall and wasn't short but was somewhere in between, and his eyes shone with purpose and determination. His left eyebrow curved upward like a Vulcan, making him look as if he was hiding something. But he hid nothing. He was an open book in large print.

They walked to Nina's Pizzeria, which was only a few blocks from their house in a small strip mall. It didn't look like much from the outside or from the yellow plastic inside, but it had the best pizza in town. Silvia was glad that her appetite, that had been smothered in sadness for days, peaked through once they entered the place, where pizza aroma hung thick in the air.

"I'll have a mushroom slice," Silvia said to the lady at the counter. The lady punched something in to her cash register with the energy of a depressed robot.

"Can I get a piece without cheese?" Vince said. Silvia hoped that the lady would say no, so that he wouldn't have the chance to one-up her. They had a silent competition in the way of animal welfare going on for the past few years. Cheese was made from milk, which was cruelly extracted from cows.

"Sorry, no," the lady said. Silvia felt satisfied with this response, and Vince reluctantly ordered a slice of Sicilian. They were silent while they waited for their slices, and as soon as they got them, Silvia asked Vince why he wasn't at school.

"Because I haven't missed one day of school all year, so I figured I was entitled to it. Besides, there's not much going on these last few days."

Silvia knew that he was telling the truth about there not being much going on, as he was a senior. She also knew he was honest about only missing one day all year. He was extremely conscientious, and he never got sick.

"A case of senioritis?"

"Kind of," he said as he took a bite of his slice. He ate fast and nervous, as if somebody might take his food away at any second. He looked over at Silvia blotting oil from her pizza and said, "I can't believe you're using a whole napkin for that. You could have used a half of one." He never used napkins or paper towels. She wasn't sure about his toilet paper usage but imagined it to be about two squares tops. The tree thing.

"What was I going to do with the other half?"

"You could save it for the next time you get pizza." He was completely serious.

"So, you still have your sight set on Berkeley?" she said, ignoring his napkin comment.

"They have the best program for what I want to do—environmental science—in

the country, so yeah, I'm set on going there. But not so excited about going so far away."

"I thought you'd want to get away from here," Silvia said, with a complete lack of understanding for why Vince or anyone would not want to go far away from their home.

"Well, I've never been so far away, and Dad's not crazy about the idea of me going to school on the other side of the country. He says anything I could study there I could just as easily study at Rutgers. He keeps saying that he'll help, then he gets mad at me over nothing and says that he won't help. I applied for all the loans I could, and I told him I'd get residency right away so the tuition would be cheaper after the first year."

"Lucky that he even offered to help you at all. He barely helped me. If I didn't get a scholarship to college, I couldn't have gone. Guess I can't blame him though for not giving much help. He thought that an art degree would be completely useless. I'm starting to think he may have had something."

"You studied something you love," Vince said through a stare so intense that it was almost painful to look at him. "There's nothing worthless about that."

"Why do you want to study environmental science anyway?" Before he had a chance to answer the question, she added, "It's one of those useless things to study, like painting. Not that I don't realize the value in studying what you have passion for and all, but—"

"I can't just stand by while we destroy the planet. We'll end up having a shorter reign than the dinosaurs if we don't start making some changes. Some serious changes." He spoke like a superhero on a mission. She saw him canvassing for Greenpeace on some city sidewalk.

"Ha, the world may be too late for saving. The Mayan calendar says it's supposed to end this year. Did you hear about that?"  
"No, but it sounds crazy."

"Yeah, according to the Mayan calendar, the world's going to end in 2012, so if you're going to save it, you better act quick."

"I'm sure there's something you can do with your degree. What kind of job do you think you might like?" he said, dismissing her apocalyptic chatter.

"I haven't come up with anything good." She then talked about all of the possible paths that she had, at one time or another contemplated, in the form of a well-rehearsed speech. She began with graphic design, a field she'd quickly dismissed, as she would probably end up having to work in the advertisement industry, and such a thing was against her values and her integrity as an artist. She thought of being a college professor, but that was way too much of a long and arduous pursuit. She very briefly thought of becoming a museum curator or an archivist but thought that that she would never find a job as one.

"I like the college professor idea myself. You'd be following in Mom's footsteps. She'd like that."

"Yeah, but like I said, it's a long path. And after that big investment of time and money and energy, I'd probably be lucky to find a job in Kansas."

"Well yeah, but finding a job shouldn't be the most important thing." Now his inexperience and naiveté were showing through. Finding a job isn't important when you have no concept of things like rent and bills.

"Not hungry?" he said, looking down at Silvia's half-eaten slice.

"Nah," she said. "Do you want the rest?"

Vince gladly took the rest of the pizza. Across from them a couple sat eating a pepperoni pizza. Vince glared at them, and Silvia imagined the life of the poor pig who made the pepperoni possible.

"Too bad they can't use free range pigs for the pork," she said.

"Yeah," Vince said. "Like that's ever going to happen. There's too much money to be had from factory farming."

"Oh, shit," Silvia said, sliding down into her seat to make herself less visible. Some guy named Josh that she went out with in high school came in.

"Don't turn around," she said to Vince, who unfortunately did just that, and in doing so, caught the attention of the guy, who, in turn, stared back at them. It was too late to pretend that she didn't see him. Their eyes exchanged glances, and now, he was walking towards their table. He had bleached-white teeth and was dressed in a grey suit and tie with a checkered button-down shirt. He looked successful and for this, Silvia was dismayed.

"Silvia!" he said as he walked towards the table. He smiled big with the ease of a cat stretching.

"Hey, Josh. Good to see you," she lied through a strained smile.

"Yeah, you too," he said. "How are things?"

"Things are great," she lied again, and then quickly asked how he was doing before he had a chance to ask her any more questions about her own life.

"Couldn't be better," he said, exhaling as if his body couldn't contain all of the happiness and well-being inside of it.

"Oh, you remember my little brother, Vince?" she said, gesturing to Vince before Josh had a chance to tell her about how great his life was.

"I do remember," Josh said. "Not so little anymore."

Silvia and Vince laughed out of courtesy. Josh then looked at his watch in the way that all busy, successful people look at their watches and said that he had to be off to a meeting. Silvia was delighted to see him go and thrilled that she didn't have to hear about his current life situation. She imagined that it was much better than being unemployed and living with a crazy parent.

She tried to remember why she broke up with him. He was really different than her but was nice enough. Most girls wouldn't have found a thing wrong with him. But Silvia wasn't like most girls. She found whatever she could find wrong with a guy and would leave him for the next one who came along.

"He has bad taste in music," she once whined to Cosmo about a boyfriend she'd wanted to break up.

"How bad?" Cosmo had said.

"He likes jam bands!"

"Oh, that is bad," Cosmo had agreed with complete seriousness. "You should break up with him."

Silvia and Vince walked through the back door to hear Frank sleeping in the den in front of a blaring television set, snoring loud and rhythmic. Even when he slept, he was loud and easy to hear from two rooms away. He snored and squirmed and tossed and rattled. He slept in the den probably more than he slept in his own bed, especially since Donna left. The room was dark and cozy with a maroon leather couch and built-in shelves that were only half-filled with encyclopedias and a bunch of legal books. Donna's books used to fill most of the shelves, but they went with her to her new home—a tiny studio apartment in Philadelphia. Silvia wished that it had been bigger, so she could live with her instead of with Frank.

The two went into their rooms and closed the doors, which was another thing that Frank hated and didn't understand. "Why are people always closing doors in this God Damn house?" he'd say. He figured that his children closed doors because they'd inherited a bad gene from Donna's side of the family that caused them to be introverted. Silvia thought that Frank often confused things, and that in this case, he confused independence with introversion. She thought that her mom and siblings enjoyed being alone for the same reason cats like being alone—because they were independent. She also thought that Frank was sorely mistaken in thinking that any of her mom's family members were introverted and Donna herself least of all.

Silvia needed money. She wasn't sure where she was headed, but she had to get out of where she was ASAP. It always seemed to be the case, but especially now. She searched for jobs only to find a bunch of positions that she didn't qualify for. She wasn't qualified to do much. A degree in painting was worthless in the world of commerce, and with all her moving, she hadn't had time to develop many, if any, marketable skills besides those which were useful in food service or retail. She spotted something in one of those big chain art supply stores she'd sworn she'd never work in again when she got a call from her mom.

"Hi Silvie, dear," Donna said in a voice that sounded like it was forcing cheerfulness. Silvia could see her mom sitting in her little apartment that looked like something a college student might live in. It was probably all she could afford on her part-time salary.

"How are you doing?" Donna asked. Silvia thought that she pretty much knew the answer to this question and was only asking to be courteous.

"I'm all right, Mom," Silvia said.

"How come you didn't call me back yesterday? Did something happen?"

"Yeah. I got fired from my job."

"Oh, jeez honey, I'm so sorry...but you deserve so much more, don't you think?"

"Yeah, but it was all I had."

"You'll find something else in no time. It will be something better too. I know you."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about it." She didn't want to delve into her problems, because each time she did, they seemed to grow like a big pile of trash rising to great heights in the midst of a garbage strike.

"Okay then. How's Vince? Last time I talked to him he seemed down."

"He seems all right, or at least he hasn't said anything to me about being down."

"I hope Dad isn't getting to him...or to you. Oh, how I wish I could have stayed longer," Donna said with desperation.

Silvia told her that both her and Vince were fine living there and that neither of them would be there long. She started talking about her plans for job hunting when out of nowhere, her mom mentioned having a party for Vince's graduation.

"It can be something small and simple," Donna said. "We can plan a nice dinner at a local restaurant." She cleverly inserted the word we where the word I should have been to draft Silvia into helping her with the party. Why in the world would Donna want to do anything that would require her to see Frank? Silvia figured that her guilt about leaving before Vince was out of the house must have outweighed her disinterest in seeing the man she'd just left.

Of course, Silvia would help her mom. It was difficult to refuse her. For starters, she felt sorry for her for being married to Frank for so long—over twenty-five years. And now, after being with the same person for just about all of her adult life, she was starting over. She was also pained with the guilt of leaving before Vince had gone away to college.

And more than anything, Silvia knew her mom was frightened of their family becoming what her own family had become, with siblings estranged from each other for so long that they might not even recognize one another in a random encounter on the street. Donna's family was held together by strings, but after Grandma Tucci and Donna's brother, Vincent, had both died, there'd been nothing left to hold her family together. Surely, her fear of her new family becoming like her old family had grown to new heights now that she'd left Frank, like a cliff rising sharply out of the ground.

Besides feeling sorry for her mom, Silvia knew Donna couldn't ask Cosmo or Angie for help, because they hadn't gotten along with each other for as long as Silvia could remember. As children, he would behead her barbie dolls, while she shredded his comic books. When they were adolescent, they dug at each other's wounds in more adult ways. Cosmo would tease her until she'd cry, and then she'd say something terrible to him like, "It doesn't matter how smart you are because like Dad says, you'll never be anything but a failure!"

Getting all of her family together seemed daunting—Donna had just left Frank, Angie and Cosmo didn't get along and hadn't spoken to each other for years, and Frank was a complete hellraiser. In addition to all that, their family hadn't been together for over six years, since Angie's wedding. Angie had looked especially radiant that day, more so than Silvia had ever seen her, and as her maid of honor, she'd stood beside her, trying to focus only on her beauty and hoping for whatever happiness she might find with the guy she was marrying—some super strait-laced dude with lots of money who would have bored the hell out of Silvia in no time.

But her efforts to stay positive were lost once she'd glanced at her father's eyes drowning in a sea of sadness at having to lose the one and only child who really seemed to love him. Next to Frank, Donna sat with eyes that spoke of guilt for not ever having more of a bond with her daughter. Beside her, Cosmo sat with his date—some tattooed girl with an obnoxious amount of facial piercings. Silvia wondered if he'd brought her just to spite his sister.

The high point of the evening was Frank's drunk toast, which consisted of some slurs, followed by a long pause that led pathetically into tears. Angie's new mother-in-law, some stiff blue-eyed lady who could drink numerous glasses of wine and still remain perfectly composed, looked weak with shock, like she might pass out at any instant. Angie smiled to the small crowd, as though to apologize for her dad's poor behavior, too ashamed to be touched by his tears.

Silvia imagined what a graduation party for Vince might look like. Frank would be drunk and determined to make trouble. He would show his blatant favoritism towards Angie in hopes of making his other children resent her. He'd make Donna tense and anxious by his mere presence. He'd remind Cosmo of what a failure he was for dropping out of University of Pennsylvania, and he'd remind Vince of how he had better be on his best behavior if he wanted help with his tuition.

Angie might be bragging about how her family lived in a three-million-dollar home in the same neighborhood as Bruce Springsteen. Vince didn't like Angie's husband, Doug, because he was a Wall Street guy, and Vince was an Occupy guy. Cosmo and Angie's bad feelings towards each other could have an opportunity to be further nurtured. Donna and Angie could feel their distance from each other, and Silvia would dream about leaving this mess of a family once and for all. And this scenario was given the fact that she'd be able to get them together at all.

Yet, she noticed a shining light in the darkness of imagining. Since she began thinking about the gathering, she hadn't been thinking about her own problems. She was now a person with a purpose and that purpose was something outside of herself. She was a true altruist. Fuck Ayn Rand for saying that no such thing existed! She was proving her wrong. She was looking out for her mom and her little brother and in getting everyone together, she was attempting to make peace in a family that had never known peace.

She then noticed the way her body lightened, and her stomach opened and cried out for food. She craved a big bowl of pastina with butter and salt. Pastina was what she'd eat whenever she was getting over a stomach flu. Pastina was what she'd eat when she couldn't eat anything else. Pastina was one of the things that Grandma Tucci used to make for her when she was a child. Entering the kitchen, Silvia felt ecstatic to find a half-full box of De Cecco stellette pasta sitting in one of the cupboards and was even more ecstatic that Frank was out of the house, so she could cook in peace. Although she continued to be apprehensive about him barging in at any second while she ate her pastina, she was able to taste her food and enjoy the act of eating for the first time in a long time.
CHAPTER TWO: WHAT'S WRONG WITH HERE?

Factory smoke puffed into the gray sky hanging over Philadelphia, as Silvia drove over the Ben Franklin Bridge. The sun had been trying to peak through all morning, and it finally gave up. But today, Silvia didn't need the sun. She felt bright and shiny enough inside herself since her phone conversation with Donna last night. With her whole new sense of purpose, she didn't even care that she was on her way to one of her art school modeling jobs, which usually depressed her. Standing naked in front of a bunch of art students for twelve dollars an hour was fine when she was one of them, but now, it was just pathetic. It was, however, the only job she had until something else came up. She was afraid that that something else would probably end up being a job near her dad's house, which either meant the casinos in Atlantic City or the mall.

She drove to a section of South Philly to park her car, which was easily over two miles from the art college because it had street parking spots that, while not ample, were free. The college itself was in the downtown section of the city that only had paid lots and spaces that she couldn't afford. She tapped the bumpers of the cars in front and in back of her as she crammed into a space that was way too small for her car. Her hatchback had faded to the palest shade of yellow from the Tucson sun, was covered with dents and scratches, and had one mismatched panel colored off-white on the left, front side.

She wasn't concerned with the looks of her car and thought its shabby appearance as a good thing for deterring potential thieves. Internally, the car was fit, and that was what mattered most. She did whatever maintenance she could do on her own, as Frank had instilled within her a healthy mistrust of auto-mechanics and warned her, that as a young woman, she was extremely susceptible to their scams.

After parking, she began on her long walk to the college. In South Philly, she passed row homes, corner bodegas, and people who looked like they might have lived on the same street for their entire lives. As she got closer to the downtown, the space surrounding her gradually filled with skyscrapers, Starbucks, sidewalk preachers, people sleeping on the street, and fast walking professionals. The smell of cheese steaks, that permeated the air in South Philly, changed into a less distinct flavor of urban stench.

When she was only a couple of blocks from the college, she heard someone scream her name and was happily surprised to see it was her friend, Rafa. He was a thin fellow with light brown skin and black almond eyes as playful as those of a child.

"Hey Rafa," she said. "It's great to see you."

"You too. What are you doing downtown?" he said, while staring at her outfit—a purple vintage dress and a beat-up pair of clogs.

"Oh, just meeting a friend for lunch," she said, and then quickly asked what he was up to.

"I'm bartending at Dirty Frank's up the street. And oh, you'll love this. I took a couple of woodworking classes, and I've been building all kinds of stuff. Chairs and tables and boxes."

"Wow, that's great," Silvia said, feeling slightly envious of him for his newfound happiness.

"How's your little brother doing?" Rafa said, squinting into the sun. "I remember you brought him to a couple of the Occupy protests."

This question spurred a mini conversation about Vince and college and Berkeley and ended with Rafa giving Silvia his phone number and telling her to give him a call some time if she wanted to go for coffee. She said that she would, though she knew that she probably wouldn't. She didn't know where she was headed next but knew it would be some place far away, so she didn't need to get into any relationships as long as she was here. She needed to be free and unfettered so that as soon as she saved enough money, she could hit the road.

Silvia modeled for a very long and boring anatomy class with all of the students examining her little body as if it was some sort of lab specimen, as they sculpted figures that she silently critiqued. The classroom was big and open and cold like a warehouse with dusty tables and various art supplies scattered messily and piled high on any available shelves. She stood on a platform that was worn and dirty and looked like it could have been a stage in a prison.

She was cold and strained by having to hold the same position for an extended period of time, sometimes as much as twenty minutes. But most of all, she was bored, and every minute felt like an hour. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to look at the clock every two seconds. She tried to focus on job hunting, planning Vince's party, or thinking of where she'd move to next, but her dad's beaten down voice kept running through her head saying "It's no wonder you can't do anything with your life." Maybe he was right. She began slinking into that bottomless hole, when the teacher announced it was time for her break. The teacher was someone she had for the very same class her sophomore year—some stout, bald man with a face like a seal and a dry, monotone voice.

She hopped off the platform, put on her black terry robe, and collapsed as comfortably as she could on some old, wooden chair. She got her phone out to check her email, hoping desperately for that magical email that would take her out of her slump. Scrolling through, she saw the usual crap, but then, she saw one from her friend Emily, who'd recently moved to Portland. A light flickered inside of her, small but bright, and she read the letter in a flash for fear of her break ending before she could find out what Emily had to say. It said that she loved living in Portland and that Silvia was also sure to love it. It was beautiful, and the rain thing was overstated. The people were on their same wavelength, and it may have been the last cool place still standing. She offered that Silvia could come out and stay with her and that they could be roommates. Silvia overflowed with excitement.

"Breaks over," the teacher said.

She didn't care that the break was over, because now her mind had somewhere fun to go —Portland. All kinds of questions zoomed through her, the central one being how would she get there once she had enough money together? She would have to drive, but didn't want to drive alone. She had taken one too many road trips alone.

As she contemplated the possibility of having to take another solo trip to get to Portland, her mind got flooded with a bunch of bad memories of previous solo trips: a long, dark stare from some scary-looking guy in Birmingham while at a gas station; camping through a vicious lightning storm outside of Toledo; some creepy, big trucker who'd asked her if she'd had any plans for the night while checking into a motel near Dallas; the blow out she'd got as she approached El Paso; driving through a rain storm in Little Rock, while giant-sized droplets banged hard and angrily upon her little car; driving on dead E for miles and miles in the New Mexican desert before finding a gas station.

"Change positions," the teacher said, forcing her to halt her rambling mind that went right back into rambling after she changed positions. She thought about staying at her dad's until she had enough money to buy a plane ticket to Portland and to pay to have her car transported across the county on a truck. But who knew how much that would cost or when that would be? It could be well over a year before she had that kind of money. The notion of living in at her dad's in South Jersey for such a long period of time frightened her more than all of her scary road memories put together.

She thought that she might ask Cosmo if he would come with her. Maybe even move out there with her. She didn't consider the sacrifice he'd have to make in leaving his job and finding a new one. She was so used to moving to new places, having to get jobs right away, and finding one within a few days of her arrival. She thought about what job she might get in Portland. She could hear Cosmo saying something about finding a dead-end job. Surely, he was right. It would be dead-end, but she didn't care because she'd be some place wonderful. She looked up at the clock to find that she had not looked at it in over twenty minutes and felt great a sense of accomplishment for that. The class was almost over, so she could get out of this place soon and head over to Cosmo's.

Cosmo's apartment was situated not far from the University he'd attended over six years ago. He dropped out shortly after a big blowout with Frank, when Frank said he'd quit helping him with his tuition. He continued working and living near the college and had managed to make something of a life for himself, but Silvia thought it wasn't much of one. She wasn't exactly sure what he did for a job, but she knew it had something to do with computers, and he told her that monkeys could be trained to do it. He did, however, seem to like his monkey work in that it required very little of him.

The lobby of his apartment building was run down and dingy, with lime green carpets and florescent lights. When Silvia arrived at his door on the second floor, Cosmo let her in, sat down, and continued playing some video game that she apparently had interrupted. "I'm in the middle of something," he said as he opened the door for her, all the while keeping his eyes glued to his phone screen.

She ignored his lack of social grace and went straight over to the window to open the curtains while reviewing in her head her two prerogatives in coming here—to tell him about Vince's party and ask him about coming to Portland. The curtains were always drawn tight in his apartment, making the place dark even on the brightest of days. Cosmo didn't seem to notice or care about the darkness or the grunginess of his home.

The furniture in the place looked as if it came from various dumpster diving excursions. He hid spots or cracks on his walls by taping star maps in front of them. His shelves were crammed with beaten-up science fiction and astronomy books. Everything from tattered comic books to video games consoles were scattered on his floor like change that had fallen out of someone's pockets. An aqua marine colored electric guitar was in one corner of the room, and a telescope was in another, both dusty and long forgotten. His tables were covered with dirty coffee cups and little plastic, painted figurines that could have inhabited a Tolkien book.

After opening the curtains, Silvia removed a smashed bug on the wall, which had been there the last time she visited him over a week ago.

"That's disgusting, Cosmo," she said, removing the bug from the wall with a paper towel she got from the kitchen.

"What?" he said, without looking up from his game. He probably hadn't even noticed the bug. He was, in fact, oblivious to most everything around him, and Silvia supposed it had something to do with his brilliance. "Cosmo's so smart that he forgets to comb his hair," Donna would say. His hair was a wild mess of not-yet-grayed Einstein hair going in all directions like palm trees fronds. He dressed himself in whatever he could find. On that night, it was an old pair of jeans, an orange T-shirt, and a blazer style jacket that made no sense with the rest of his getup and was too short on his tall, lanky body. And of course, a baseball cap. He always had a baseball cap on to keep his bushy hair contained.

"Oh, that bug." He grinned as he looked up. "I was waiting for you to come over. I thought we might give it a proper burial."

"Very funny," Silvia said.

"You hungry?" He went into the kitchen and opened his cabinets, revealing so many cans of tuna fish stacked high on top of each other that it looked as if he might be expecting a natural catastrophe to strike at any minute.

"I brought my own food," she said, taking out an individual-sized container of rice milk and a box of organic cookies with no dairy, no sugar, no wheat, and no soy. She offered one to Cosmo, who took one bite of one of one of the cookies and curled his face up in disgust.

"These taste like tree bark," he said, swallowing his one small bite as if it was killing him.

"Well, I like them, and that's all I care about," she said, defensively.

He went over to his refrigerator, walking in his usual manner with a bounce in his step and his head floating in the air like a part of him that just came along with the rest of him for the ride. By the looks of the ingredients he got out and put on the table, Silvia assumed that he was planning to make tuna fish and spaghetti, an old family favorite passed down to Donna from Grandma Tucci.

"You should take it easy on the tuna fish, you know. It has a lot of mercury in it," she said, sitting down at Cosmo's small kitchen table.

"Yeah, I should," replied Cosmo, completely unconvinced by her warning. She was always warning about something: cell phones, nitrates, trans-fats, slouching, the sun.

"You can get mercury poisoning. Doesn't that worry you?"

"Ah," Cosmo said in a mocking voice. He paused to look at the ceiling as though he was deep in contemplation and then came back with a definitive, "No!"

"Have you talked to Vince?" Silvia asked, ignoring her brother's attempt at a joke.

"No, how's he doing?" He filled a big soup pot with water.

"He's nervous about going so far away, and he's nervous that Dad won't help with his tuition for Berkeley, and he can't get financial aid because Dad makes too much. So, he's not doing so great."

"Oh, don't worry about Dad. He just likes to string people along. I'm sure he'll help him after all is said and done." He began chopping garlic and tomatoes on a cutting board.

Silvia was struck at how indifferently Cosmo often spoke of their dad as Frank had been toughest on him. She thought that Frank could have some jealousy towards his son for being so brainy. He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out where Cosmo got his science gene from but surely thought it was from someone on the Greco side.

Despite Cosmo's braininess, Frank would call him a failure to his face. Cosmo acted like he couldn't care less about their dad's opinion of him, but Silvia thought it seeped in at some deep, almost imperceptible level and that the years of put-downs is what caused Cosmo to drop out of college. By doing so, he'd fulfilled their dad's prophecy and allowed him to speak his same refrain, "He could have done something with his life!"

"I can see Vince in Berkeley," Cosmo said, while stirring spaghetti into boiling water. "He'll fit right in with all his causes."

"He wants to study something about the environment so he can save the world," Silvia added.

"The world's too late for saving," Cosmo said as he opened a can of tuna.

"That's what I tried to tell him but, who knows, maybe he's got something. I mean if we don't start making some serious changes, the dinosaurs will have ended up out-reigning us."

"That sounds like something Vince would say."

"Well, I was thinking we should have some kind of gathering for him, like a graduation party."

"What's that going to do for him or his problem about Dad not paying his tuition?"

"Well...maybe nothing...but it would still be nice. Mom thinks it would be a good thing too. She suggested it."

"I'm surprised she's not nervous about seeing Dad. I sure as hell don't want to see him. Or Angie."

"Well, I'm sure she is, but her feelings for Vince might outweigh her apprehension about seeing Dad."

"You know how cheap Dad can be. He's not going to be crazy about forking for some big dinner out."

"Well maybe we can go someplace cheap. I don't know, a pizzeria or something," Silvia said, leaning forward in her chair.

"You think Angie is going to come down for a pizzeria?" he said, sarcastically while stirring the spaghetti.

"Well, all I'm saying is it would be nice to have a something for Vince where everybody is getting along, or at least pretending to get along. He's nervous about going so far away, and Dad keeps changing his mind about helping with his tuition, and Mom thinks he's really depressed, and it would be nice to have something before he leaves for college." She said all this without taking a break for air.

"Yeah, it would be nice, but I'm not sure how likely a nice, peaceful gathering of our family will be." He placed the tuna, garlic, and tomatoes into a heated frying pan filled with olive oil.

"Well, we can try," she said, frustratingly and then left the room for the bathroom. When she returned, Cosmo was situated in front of the television set with a huge bowl of spaghetti and tuna fish.

"I'd offer you some, but I know you don't want any," he said through his smacking.

"You're right about that," she said, walking over to the TV, on top of which was a DVD of Monty Python's Life of Brian. She picked it up and looked back at her brother, who recommended that they watch it. So, they did.

Watching the movie helped forget about her problems for a little while. But at the end, when the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" played, she slumped down into her seat and started to think of her own life and wonder why, with all that she had to be happy about, she was unable to look on the bright side of life.

She was well aware of the potential harshness of reality and knew that her own life was, relatively speaking, a great life. She read the news that was filled with nothing but war and tragedy. She'd walked plenty of city streets where she had seen homeless people freezing to death before her eyes, wearing trashcan clothes on their broken bodies. She had no real problems, except for her cursed tendency to see what was wrong with things and in particular, places. A tendency she had cultivated like a garden of rotten flowers. A tendency that caused her to want to leave wherever she was.

"Have you ever been to Portland?" she asked, forcing a break in the trend of thought in her head.

"Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon?" he asked.

"Portland, Oregon, of course," she said, as if it should have been perfectly apparent to him which one she was talking about.

"Can't say that I have."

She waited a few seconds for him to ask her why she was asking him if he'd ever been there, but when he didn't say anything, she said, "Well, I'm thinking about moving there."

"What else is new?" He sat back in his seat.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Silvia said, with a fighting expression.

"You move all the time, Silvia."

"Well, so what if I do? It doesn't hurt anyone."

"So, why Portland? Have you ever been there?" Cosmo asked as if he knew what her answer would be.

"No, I haven't. But I have a friend who just moved there, and she loves it. And I've never heard anything but good about it. It's always rated highly in all those books about places to live. And it's supposed to have great public transportation. And—"

Cosmo cut her off probably because he knew that if he didn't interrupt her, he'd be sitting there all night while she rationalized her next relocation.

"So, why do you want to move there?" he asked with emphasis on the word you.

"Because it's where everyone is moving to," she said, trying to convince herself of her answer.

"No, I mean what's in it for you?"

"What's in any place?"

"Exactly."

"I don't get it," she said, puzzling her face. She was beginning to get very frustrated with the way the conversation was going.

"What's wrong with here?" Cosmo said, his hands up in the air with fingers splayed.

"By here, I assume you mean Philadelphia?" She said, and then continued on with her answer to the question before giving him an opportunity to clarify what he meant. "I'm not even sure where to begin. For one thing, it's fucking filthy. It smells like piss and garbage everywhere. It's provincial. And has a high crime rate. And well, it's just gross."

She was preparing to continue with her rant, when Cosmo interrupted, "Maybe if you were doing something you liked to do, you wouldn't care so much about where you are."

Silvia was about to be vindictive and degrade Cosmo's entire existence by saying something to the effect of him being one to talk about doing something he liked. As far as she could see, he was wasting his life away by working a routine job that was beneath him intellectually, spending his spare time playing video games, and going out with women that he didn't really even seem to like. But she stopped herself as she knew, deep down inside, that he was only trying to help. Besides, she'd already done a pretty good job bashing the city in which he lived. Without being willing to put her brother down, she felt deprived of a rebuttal to his silly belief that if she was doing something she liked, this area would suddenly and magically transform into a great place. But then, she thought of something to say in her defense.

"I love to paint, and I do it almost every day. What about that?"

"I mean a job you like."

"Well, maybe I will pursue that path someday, but I'm not doing it here." She folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling.

"So, you have to be in Portland to do that?"

"No, I don't have to be there necessarily. But I can't be here! I won't be here! I'm not staying in this fucking city or anywhere in the area for that matter!"

"You talk about it like it's Baghdad for Christ sake!"

"I know it's not that bad. It's just that I don't feel inspired here."

"Then why did you leave Tucson and come back here?"

"Those summers there were killers," she said, immediately, as if she had her response all prepared for some time now.

"What about New York or Brooklyn I mean?"

"It was too expensive. It's no place for an artist anymore. All the rich people drove the artists out. Same in any big, overrated, overpriced city," she said, as if she had rehearsed this excuse several times as well.

"And Chicago?"

"Have you ever experienced a Chicago winter? They're absolutely brutal."

"And Philly is out for reasons you already stated?" He sounded as if he wasn't expecting an answer, and he continued with, "What about the South? Atlanta? It's cheaper down there."

Silvia looked at him with cynical eyes, "Would you live in the south? A bunch of rednecks down there that say eye-talian."

"So, you'll get to Portland and decide that you don't like it there. It won't take you long to find something wrong with the place, and then you'll get depressed, and you'll come back here and get some shit job and maybe move in with Dad again because you'll be broke."

The ugly words fell upon her like shards of dirty, old bowls. She developed the kind of lump in her throat that precedes tears, but because she wasn't a crier, she got angry with her brother and stormed out of his apartment without saying a word. He must have known that any attempt to dissuade her from leaving would be in vain. He was inclined to make blunt, insensitive remarks, like the time that he said the only kind of jobs Silvia could ever hang on to were those at bookstores or health food stores. She actually appreciated his sense of honesty and could usually tolerate his remarks as long as they weren't about her one and only sensitive spot, which was her inability to stay in one place.

She knew that Cosmo, like everyone else in her life, could never understand how painful it was for her to be still. In less than two years, she'd lived in four states, two of which were in entirely different regions of the country. The planning and the moving were all exciting to her, but once she'd get to wherever she was going, it would just be a place with all the real life stuff of real places—finding an apartment, a job, putting gas in her car, or buying a bike to ride, so she could preserve her car for when she'd have to make her next move. Before and during a move, she'd live on dreams and fantasies of her new home, and as soon as she'd arrive to find it wasn't what she'd dreamt, she'd crash. She'd crash hard like a steel bulldozer into the side of a mountain made of stone. When she occasionally had to stay for longer than a few months out of financial strain, she felt like a lion she'd once seen that had been ruthlessly placed in a very small cage in a rundown zoo somewhere in Arizona.

As she walked down the street to her car, taking fast and angry footsteps, stewing over Cosmo's remarks, she came across a neon sign that said Psychic Reader that she must have passed by several times before, but hadn't noticed until now. She always laughed at psychics and the desperate people who patronized their businesses. But right now, she felt so lost and desperate that she was actually considering going into the psychic shop.

She quickly knocked on the door before she had a chance to reconsider paying the fortuneteller a visit and then waited for almost an entire minute for some lady in a flowing scarf to come to the door, but there was nothing. So, she knocked again, and this time her knocks were hard and loud. Still, there was no answer. She peeked in to see some pudgy lady stuffed into a pair of very unfashionable stone washed jeans, sleeping in front of a television set with an opened phone book thrown over her face to block the light of the street lamp. She walked away.

The drive back to Jersey was short but seemed long with Cosmo's words of doom swimming in Silvia's head like a killer shark eating away the little bit of light she was living on. She knew her brother was right—that she'd find something wrong with Portland shortly after moving there, would get depressed, and head back home, probably to stay at Frank's, once again, for lack of money. But she was still angry at him, and her anger heightened at having to spend her last five dollars on the bridge toll. As she drove, she rehearsed in her mind what she should have said to Cosmo in retaliation of his stupid comment, and her preoccupation with what she should have said caused her to miss her exit. The combination of feeling depressed and angry made her mind like a blank slate, but not the kind of blank slate that is cultivated from years of practicing meditation. Rather, it was a dirty, worn down, gray slate that nothing good could come in or out of.

When she got to her dad's house, she went straight into her room, closed the door, and collapsed on the bed face down, still fully dressed. She once again entered that endless tunnel of hopelessness and dozed off feeling awful. She had about seven hours of light sleep filled with a series of vivid dreams that played in her head like a reel of short horror films. She couldn't remember any of them when she woke except one in which she was being chased by some monster that looked like it was made out of clay and had a head like a giant turnip. No matter which way she turned or how fast she ran, she couldn't get away. The only way out was to wake up, and so finally, she screamed herself awake.

The next morning, Silvia got an email from Cosmo with the closest thing to an apology she'd ever got from him. He included a link to an article from the New York Times about Portland declaring that it was a super place to live. Silvia wrote back to ask him if he would consider moving there with her, offering many reasons that moving to Portland would be good for him: anything he was doing in Philadelphia, he could easily do in Portland; Portland was much nicer than Philly; Portland had a great public transportation system, and as Cosmo didn't own a car, it would be perfect for him; and last but not least, there were lots of cute hipster girls in Portland! He responded by saying that, despite her viable arguments, he still didn't see any compelling reason why he should move to Portland and added that he couldn't stand hipsters.

She would have written back with more attempts at persuasion, but she had other things to worry about like looking for jobs and getting her family together for the party. The primary difficulty in getting her family together stemmed from the fact that they were so fragmented, and they were in pieces mainly because of her dad's drinking. His drinking is what caused Donna to leave. It's what caused them all to go their separate ways and lack the togetherness they'd once had. It's what caused them to fight when they were together. Even the disharmony that lived between Cosmo and Angie was because of Frank's drinking. Being a drunk made him a shitty parent, which is why he favored Angie and made Cosmo the black sheep.

She knew she had to work on this drinking thing right away and that once she got her dad sober, he'd willingly come to the gathering. After she got Frank to agree to go, she'd tell Angie and Cosmo that he was coming, and then, they'd also have to go. How could they be such stubborn brats when the biggest brat of all was being so utterly decent? The first step in sobering Frank up would be to get him to an AA meeting, and she decided that Angie would be the best person to help coax him into going. But Angie wasn't in agreement with her.

"Dad's not going to go for that, Silv. You know that," Angie told Silvia over the phone. Silvia could hear Angie's little daughter, Isabella, crying in the background, so she said goodbye to her sister.

After hanging up with Angie, she considered calling her Uncle Nick who had several years of sobriety under his belt and had been attending meetings for many years. Uncle Nick was Frank's older brother. He was shorter, stouter, and much gentler than Frank, and sometimes it was hard to believe they were even related. He used to come to their house every Christmas dressed up as Santa Claus with lots of hugs and toys for all of the Greco kids.

So when Silvia called her uncle to tell him that she was sure that her dad was an alcoholic, and sure that Donna left him because of it, Nick wasted no time in calling his brother and convincing him that going to a meeting was the only way he was ever going to be able to quit drinking. But both Silvia and her uncle failed to recognize one very crucial nugget of information: Frank didn't want to quit. He didn't have a problem with his drinking. Everyone else did. But he went along with the whole meeting thing to appease his brother and quite possibly to make his persistent daughter relent a little.

Silvia got the day and time of the meeting and told Frank various times throughout the week that they would be going to the Wednesday night meeting at seven o'clock. She also left a note on the kitchen table on the morning of the meeting. Even though she knew that there was no way he could have forgotten, he pretended that their plans slipped his mind, and when she came home at 6:30 in the evening, she found him sitting in the kitchen having a drink.

"Dad!" she snapped as he was taking a sip from his glass. "You know we're going to that meeting tonight!"

"Oh, I forgot," he said with a smirk that made it obvious to Silvia that he was lying. "Well, just wait until I finish this drink, and we'll go."

Silvia knew that he didn't expect her to take him up on the offer to go to the meeting after having a drink, so he seemed surprised when she came back from her room in a change of clothes and told him that she was all ready to go. She drove, while Frank switched the radio. When he decided that there was nothing on the radio that he wanted to hear, he began whistling. He whistled loud and clear, making occasional trills. He was an excellent whistler, and Silvia always thought that if he had ever entered some sort of whistling contest, he would easily win. Whistling seemed like a happy-person thing to do, so she wondered why he whistled. Maybe there was a part of him that wanted to be happy, that wanted to break free from his shell of misery, and whistling was how he tried to do it.

The meeting was held in a room in the back of a local church, with dim lighting and a bunch of rat colored folding chairs formed in a circle. It was the same room where seniors played bingo on Friday nights, where children had their catechism classes on Sunday mornings, and where alcoholics came to get sober on various nights throughout the week. With a group of well over thirty people, Silvia assumed that she picked a popular meeting. There were a few formalities in the beginning, including an opportunity for any newcomers to announce to the group that he or she had never before attended a meeting, at which time, Frank elected to stay silent.

Silvia had no expectations of him speaking up. She knew that, as far as he was concerned, he should not even be at this meeting. He wasn't an alcoholic. He was just someone who liked to have a good time. He would not have come to the meeting had it not been for his desire to please his brother. Frank claimed to be an extrovert, needing to have people constantly around him, which went along with his choice to drink. He was a highly sociable person who liked to have fun, and Silvia was an introverted weirdo who could stay by herself painting happily for hours. Her diagnosis of him as an alcoholic was also due to her own abnormality, which was undoubtedly the fault of Donna's bad genes. She could sense Frank sitting there next to her as an observer, not a participant of this group of defective people to which he didn't belong. But at least he was there.

A few people spoke for only a few minutes, each giving brief updates of their week. One man was having a very bad week.

"A huge tree fell on my car this week," the man said through his big, seventies mustache. "Lucky, I wasn't in it. But maybe it would have been better if I had been in it. I got pink slipped this week at work, and my ex is bringing me back to court to get an extension on her alimony."

A skinny woman with dark, almost black lipstick, spoke up in a cigarette voice. In addition to her bad week involving a cheating boyfriend, it seemed that her entire life consisted of nothing but problems. She spoke quickly attempting to squeeze all of her problems into the short amount of time that she was given to share. Most of what she said was an indecipherable blur with certain select phrases like "cheating-no-good-mother-fucker" and "some-crazy-bitch-at-work" popping out. She'd been to three other meetings this week alone, including Narcotics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and Love and Sex Addicts Anonymous.

Next, a guy who looked like an over-aged high school burnout, talked briefly about how he'd recently traded in his addiction to pot, or as he called it, his TCH maintenance, for drinking. He never liked the taste of alcohol too much, so he figured it would not be so dangerously addictive for him, but he was wrong.

"And before I knew it, I was a boozer," he said with the laugh of a simpleton.

Next, a very hunched over tall lady spoke. As she spoke, her eyes grew big and filled with fire. "I'm feeling like I'm going to do something scary. Really scary. I don't know what it is yet." Her hands were shaking, and she was moving back and forth in her seat, making her stringy hair move through the air like strands of hay blowing in the wind.

After each person spoke, no matter how grave or sad or lighthearted their story was, no one else in the group commented. They all just sat there listening with blank faces and stiff bodies. They remained this way for the entire duration of the main speaker's long, sad story, which lasted for about a half an hour. The speaker was a thin, older man with white hair, a face full of worry lines, and a navy-blue suit that looked as worn out as the rest of him. His tired eyes and broken smile spoke loud and clear of the many hardships through which he'd stumbled, but not as loud and clear as his story that had a marked similarity to Silvia's story.

Despite the man's soft-spoken voice, his words blasted in her ears. This man had her same proclivity to move from state to state and city to city, and he referred to himself as a "geographic." With each move, he had conveniently erased his past mistakes only to make new ones. He stopped moving once he got sober, but sobriety took years. Meanwhile, he'd lived in denial of his alcoholism and his inability to stay in one place. Each new place was more than a clean slate. It was an opportunity to be a new person. A person who might magically lose his desire to drink. A person without pain.

Silvia was sitting forward with her shoulders back and her head straight up as she listened intently to the speaker. He too grew up in a household with a drunk for a parent. His mom started drinking when his dad left her and their three children for a shot as a film star in Hollywood. As her drinking had progressed, so did her erratic behavior towards her children, who didn't know what to expect from her and, eventually, from the world. They'd remained in a constant state of fear, always on guard.

The speaker had grown to hate his home and left it as soon as he could at the age of eighteen. He wanted to get as far away as he could, but he had very little money, so he hitchhiked to Los Angeles. He said that he may have secretly wanted to find his dad, but that he never found him. Instead, he found a group of free loving acidheads who encouraged him to come with them up to San Francisco. "And that's when it all started," he said, as if he was exhausted merely by the act of talking about his past.

This marked the beginning his twenty-year career of drugging, drinking, and moving. He'd started over more times than he could remember. He'd lived in twenty-five different cities in ten different states, many of which he moved back to repeatedly. Every move brought with it a set of high hopes, which he knew, somewhere in the back of his head, would soon be shattered. With each new move, he drunk more and more, and quitting seemed more and more hopeless.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to quit, and one night, he ended up passed out on a sidewalk in the lower east side of New York, where he'd just moved back to for the third time. It was on this night that some homeless guy stabbed him in his right leg. "I thought I knew what bottom was until then. This was truly bottom, though," he said. He was rushed to a hospital, where his doctor urged him to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He took the doctor's advice, and he'd been sober ever since that night. His move to South Jersey in 1985 was his last.

Silvia felt that the speaker may have been there to warn her to change her ways, or she too would be going down the same tragic hole. But her story could never possibly be that tragic. For one thing, she wasn't an alcoholic and had no intention of ever becoming one. For another thing, this move to Portland would very well be her last move. And her habit of moving wasn't a compulsion. It was bohemian. Gypsy. It was just something that she needed to get out of her system. It was just a coincidence that both the speaker and Silvia grew up in alcoholic households and grew into people who liked to move from place to place on a very frequent basis. She would never end up as some broken down person telling a room full of people about her regrets and mistakes and how AA had saved her life.

Frank wanted to leave right after the meeting had finished, and Silvia, feeling weak from trying to differentiate herself from the speaker and convince herself that she would not end up anything like him, didn't have the energy to make her dad stay and try to socialize with the others. She wanted to get out of there herself, away from the speaker, away from the doomed version of what she might become.

Frank insisted on driving home and stopping off at a local diner that was inconveniently positioned on a traffic circle. It was a big, shiny, chrome-covered rectangle filled with red vinyl booths and a counter that stretched almost the entire length of the place. They ordered garlic fries and milkshakes. When the waitress asked if Frank wanted anything to drink, Silvia just glared at him, forcing him to tell the waitress that he would just have water. Silvia went to use the restroom, and by the time she got back, the waitress had brought their milkshakes, and Frank had nearly finished his.

"I hate it when it's over," Frank said, taking the final sip of his malted shake.

On extremely rare occasions, Silvia felt connected to Frank, and this was one of those rare occasions. He was like a big, overgrown boy saddened by the ending of a milkshake. She even offered him some of hers because she knew that, despite his intense craving for more, he was too cheap to buy another. He was simple and innocent at that moment, and his eyes turned young. She had trouble comprehending how this harmless, youthful creature could coexist in the same body with the scary, old man that was Frank. It seemed as if whenever any good tried to glimmer through, the stronger more powerful side of his being would crush it.

She remembered back to the time that she got the scholarship to art school and how proud he was of her achievement. "You're going to be the next Botticelli!" he'd told her with a smile so big that it looked almost painful. At first, she'd thought his elation was due to his being off the hook of having to pay her tuition. But it was more than just his sense of frugality. He really was proud, and Silvia had felt his approval shining down on her for the first and only time in her life. It was, however, a very short-lived period of time, as she suspected it would be, and soon Frank was back to his typical way of being in the world.

She'd come home one day to find her belongings out on the front porch, and upon going inside, she saw a note on the table that had said that she had to leave the house immediately. Donna had been away at a conference for work, so she couldn't intercede as she usually did on her children's behalf. Silvia had wondered what she could have done to upset Frank, but she also knew that her wondering was useless because with him, it was anybody's guess.

Maybe he had been upset that she, like all of his other children, wasn't following in his footsteps and studying law or studying something like philosophy that would prepare her for law school. He was as unpredictable and volatile as a volcano. She also knew that, whatever eruption was happening inside of him, would soon settle down, and so she gathered her belongings on the front porch and went to a friend's house for the night.

"So, what did you think of the meeting?" she asked him. His face turned from remorse, for finishing both his and her shakes, to suspicion.

"Why are you so interested in getting me to an AA meeting all of a sudden? Did Mom put you up to this?" he said.

"Oh, what the fuck, Dad! Can't a daughter take some interest in her dad's well-being?" she said as she gathered bits of garlic and placed them on a fry.

"Watch your language."

"What about you? You curse all the time."

"That's different. I'm old. It doesn't matter that I curse." He looked down sadly again at his remaining couple drops of milkshake.

"So, you still haven't answered my question," she said, disregarding his warning about the use of profanities.

"It was pretty much what I expected." He looked jaded, and in an effort to take himself out of the discussion, he said, "Boy, that speaker had some story, huh?"

"Well, how did you feel about being there?" she said, with an emphasis on the word you.

"All right, I guess," he said, as if her question made no sense.

"Did you get anything out of it?"

"What do you mean by that?" He squished up his face like a prune.

"Could you relate to any of the other little stories or the big story?"

"Not really."

"So, what's the chance of us going back next Wednesday?" She said this mustering up as much hopefulness as she could.

"I don't really see the need for it. Look at that one woman with all the problems. The one with the dark lipstick. She goes to meetings all the time, and they don't seem to be doing her any good. In fact, they could be making her worse." Then he said he had to go to the bathroom and left without giving his daughter a chance to respond. As soon as he came back, she said, "I doubt the meetings are making her worse," as if there'd been no break in the conversation.

"Making who worse?"

"Dark Lipstick," she said, making her dad laugh at the nickname she suddenly adopted for the woman from the meeting. His laughter was loud and mighty, like the rest of him. It made Silvia remember that he wasn't always miserable, that he liked to laugh, and that he had a good sense of humor when he wasn't busy being angry.

"Well, do you think you might go back, Dad? We'll go together again."

"Yeah, why not?"

Silvia was elated at his response, and she began to think of her venture on this night as a great achievement. She was getting through to him when no one else could. She had a very quick miniature fantasy about him being a sober man, a good dad, winning Donna back, and them all living peacefully ever after. She was quite proficient at fantasizing, and within twenty seconds, she was able to have a complete vision of what her family would become thanks to her amazing self.

She saw Frank and her sitting in the living room with Vince and Cosmo and Angie. He was talking about how grateful he was to Silvia for saving him. He was calm and still and not his usual jumpy self, and he sat all the way back in his chair instead of on the edge. He was apologetic for not being a better dad and was soliciting his children for ideas on how to get Donna back. Angie may have felt some slight jealousy towards Silvia for not being Frank's favorite for the first time in her life, but Silvia was, after all, the savior.

She would be the one to save Frank, and he was someone worth saving. He was, in fact, a great person and to have his greatness lost in a bottle of scotch was a terrible thing that affected not only himself and his family, but the world at large, as he was the type of person that had the potential to make a difference in the world. He wasn't the type of attorney that was just out to make a quick buck. He was the kind that was always on the side of the underdog—the old, the poor, the disabled, people of color—the ones who had been wronged by the system and therefore, by life. Even for clients not wrongly accused, he could look well beyond their rightful accusations and into the real cause of their wrongdoings. Silvia wondered why he couldn't do that for himself.

His growing disillusionment with the corrupt system in which he worked so hard to save edged its way in through his spirit, little by little, until he turned into a broken man. The final culprit was an elderly client evicted from her apartment so that the new landlord could convert the building into condominiums. She was ruthlessly kicked out, and when Frank tried to fight for her rights, he was smashed by a system that was too big to fight. When he was asked to be a judge in his town's local courthouse, he accepted this honor with indifference. The part of him with hopes and dreams, the part that Vince had so strongly inherited, had faded out of him. Silvia could almost understand how something, like a lost dream, could drive a person drink.

But Donna claimed that it wasn't just a series of bad events that led to his alcoholism, but that he had been a drunk for most of this life. Donna thought that if he had a different mom, he may never have been an alcoholic. But if he had a different mom, Silvia thought, he wouldn't be who he was and therefore, neither would she. Frank's mom was a short, angry woman with tremendous breasts and an intensely stern stare. She was calculating and clandestine, and she spent her time spreading false rumors about her children in an effort to turn them against each other. She told Frank's younger brother, Paul that Frank thought he was cheap and told Frank the same thing about Paul. She told Nick that Frank didn't think much of him because he and his wife were childless and told Frank that Nick thought his kids were spoiled brats.

By the time Silvia was old enough to have any recognition of anything, most of the damage in her dad's family had already been done, and she only experienced the aftermath of the many wars within his family that had taken place. For a short while, Paul lived in the same town as Frank, and when any member of one family would encounter a member of the other, they would just pretend that they didn't see each other. Frank's children were forbidden to speak with any of their Uncle Paul's children, so she had no opinion of her cousins because she didn't know them.

Silvia's memories of her Grandma Greco were mostly of her talking about dying, which, according to Frank, she'd been doing since he was a small boy. She talked about it like it was a formal occasion, like a prom, a ball, or a wedding. She talked about her death as if it would be the end of everybody's world. She talked about it as if it was something she was looking forward to. But when her body actually did get old, she held onto life like a vine clinging to an old brick building, seeping her crinkled hands into the cracks of humanity.

She stayed in her house and saturated every nook and cranny with her crusty old smell. Silvia hated her house, which was dark and stale smelling and cluttered with useless, tasteless crap, like cheap ceramic figurines that looked as if they were purchased at the local dollar store. Silvia remembered being very disappointed when she found out that she and her family had to go to her house for Easter one year. Grandma Greco insisted on having the occasion at her house with her three sons and their children. Easter was her favorite holiday. Donna figured that this was because Easter had something to do with the long and painful suffering of Jesus. She relished her own suffering as if she got the greatest joy from it. Grandma Tucci would call this "bella miseria," which meant beautiful misery.

Grandma Greco had palms hanging on the walls in her kitchen and her dining room. She'd made stuffed shells and a ham with pineapple. She had bought Perogina chocolate eggs that were to be given out to the grandchildren. Unfortunately, there were not enough eggs for all of them.

"I didn't expect your family to come," she'd said to Frank in her shriveled-up voice. "You didn't come last year or the year before." Frank could have responded back that they were not invited to her house for the past two years, but he didn't say anything. He respected her simply because she was his mom. The poor Greco children sat sad and chocolateless, gazing resentfully at their cousins. Uncle Nick had gone out after dinner and bought some Easter candy for Frank's kids as a form of compensation, but the old woman had nothing for them. Nor did she have any remorse or regret for buying less. Donna had assumed it was intentional.

Silvia didn't hate anything short of the really evil stuff like Nazis and terrorists, but she came pretty close to hating her Grandma Greco. It wasn't so much for the way she'd treated her and her siblings. It was how diligently and perseveringly she grinded away at her dad's sense of self-worth. According to Donna, she downright disliked Frank and disliked him even more after his motorcycle accident. What use could he be to her around the yard with that pathetic limp he'd developed as a result of the accident?

Her husband, Silvia's grandfather, was dead by the time she was born. In the pictures that Silvia had seen, his hunched back and his forward leaning head made him look like he was always carrying a load of stuff on his shoulders. He died of a heart attack before Silvia was born. According to Donna, he was a nice man who smoked and drank heavily. "And with a wife like his, who wouldn't?" Donna would say. Silvia was relieved when her sinister grandma died, as she couldn't contaminate any more family gatherings, including Vince's graduation dinner.

"I think that we should do something to commemorate Vince's graduation," Silvia said to Frank in a nervous voice. "We can all go out to the Central Cafe or something."

"Are you serious? You know I'm going to end up paying for the whole thing if we do have something. You know I'm paying for his tuition, and for Christ sake, taxes are due in a couple of months!"

Silvia could have persisted, but she didn't. In fact, she didn't say another word on the subject. She had so few good times with her dad, and she didn't want to spoil the good time that she was having with him now. So, she kept her mouth shut and decided that she'd re-approach the subject the very next time that he was in a bearable mood. She only hoped that that time would be soon, as Vince's graduation was around the corner.
CHAPTER THREE: HOW TO BE FREE

When Silvia painted, she was free. Time didn't move forward, but back and forth like it did in a dream. She never thought of moving to a new place when she painted. She never thought of going anywhere. It was the only time when she was just where she wanted to be and when her mind was still rather than whirling about like a stick in a tornado.

She used bright, cheerful colors and painted with big thick lines. Her world was inhabited by mythological beings with human-like qualities, and her fantastical universe was set against the strange and beautiful back drop of some otherworldly place. Her influences were varied: Henri Rousseau, Frida Kahlo, Hieronymous Bosch to name a few. But most of all, Donna's brother, her Uncle Vincent.

He was the reason she'd gone to art school. He was the one, more than anyone, who nurtured her drawing. She still remembered him coaching her along as she drew pictures of her Grandma Tucci right after she'd died. Vincent, himself, had died only a few years after that. Unlike her other influences, he didn't learn to paint from any great masters, and his paintings never hung in any galleries. But to Silvia, he was the truest of artists—one who just created for the sake of creating.

Painting real life was boring to Silvia, so she was surprised when she caught herself starting a self-portrait. She wanted to capture who she was beneath her skin. She wanted to convey the greatness of her spirit that often felt trapped inside her tiny body, how she was young and old at the same time, and the little light deep inside of her that never stopped burning. She made herself small enough to fit other stuff on her canvas, but wasn't sure what else she wanted to include in the painting.

She listened to the Beatles album Revolver as she painted herself. She always listened to music when she painted. Not the kind of music that bounced off her, but the kind of music that penetrated her skin and touched every cell of her being. Her taste was eclectic—everything from rock to folk to psychedelic. The music seemed to go right through her and ended up, somehow, on the canvas. If you stared at any of her paintings long enough, you could hear guitars, harmonicas, and even the occasional wah-wah peddle.

She'd been invited to join in gallery receptions and even had a couple of her own but tended to steer away from the more elitist galleries, as she thought art was for everyone, not just the wealthy and affluent. She participated in making public murals and did some street art on the sneak. Even though Frank didn't fully appreciate her work, he knew that other people did, and he thought that she was foolish by choosing not to capitalize on her talents.

Maybe he was right, she was thinking on this particular rainy day. And maybe, if she had listened to him, she wouldn't have to go jobhunting at the mall later that day. She didn't like malls at all. They were so completely insulated that they reminded her of Biosphere 2 or some other weird science fiction experiment. They made her feel more trapped and claustrophobic than she did already. The excess of merchandise everywhere had a reverse effect upon her by not only making her not want to shop, but by making her never want to own anything for the rest of her life. The constant low-grade noise that pervaded the air made her weak and dizzy. The other shoppers who strolled as if they were enjoying themselves made her feel angry and alien, because she couldn't relate to their ability to derive pleasure from this environment.

Despite her negative feelings towards the mall, she needed a job. Her fear of being stuck in her dad's house, had already come true, and now, she feared having to stay there for an indefinite period of time. She was ready and willing to do whatever necessary to make money so that she could move to her next place. She'd been writing back and forth to Emily since she'd heard from her and had become sure that that next place would be Portland. Whenever she started to drag in her job-hunting endeavors, she just thought of her new place and became instantly energized like a battery-operated toy.

She dressed in her most conservative looking attire, which consisted of black cotton pants and a white button-down shirt—the same outfit she'd worn at a previous banquet server job. Her hair was evenly and freshly colored dark brown and pulled back in a big, slick, black barrette. Copies of her resume were in hand, showing all of her previous work experience. Of course, she listed only jobs that she'd left in good standing, which eliminated most of the jobs at which she'd worked. She'd listed in reverse chronological order: a natural food market in Tucson, a pottery store in Philadelphia, a used bookstore in Chicago, and an art supply store in Brooklyn.

Although she had a problem keeping a job, she never had a problem finding one, and she didn't need the lure of a HELP WANTED sign to walk into a shop and ask if help was needed, and for her proactive approach, she was often rewarded. But on this particular day, she tried nearly thirty shops with nothing but negative responses. She was ready to go for her second Cinnabon when she noticed a candy store that, for some reason, she'd never noticed before.

It was called, Savor the Flavor, and was filled with big, plastic bins containing a rainbow of bright-colored candy. It had everything from gummy worms to candy corn to yogurt coated malt balls to chocolate covered raisins. The place was crammed with shoppers loading up little white paper bags with candy and taking them to the register. The cashier looked overwhelmed and jaded at the same time and wore an electric green apron that matched the rest of the store. Silvia was reluctant to ask her if help was needed because of her very uninviting expression, but approached the girl none-the-less. The girl, in turn, called out to a man named James, who came through a door in the back of the store wearing a navy suit jacket. He was tall and thin and stiff and moved like a life-sized wooden puppet. He was either the owner or the manager.

"Hello," Silvia greeted him professionally. "I was wondering if you are looking for help."

"As a matter of fact, we are looking for a store manager. What kind of experience do you have?" He was curt and to the point, and Silvia liked that in a person. She took her resume out and handed it to him. He took one look at her resume and blurted out, "How do you live in all these places?"

She laughed, pretending to find this comment a humorous interpretation of her life, instead of the truth. She had a rich laugh that was just one more thing adding to her magnetism, and he asked if she could do an interview on the spot.

"Let's go sit down and talk in the office," he said.

She never had such an easy time making it to an interview, and she anxiously followed him while rehearsing in her head what she would say to sell herself. He took her into the "office," which was nothing more than a broom closet jammed full of boxes of candy stacked on top of each other on some steel shelves.

They each sat on a couple of stools parked in the center of the room. When he asked her if she had any managing experience, she drew upon the few times that she had to train a new employee at her previous job at the natural foods market. She also talked about her opening and closing responsibilities at the art supply shop and how she was solely responsible for the upkeep of the pottery store. She didn't mention the fact that the pottery store was the size of a large walk-in closet, and that therefore, there wasn't much inventory to be responsible for. Nor did she mention that the opening and closing responsibilities at the art supply store involved unlocking and locking the front door of the store. Rather, she embellished the duties of her past jobs. She also provided James with a brief description of the many qualities that would be sure to add greatly to the candy store's success.

"I'm a fast learner, punctual, hard-working, and enthusiastic," she said, her eyes open wide as if she drank too much coffee. Except for the fast learner thing, these were all lies, but she had the looks and the energy to make anyone believe that she did possess all of these qualities and more. James certainly seemed convinced. But convincing this stranger that she was here to stay after glancing at her resume would be much more difficult than convincing him that she would make a good candy store manager.

"So, I see you moved around a lot. Are you here to stay?" he said through a laughter that seemed magnified in the small space.

"I just purchased a mobile home only a few miles away from the mall," she told him. "So, I won't be going anywhere."

She surprised herself at coming up with this lie that came from her experience driving past a mobile home development this morning on the way to the mall. James looked back at her with a combination of credulity and admiration, undoubtedly for being so young to have purchased her own home. She knew that mobile homes were cheap, especially in today's crumbling real estate market, so this lie wasn't so far out of the realm of possibility.

He told her that he would give her a call after he checked her references, and he kept his promise. He called the next night to tell her that she was hired as the new store manager. She was scheduled every day from nine to six except Tuesday and Thursday. He told her about the other employees at the store. There was Dave, a diabetic, who ironically worked in a candy store. There was Haley, a senior in high school who worked the night shift. The night manager was a kindergarten teacher named Lisa. He then told Silvia that he would meet her the next day at nine in the morning in front of the store.

Silvia hung the phone up feeling proud of herself. She was almost embarrassed for feeling proud of her new mall job. But it was, never-the-less, an accomplishment. It was a management job. And it was in a candy store. It would be fun. When she thought of candy, she thought of her family's summer trip to Canada when she got a big lollipop that had vibrant swirls that went around and around. She enjoyed looking at it even more than she enjoyed eating it. Cosmo tried to hypnotize her with it. Angie tried to steal it from her. And Vince just looked at it with curiosity and wonderment. There were no giant-sized swirl lollipops at Savor the Flavor, but there was a plethora of other candy varieties. The next day when James met her at the store, he talked about all of the candy but mostly about the gummy bears.

"They're your bread and butter," he said with a big grin, assuming she cared about the sales of the store as much as he did. "If the distributor ever tries to send you a box of blue whales after you've specified gummy bears on the order form, don't accept it!" He spoke in a very serious tone. Then he went on about the blue whales as if he had something against them. "They just sit there in the bins. They don't move."

Silvia couldn't imagine getting on the phone with anyone, demanding that they compensate her for their blue whale mistake. She wondered how long James worked for the company before he began speaking in this strange candy language. Furthermore, she found it difficult to keep a straight face as she listened to a grown man talk so seriously and passionately about candy. But he was, after all, the vice president of the company. And to his credit, the company was doing well.

There were eleven other Savor the Flavors spread throughout malls in Southern New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. The store where Silvia now worked ranked pathetically low in sales at number ten, but she felt nothing for the cause of bringing up the sales. In fact, she was probably doing the locals a favor by keeping the sales low, thereby not contributing to the local population's obesity problem. Of course, she would not reveal a trace of her work ethic or her inherent laziness for this cause to James. As far as he was concerned, she was a shiny, young, ambitious recruit starved for learning the business of candy and eager to increase sales.

While James continued to talk, she half paid attention and half fantasized about moving to Portland, and as the minutes drifted on, his voice got so muffled that he came to sound like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Fantasizing would be the only way she would be able to endure the remainder of her orientation. She imagined herself in a café in Portland with her friend, Emily. They were talking about something more meaningful to her than gummy bears and blue whales. She then saw herself riding her bike in the rain and going out to eat burritos with her new boyfriend. And of course, he was the one. She'd searched high and low, but she'd finally found the one. She then imagined herself at whatever job she could find there, and this is where the fantasy became most vague and even somewhat disturbing. She saw herself working in a mall job just like this one, and suddenly, James's speech became clearer and more pronounced. It was actually a good time for her fantasy to go sour, as he was talking about the process for ordering.

"Orders are made every week," he said. "They're called into our main office in the city."

He showed her the process for ordering, and then it was about time for the store to open to the public. He turned on the store's fluorescent lights that made the candy shine so brightly that Silvia's eyes burnt for a quick second. Children were waiting anxiously at the doors, accompanied by their tired-looking moms seeking to appease their little ones with candy so that they could proceed with a day of shopping. Silvia hadn't had much experience with children, other than babysitting many years ago, so they may as well have been really short aliens from another planet.

A small Asian girl with pigtails and overalls ran towards the coke bottle candy canister, opened the lid, and took out a piece of candy right as her mom came over to reprimand her. The mom then looked at Silvia and apologized for her daughter's misbehavior. Silvia wasn't used to being apologized to. Usually she was the one apologizing to someone for something. It felt good to be on the right side of the fence. She then felt a little tug on her shirt and looked down to see a little boy, with dark hair and big-rimmed glasses, who wanted to ask her something. It felt good to be bigger than someone for once.

"Hey lady," he said, his little face looking up at her, eyes like saucers. "Can you get me a lemon slice?"

"A lemon slice please," his mom, who was standing behind him, said.

"Oh, yeah, please," the little boy said.

"Sure honey," Silvia said, who then asked James to show her how to open the candy case where the fruit slices lived. He gladly showed her how to open the case and demonstrated how the fruit slices should be properly taken out with tongs and placed in the tiny paper bags used for candy from the case. He was business-like and efficient but also had a sweetness about him. Silvia figured he had to be sweet to work in the candy business.

The morning flew by, and before she knew it, it was lunch-time. She forgot to bring her lunch, so she went down to the food court and bought the only thing that she could afford-- a bowl of rice at the Chinese restaurant stand. After lunch, she went right back to the candy store without the usual dread she felt when returning to other jobs after a break. She thought it might be because she was working with a completely new group of people. Her lack of familiarity with children didn't make her uncomfortable. It made her curious.

When she saw them entering the store with fresh, innocent faces, her own curiosity about them increased. To her great surprise, she was only slightly irritated by the whiners. Mostly, she found the children's spontaneity and their lack of conformity to social customs refreshing. They were free in their own simple way. Silvia attributed their ability to be free to the fact that they were too young to care how others perceived them. As she peered around the store, with kids running wild and bright candy colors, she started to feel like maybe this job wouldn't so bad. Maybe she'd even eventually start to care about the difference between gummy bears and blue whales.

Silvia met her mom at an Ethiopian place in downtown Philly. Silvia knew that Donna wasn't crazy about Ethiopian food, but it was one of the only places around with some decent vegetarian options. Silvia arrived in the small restaurant to find her mom waiting at a table off to the side. She looked fresh and vital, her olive skin glowing like a freshly waxed apple and her hair pulled back to reveal the high cheekbones that Silvia wished she had inherited. In recent years, Donna began looking downtrodden, tired, and worn out. But since she'd left Frank, she looked great.

"Hey Mom," Silvia said, hugging her. "You look great." She was glad to see her mom shining with vitality that could only be attributed to her being away from Frank, and she could see now that her mom had no intention or desire to get back with him. While glad for Donna, she was also sad. Her sadness about their separation confused her and came upon her unexpectantly. She thought she'd feel nothing but relief and happiness at Donna's departure. She knew that Donna was much better off without Frank and that he was better off without her. Maybe now he would get himself together.

Although their marriage had soured, there was a time when they were really in love. Silvia had seen photographs of her parents as a couple when they were young, and there was no mistaking that in-love look that glimmered in both of their eyes. Her favorite photo was one of them that must have been taken when they first met—playing in the snow in the backyard of Donna's old house. They made music, Silvia was sure, and together, they were free. She tried to remember when Frank changed from the sweet guy in the photographs, looking happy, fun, and in love, to the miserable, angry person he was now. She tried to remember when her mom's face stopped shining and became dull, or when her eyes lost their brightness and started peering out into the world as if there was nothing to see. She tried to remember when her parents came apart and stopped being free together.

"You look great too," Donna said to Silvia.

Silvia was dressed in her favorite style of sixties vintage clothing, with an orange mini skirt, a bright yellow top, and knee-high length, white boots. She looked like a sunflower from 1969. It was the first day in a long time that she felt like dressing in a happy outfit, and the cheerful attire marked a symbolic end to her recent depression.

"You order, honey," Donna said to Silvia as the waitress came to the table. She had a bright red satin dress that shimmered against her chocolate skin.

Silvia pretty much knew the menu by heart, so she didn't need to look at it, and she just ordered a dish with pumpkin, one with yellow peas, and one with collard greens. As soon as the waitress left, Silvia told her Mom she had two pieces of big news.

"Let's hear them," Donna said, full of exuberance.

"Last night, I got Dad to go to an AA meeting." Silvia was shining proud until she saw the look of joy fade from her mom's face. It was quickly replaced with something that combined shock and disappointment in one expression.

"Wow," Donna said, staring out into space as if trying to figure something out. That may have been the most pathetic wow Silvia had ever heard.

"You don't sound so thrilled," Silvia said.

"I'm sorry, Silvie. I am really proud of you. It's just that...I was never able to get him to one myself, so..."

"Don't feel so bad, Mom," Silvia said right away. "It wasn't easy. I told him we had to go as he was having a drink. He said, 'Just wait till I finish this drink,' like he never expected me to take him up on the offer. But I did. You know me."

To Silvia's great relief, her mom laughed, and she joined her. Then, Donna asked how he did at the meeting.

"He just sat there like he didn't belong, silently casting judgement on everybody else."

"That's just like your dad," Donna said as the food came.

Silvia didn't bother telling Donna that he'd agreed to go to another meeting because she didn't want to make her feel bad. Rather, she warned her about the spiciness of the pumpkin dish.

"Where's the pumpkin?" Donna asked about the dish, which was brown instead of orange. She prodded it with her fork to reveal a piece of pumpkin buried beneath a thick dark brown sauce. "Oh, here it is, not very Thanksgiving, huh?"

Silvia was glad it wasn't very Thanksgiving-like as she had no nostalgia for this holiday. One of the last ones they'd shared as a family resulted in Donna and Silvia's siblings spending the night in a motel. Frank had been looking really hard for a fight and was frustrated at not finding one. So, when Cosmo had shown up for dinner stoned, Frank was relieved to find an excuse to fight. Donna telling him to "Take it easy" propelled him into a state of rage that stayed fresh in Silvia's mind to this day. His quick, Incredible Hulk transformation was followed by a scream at Donna to "Fuck off!"

He screamed at Cosmo, "You no-good-for-nothing loser of a son! You'll never make anything out of yourself!" His arms were raised in the air as if he was holding a giant rubber ball above his head as he yelled. But Cosmo had just kept on eating. In fact, he was the only one eating. Frank's frenzied abuse had seemed to bounce off of him, as he'd shoved a continuous stream of food into his mouth. His lack of reaction had caused Frank to get more upset, and he had started throwing plates and glasses on the kitchen floor. After that, he'd started crying like an overgrown child as if he was furious and remorseful at the same time.

When he'd gone into the bathroom, Donna had grabbed the kids, and they'd all made an escape, piling into her mom's car and zooming down the driveway. Donna had stopped at a Wawa to buy a pack of cigarettes as soon as they were far enough away from the house. Silvia had felt so upset at seeing her mom reignite the habit she'd worked so hard to quit. They drove until they reached a Motel 6 around Moorestown and settled in for the night.

As they all huddled together in the small, dark motel room, Silvia could feel the sense of relief they all shared. But relief was only one of the many emotions. There was also sadness, confusion, denial, and frustration. Cosmo was coming down from his high into what appeared to be a state of depression. Vince was too young and confused to have any real awareness of what was going on. Angie had switched channels on the television, while Silvia had drawn pictures in her sketch-book. Donna had smoked outside and then came inside. She then went to sleep only to wake up screaming at around three in the morning.

"I joined Netflix," Donna said as she sipped her water. "Already, my queue is so long. I hope I live long enough to watch everything on it."

"I have a feeling you'll be around for a long time," Silvia said through a laugh. She wanted to add something like, "Now that you left Dad," but she stopped herself.

"So, what's your other big news, honey?" Donna said, dipping her bread into the yellow peas dish.

"I got a job!" Silvia ate a forkful of collards.

"That's great! What is it?"

"I'm a candy store manager at a shop in the mall." When Silvia got to the last word of this sentence, the smile on her mom's face had, once again, transformed into disappointment.

"I thought you'd be happy about me getting a job," Silvia said, putting her fork down. Her stomach felt closed off to the possibility of any more food.

"I am, honey, it's just that...well, I thought you hated malls."

"Well, it's not like I have a million options, Mom. I'm living at Dad's. It's the mall or the casinos."

"Well, yeah and I'm glad you picked the mall, especially now that the casinos are pretty much tanking. It's just that..."

"Well, it's better than nude modeling in art school."

"Yes, I'm sure."

"And I need money so I can move out of the house." At this, a spark of light shone in her mom's face.

"What's the plan then?"

"I'm moving to Portland, Oregon." Once again, Donna's smile turned to a frown, and this whole up-and-down thing was really getting old to Silvia. "Shit! Now what's wrong?"

"It's just that I think you're chasing rainbows, honey." Donna followed this up with Cosmo's same prophecy—that Silvia would move there, find something she didn't like about the place, and move away.

"It'll be different this time, Mom. This is different than those other places."

"How?"

Silvia went through her monolog of how all her previous places were wrong in some way or another, but her Mom looked about as convinced as Cosmo. Finally, she said, "I'm doing the best I can, Mom."

At this, Donna told her how great she was—how courageous and adventurous and adaptable and a bunch of other good stuff she was. These words made Silvia's mostly defeated spirit rise up inside her like a stroke of deep violet paint across a pale gray sky. Then, Donna started in on saying that place wouldn't be so important to Silvia if she liked what she was doing. Silvia began to think that her and Cosmo had been discussing her all along because they were both telling her the same stuff. But then, her mom had a really good suggestion.

"Do you ever think about being an art teacher in elementary school? I think you'd be great at that."

Silvia sparked up like a flashlight on a moonless night. Since she'd been working at Savor the Flavor, she'd come to realize that she liked kids and liked working with them, so being an art teacher at an elementary school might be just the thing for her. She got more and more excited as her mom talked about her looking into teacher certification programs, and her appetite resurrected with the ferocity of a starving bear.

Donna told Silvia to be relaxed about this new idea and just to look into programs for certification over time, but her attempt to calm her daughter down was in vain, and within five minutes after getting to her dad's house, Silvia was online looking up schools and programs. She discovered, from doing a small amount of research, some rather disturbing news—that if she was to get her certification in one state, it may not be reciprocal with another state. This could severely limit her bohemian existence, which was frightening, but she also thought that this may be for her own good.

Maybe it would be better to move to Portland now. There was an undergraduate certification program there. But it made so much more sense, financially, for her to go to school while living at Frank's. This thought was mostly unbearable to her, but still, she continued to look into the possibilities in both states. Between researching programs and thinking of where she might spend the next two years, she was up until two in the morning. And she was supposed to drive up to North Jersey to see Angie tomorrow. It would be a coffee-filled day.

The ride up the turnpike got busier and more chaotic as Silvia drove to Angie's home in North Jersey. Drivers weaving, racing, and tailgating like they were in a NASCAR. The increase in traffic, as she drove north, was telling of the difference between North and South Jersey, which she thought of as two separate states and not just because the former was faster and more densely populated than the latter. There were other more subtle differences as well. In the south, lunch meat sandwiched inside of long rolls were called hoagies. In the north, they were called submarines or subs for short. In the south, the convenient stores were Wawa's. In the north, they were 7-Eleven's. South Jersey was an extension of Philadelphia, sharing the same accent and style, while North Jersey shared the sameness of New York. There was Philly Jersey and New York Jersey, with the latter assuming superiority to the former.

"They turn their noses up at us," Frank often complained of the way northerners treated the southerners. Maybe it was reminiscent of the way northern Italian folk treated their southern counterparts, and Frank, having his roots in southern Italy, didn't like this snobbery one bit.

He also didn't like the idea that his favorite child had relocated to North Jersey. He didn't even want her to go away to college at Rutgers, but he was certain that she'd return home after her four years. In fact, everyone in the family thought that she'd be happy to come back home. But Silvia knew that her sister would quickly be snatched up by some rich guy with a bright future. And she was, during her junior year.

Doug Rothchild had just completed the MBA program at Princeton and was guaranteed a position at Goldman Sachs, or "hell" as Vince would have called it. After only a few months of meeting Angie, he proposed at his parents' Christmas party right in front of his family and their esteemed friends. His parents were surprisingly accepting, despite her ethnic divergence from their long line of pure blue bloods. Their grandchildren's eyes would most likely be brown, and they might even inherit some fat gene that the Rothchild family surely suspected to be lurking in the Greco family.

Frank was scared that, as the dad of a bride marrying into a wealthy family, he would have to spend a major amount of money for an expensive wedding, but he also figured that he would be off the hook for life. Still, as glad as he was that Angie had the good sense to marry rich, he still wasn't going to go for some gala affair, so the wedding was nice, but small.

And while Frank was happy that Angie was marrying into money, the occasion was sad and disheartening for him because his favorite child was moving away. When Angie had announced the plans to her family, he'd pretended to be overjoyed, but he was a bad actor and everyone, including Angie, could see the sadness coming through his eyes. The only one of his children who really seemed to connect with him was moving away to North Jersey.

"Jeez, you'd think North Jersey was Japan," Cosmo had said to Donna once.

"It may as well be for your father," Donna said. "You know he never leaves town."

Despite being Frank's favorite and despite her beauty and popularity at school, Angie seemed incapable of enjoying life. She was stuck inside of her flawless skin as though imprisoned by it, never really able to break through. Never free. She hid her sadness well, as it wasn't apparent to anyone except for Silvia, who was always able to see right through fake laughter and fraudulent smiles. Her extra sensory gift was especially keen when it came to feeling the pain belonging to one of her own siblings, and she felt great empathy for Angie. Angie reciprocated Silvia's empathy by confiding in her. So, one night, when she swallowed too many pills, it was Silvia, and not Donna or Frank, who she told first. It was Silvia who picked up the phone and called 911.

Silvia's quick response showed her strong sense of responsibility, supreme sensibility, and composure under the gravest of circumstances. It was also this event that forged an unbreakable bond between the two sisters. Angie knew that Silvia cared, and Silvia knew that Angie hurt. They loved each other in a way that only sisters can, despite the two entirely different worlds they each lived in.

This difference was apparent as Silvia entered Angie's house. Her home was well hidden from street view, surrounded by big, billowy trees, and a stately black iron gate that opened up into a driveway that was more like a small road. The yard resembled a botanical garden, groomed to perfection, although Frank might have said that his yard was more perfect. The house was a huge, modern, and striking off-white structure that screamed of ostentation.

Angie was waiting for her sister on the porch of her house, which was about as big as the apartment that Silvia had previously lived in in Philadelphia. Angie's hair was tied back in a short, peppy ponytail, and she wore faded jeans and a T-shirt. Even dressed down, she looked like a fairytale princess. Two little, white Maltese dogs stood beside her and they stared at Silvia with timid curiosity. When the two sisters hugged, their curiosity grew, and they began to sniff Silvia, but kept an appropriate distance, like the very well-mannered dogs they were. They relished Silvia's gentle pets upon their little, recently groomed heads.

"They just came from the beauty parlor. They had their nails all manicured and everything," Angie said. Silvia smiled, but behind her smile, she tried to calculate how much money had been spent on the dogs' visit to the beauty parlor. She estimated it to be more than she'd spent on all of her beauty treatments in the past two years combined.

"Where's Isabella?" Silvia said.

"Sleeping, upstairs. The nanny's here too."

An immediate sense of space, openness, and sterility came upon Silvia as they entered the house, and she felt exposed, insecure, and most of all, cold. The complete lack of clutter also made the wrapped gift box on the table very prominent. The big box was undoubtedly for Silvia. Since Angie had married Doug, she was quite generous to her little sister, and her generosity always took the form of clothing or shoes. Silvia figured that this had something to do with her older sister's disapproval of the way that she dressed.

"That's all wrong," Angie would say when they were kids, looking down at six-year-old Silvia dressed in a green dress and purple stockings. "You have to wear colors that match, or at least complement each other." Then she would open little Silvia's drawers and get out a pair of appropriately matching stockings, either white or black, for her to change into. As Silvia grew older, Angie could no longer tell her younger sister to change into something else. She could only suggest it through buying her new things to wear. Silvia didn't mind, but didn't give it too much attention either.

"Because I missed your birthday. Better late than never," Angie said referring to the gift.

"Thank you, Angie," Silvia said with a combination of gratitude and guilt, for she hadn't gotten Angie anything for her birthday. She seemed reluctant to open it, but Angie urged her by saying, "Go ahead. Open it!"

Silvia wasn't surprised when she saw the box was from J. Crew, but when she saw that it contained a leather jacket, she felt an awful sinking feeling in her stomach. She didn't wear leather, as she couldn't wear clothing that was made of animals that she imagined were brutally and needlessly killed. Even her shoes were made of canvas or of synthetic materials. Despite her anti-leather convictions, she couldn't possibly imagine telling her sister, who rarely smiled and who was smiling big and bold at this moment, that she was against all leather. She had no idea what a leather jacket from J. Crew cost, but knew it was a lot of money, and although Angie could definitely afford it, it almost seemed too generous.

"God, Angie, I don't know what to say," Silvia said, still slightly shocked.

"Try it on!"

Silvia tried it on, only to be more disappointed because it fit her absolutely perfect. In fact, she looked fantastic in this jacket, like it had been made for her. Maybe she could wear it and make this one exception to her no-leather rule. After all, it wasn't like she'd purchased it. It was a gift. It might even be worse to not wear it. It would be awful if some poor animal made the ultimate sacrifice only to be shoved in the back of her closet. She wondered how Cosmo might react if he saw her wearing it. He was too smart to know it wasn't fake so would assume it was from Angie, his rich sister who could afford to buy the affection of the people in her life.

This thought reminded Silvia of her mission in coming here, and she thought of how she was going to ease into a conversation about a family gathering when she knew that the last thing Angie wanted to do was to see Cosmo.

"Thank you so much, Angie, and I'm so sorry I didn't get you anything for your birthday, but I'll have something for you the next time we see each other, which will be very soon."

"Oh, does that mean you're planning another visit?! We'll head into the City next time! Maybe go to the Met!"

"Well, that would be great, but you might be the one traveling next time. You see, Mom and I thought it would be a nice idea to have a little party after Vince's graduation ceremony." Silvia sat beside her sister and attempted to look at her right in the eyes, but Angie looked away.

"Well, that sounds nice, but why do I have to be there?" Angie said.

"Because you're part of the family, that's why. How do you think Vince would feel if his big sister wasn't there?"

Angie looked stubbornly at the floor as if hoping that if she looked long enough Silvia might stop bothering her about going to the dinner. So, Silvia added something that she knew her sister couldn't resist—her need for keeping up appearances.

"How would it look if we were all there except for you? How do you think Mom would feel if you deprived her of an opportunity to see her only grandchild? And how would Dad feel if he couldn't see you?"

"All right already. I'll go. But do I have to bring Doug? I know Vince can't stand him."

Silvia was caught completely off guard because she wasn't at all aware that Angie knew about Vince's dislike for Doug.

"That's not true," Silvia said, making the best poker face she could.

Angie just looked back at her with a snide look as if to say, 'Don't bullshit me.'

"Anyway, how would that look to everyone, if you show up without Doug?" Silvia's hands flew everywhere. "Dad might think that he doesn't like our family or something. And Doug might think that we don't like him."

"Well, I guess that's true."

Silvia couldn't believe it was this easy. She was starting to think of herself as a natural peacemaker. Either that or a natural born liar. But these were white lies used for the greater good. She was feeling pretty smug until Angie mentioned the fact that she hadn't spoken to Cosmo in over three years.

"Don't worry about Cosmo. He'll be fine. I promise," Silvia said, thinking she'd get back to the whole Cosmo thing later. This somehow came out sounding reassuring though Silvia's mind rattled with how this would be possible, but she hid her worry well and suggested that the two of them try to go hunt down Bruce Springsteen's house.

"Didn't you tell me you thought you might have discovered the street that it's on?" Angie's face lit up, and she jumped up out of her seat like a jack-in-the-box.

"I'll go tell the nanny," Angie said, running out of the room.

They drove around the neighborhood for close to two hours before abandoning their search for the house that might have belonged to Bruce Springsteen. Angie probably would have continued searching longer if she hadn't needed to get home before the nanny had to leave. They drove up and down the same few streets several times, Angie inspecting each house before deciding that none looked like the kind of house in which he would live. When Silvia asked her how she knew what kind of house he would live in, Angie said that she didn't know for sure, but she knew that it couldn't be any of the ones they'd seen. Silvia didn't want to tell Angie that she suspected his house was probably secluded and well hidden from street view. She didn't want to ruin the little bit of happiness that Angie seemed to derive from the prospect of finding his house. It was this very sort of thing that brought Angie to life, that turned her from a listless young woman who apathetically stared out at the world from her three-million-dollar house into a bubbly girl full of energy and curiosity, like a weed magically transforming into a rose. While Silvia knew that she would soon droop back into a gloomy state, she didn't expect her slump to be so soon after they got home.

"I feel so tired," Angie said a few minutes after they walked in the door. "Would you mind watching Isabella while I sleep for a little?"

"I'd love to," Silvia said. "Oh, and I brought her some candy."

At this, Angie turned around sharply and said, "Don't let her see the candy until after dinner. And then, she can only have one or two pieces. She gets too hyper."

She was very hyper already. She ran from one side of her room to the other, moving items from one place to another, reminding Silvia of a toddler version of Frank running around in the kitchen. Her room was big, bright, and full of all sorts of toys. She didn't play with her toys in the same way that Silvia remembered playing with her toys as a child. She seemed much more interested in rearranging them than actually playing with them, and she also liked showing off this skill to her aunt. She had a big smile as she did her rearranging, and if she could make coherent sentences and more than just babble, she might say, "Look what I can do! Isn't it great?"

She was a very happy toddler indeed, and why shouldn't she be? She was extremely fortunate and privileged, belonging to a very wealthy family, being in perfect health, and having seemingly inherited Doug's cheerful disposition and Angie's looks. But it was something more than these things that made her happy, as she didn't have any concept of her wealth or looks or health. Her mind was pure and empty, not overcrowded with information and polluted with fears and regrets. She, unlike her mom, was free. She seemed content just to be, and Silvia felt a strong desire to be a part of the universe of simplicity and freedom that her niece inhabited.

Silvia could also see how very malleable this little person was, and she had a desire to help shape her. She wanted to fill her with good things. She wanted to show her how to draw, paint, and maybe even sculpt when she was a little bit older. But for the time being, it would be enough to show her how to make something simple, like a drawing of a cartoon-like sun, a tree, or a house. She looked around the room for a drawing pad but found none. She did find a small box that contained a toy, and she took the lid off revealing its plain cardboard underside. This would have to do as a surface. She always carried a pencil with her, which she took out of her back pocket, and began drawing a picture of Isabella on the box. Even with a simple pencil and a piece of cardboard, Silvia's drawing was superb.

After about one minute, Isabella grew interested in her aunt's pursuit and sat down next to her with very curious eyes. So, Silvia put the pencil in her niece's little hand, very gently held her hand around the pencil, and guided it along to make a simple drawing of a face consisting of a circle for a head, two almonds for eyes, a triangle for a nose, and a half circle for lips. They then made curls on the head of the person. When the drawing was complete, Isabella was overjoyed, and she ran around her bedroom shouting "Mama! Mama!" Her excitement bubbled over and her shrill little screams woke her mom, who came into the room to see the drawing she'd made.

"Oh, that's really nice, Isabella!" Angie said, looking down at her daughter. She then looked graciously at her sister and told her that she would get her some real paper for them to draw on. She came back in the room with white printer paper and some crayons. Isabella and Silvia spent what was left of the afternoon drawing, while Angie lay on the floor next to them, half watching them and half sleeping. Around six, Angie asked Silvia what she wanted for dinner.

"Don't we have to wait for Doug to come home for dinner?" Silvia asked.

"He works really late. Sometimes, he even sleeps over at his office. In fact, you probably won't even see him this visit. I only really spend time with him on the weekends." She said all of this like she was perfectly fine with being married to someone who was rarely around.

Silvia went back to thinking what she might want for dinner and recalled the time that Angie used American cheese to make eggplant Parmesan. So, she told Angie to just make something simple, secretly hoping that her sister would suggest that they order out, but Angie insisted on cooking and proceeded to ask Silvia about her dietary requirements.

"I'm still vegetarian," Silvia said.

"So, you still don't eat meat?" Angie asked.

"Or fowl or fish or eggs," Silvia said, hoping that her vegetarian diet might discourage her sister from wanting to cook.

"Jesus, what do you eat?"

Silvia laughed and told her sister, "It used to be worse. I was vegan for a year, and I had no dairy at all."

"That's crazy."

"Don't go through any fuss for me. Really, I can just have some bread and butter or something."

Angie stared back at her sister as if her suggestion was completely absurd. She then said that she knew just what to make and went downstairs to the kitchen carrying Isabella and signaling for her sister to follow. Silvia fed Isabella baby food from a jar, while Angie cooked, and in less than an hour the two girls were eating pasta fazool that, to Silvia's surprise, was really good. It was even delicious. She was hesitant to ruin her wonderful eating experience by bringing up Cosmo's presence at the family gathering, but she knew she had to at least attempt to smooth things out between them before they saw each other.

"You know, I bet Cosmo's nervous about seeing you," Silvia said.

"Well, he should be. I asked him to be the godfather of my daughter, and he turned it down. And then he said some bullshit about being an atheist or something." She looked down at her spoonful of soup resentfully. This godfather thing was the final straw for Angie. It was her way of extending an olive branch to Cosmo, who'd rejected. In his defense, his rejection was not out of spite. He sincerely believed he wouldn't be a good candidate for the job.

"Agnostic."

"What?"

"He's agnostic, not atheist."

"I don't know or care what the difference is. Him saying 'no' to accepting that honor had nothing to do with his beliefs."

"Well then, why do you think he said no?"

"Because he never liked me. That's why!"

"Angie, he loves you. You're his sister." Silvia stared so strongly into her sister's eyes that Angie had to look away.

"You can love someone and not like them," Angie said, still looking away from her sister.

"He's never given me any indication that he doesn't like you," Silvia lied. "And I know for a fact that he really didn't want to be Isabella's godfather because of his beliefs and because he thought that she would be better off with a godfather who would remember her birthday every year and get her nice gifts and you know, someone who could be there for her."

"Well then, he should have told me that."

"Yeah, but you know that's not his style," Silvia said, scooping the last bit of soup up from her bowl.

"Then he should have apologized to me."

"I thought he emailed you, and you never emailed him back."

"Well, he didn't apologize in that email," she said, indignantly.

"Again, that's just not his style. I've never gotten an apology from him for any of the times he was a jerk to me. You know most people don't even know how to say sorry. It's tough to say sorry."

Silvia's words didn't seem to get through to Angie, whose face remained stubbornly unmoved from the expression of indignation, but at least, she wasn't firing back with anything.

The next morning, Angie woke Silvia at eight o'clock. After showering and having a simple breakfast of oat bran flakes and blueberries, they all went out to Silvia's car and hugged goodbye. When Silvia got in her car, Isabella began crying and reaching her little arms out to her aunt. Silvia got out of the car while telling her niece that she'd see her very soon.

"There's going to be a big party the next time I see you," Silvia said to Isabella in a perky cartoon voice.

"Yeah, I don't know if it'll qualify as a party," Angie said snidely to Silvia, who then realized that her sister had plenty of time to come up with some good excuse of why she couldn't make it. Isabella could get sick or Doug could have some big all-consuming work project—some excuse that would be legitimate while keeping up appearances.

"You're going to see me and your Grandma and there's going to be a cake." Silvia attempted to implant the idea of some balloon-filled party in her niece's mind as an extra bit of assurance that Angie would show up, as she couldn't let her little girl down. She looked up at her sister who looked jaded and said, "Can't wait to see you soon, Ang!"

Silvia hugged her sister with Isabella sandwiched between them, and she was off.
CHAPTER FOUR: TO KNOW PEACE

Silvia was disappointed, but not surprised when Frank didn't come home on the night that she planned for them to attend an AA meeting. Like the last time they went to a meeting, she gave him several reminders throughout the week, including sticky notes taped to his bedroom door and to the refrigerator and a voicemail on his phone. She thought that he most likely had remembered and purposefully avoided coming home so that he wouldn't have to go. When Vince came home, he found his sister sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the door with a blank face, like she was asleep and awake at the same time.

"Hey, Silvia," he greeted his sister like he was trying to jar her out of her trance.

"Dad and I were supposed to go to an AA meeting tonight," she told him, her face as glum as a bankrupt store owner. Vince looked back at her with the perfect combination of astonishment and cynicism and said, "Yeah right, you were going to get Dad to go to an AA meeting?"

She didn't tell him about the plan for his graduation party, which was the impetus for getting Frank to a meeting. She didn't tell him her strong belief that if Frank stopped drinking, they could all be in peace. She didn't tell him that she had gotten him to go to a meeting about a week ago. Instead, she said, "I just thought it might be a good idea."

"And it is," Vince agreed wholeheartedly. "A great idea, in fact. Just not sure of the feasibility of it."

Vince's response didn't seem to match his young and idealistic character. She wondered if her younger brother was suddenly becoming a realist like her older brother and hoped that that wasn't the case. But rather than asking him about this apparent transformation or trying to convince him of the possible feasibility of her cause, she just responded, "I thought it would be worth a try."

Vince patted his sister on the shoulder like a doomed player in a game she could never possibly win, but kept playing anyway. He then suggested that they take advantage of their dad not being home and make use the kitchen that Frank always controlled.

Becoming alive at the suggestion, Silvia popped up from her chair and went to the kitchen cabinet. She got out a can of garbanzo beans, a box of rigatoni, olive oil and a garlic bulb. She was delighted to find a bunch of broccoli-rabe in the refrigerator. Vince sat quietly at the table reading a library book as she cooked.

While they ate, she wanted to have some pleasant dinner conversation—nothing about their family, her moving away, or him going to college. She supposed that she could talk about gummy bears and blue whales, but that would probably be really boring for Vince. She could ask him about what he learned at school today, but she assumed that it wasn't much considering that he was a high school senior with only about one week of school left. So, she asked him about the book he was reading. He mentioned the title briefly—something about ecological restoration—and then he went on about some insight he had while at the library getting the book.

"I thought about getting a fiction book because I always read nonfiction, so I started looking through some of the new fiction books, and you know what? They were all about the second World War."

Silvia knew what was coming.

"You know what I think? I think that the government is trying to make us all think that war is our natural state. That way we won't want to speak out against it. We'll just blindly accept it."

"And the government is in cahoots with the publishing industry?" Silvia said, sarcastically.

"That's right!" Vince said, oblivious to her sarcasm.

"Hey, speaking of war," she said, putting her hand over her forehead. "I saw Rafa the other day, and he was asking about you."

"Who's that? And what's he have to do with war?" Vince asked with a big question on his face.

"Somebody from the Occupy protests we used to go to. You remember, dark hair, always smiling, real friendly guy?"

"But what's Occupy have to do with war?"

"It's just, you know...the whole protest thing."

"Oh yeah, Rafa. He was a nice guy. How's he doing?" he said as he ate a big forkful of pasta.

"He seemed good. He's become a carpenter of sorts. He works at a bar by my old school," As she said this, she strategically gathered a couple of beans, some broccoli rabe, and two rigatonis on her fork.

"Yeah, I should try to make a rally soon."

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunity for protests and rallies in Berkeley." She didn't mean to mention Berkeley. She was trying to keep the conversation clean and free of any and all controversy. It just slipped out, and she hoped that her brother would not pay too much attention to it, but that wasn't the case. He stopped eating and looked down sullenly at his food.

"Hey, what about a scholarship, Vince? Have you thought of applying for one? It would be too late for this year, but there's always next year. Aren't you like number seven or something in your class? You got all A's in your classes for Christ sake." Silvia's voice rose up sharply as she spoke.

"There's no money left in this country for things like education. It's all been used up for things like killing people, burning oil fields, missiles, and tanks. People, like Doug, are busy stealing—"

"C'mon Vince," she interrupted him, not wanting to hear one of his tirades against the country. "Dad will help you. I'm sure of it."

"And why are you so sure of it?"

This would have been the perfect opportunity to bring up the family gathering she was planning for him. But she was too tired. Tired from planning the reunion and her move, tired from working her new job, and tired from trying to sober Frank up.

Her reluctance for bringing up the issue of the dinner party wasn't only due to fatigue. There was something more. They were having such a nice, quiet dinner, despite Vince's mild irritation at her Berkeley remark, and she didn't want to ruin the peacefulness. It was a rare thing, indeed, to have a meal, an hour, a minute, or even a second of peace in their house. There was always the presence of a fight in some form. A fight could be happening, or it could be brewing, or the remains of a fight could be lingering, or one from a long time ago could be getting rehashed, and getting a whole new life breathed into it. They moved in stages, like hurricanes, earthquakes, or most any sort of natural catastrophe.

Silvia was slightly nervous that Frank might pop in at any second to ask them why they were not eating whatever "delicious" thing he'd made and stored away in the refrigerator. But he never came home that night, and though she thoroughly enjoyed having the house free of her dad's abrasive presence, she couldn't help but be angry about his absence and curious about his whereabouts.

When he did stumble in at three in the morning, Silvia was wide awake with worry about him. She hoped that she wasn't taking over for Donna in worrying about Frank. She knew that it was a strange thing to be waiting up worrying about her dad and that it should have been the other way around. He should have been up worrying about her while she was out partying somewhere, enjoying the youth that was racing by her.

She came into the kitchen, with her arms crossed and her punishing eyes peering down at him like a mom peering down at her unruly teenage son. He was lying face down on the kitchen floor like he was completely unable to make it any further than through the back door. It wasn't like him to get drunk because he was a functioning alcoholic—he could drink and drink and drink and never pass out. He looked so pathetic lying there. All she could think of was how he was so hyper-vigilant about things like food waste, but when it came to wasting his own life, he had no problem.

Not surprisingly, the image of Frank lying face down on the kitchen floor stayed with Silvia all through the next day. She was glad that it was a short day at work and that her relief would be coming in early. As soon as she got out of the mall parking lot, she gassed up her car, got on the Garden State Parkway, and drove south towards the ocean. She knew she was heading to one of the shore towns on the coast, but not sure which one.

She could have stopped at Ventnor, but it was too close to Atlantic City, and she wanted to be nowhere near that frenzied casino energy. She could have stopped in Ocean City, one of the last dry towns left in the country. It was clean and easy with a boardwalk that stretched for miles. Or Sea Isle City. There was Wildwood, where she and her high school friends used to go to in the summers. But none were far enough and not only because she wanted to be far away from Frank's house and the image of him lying on the kitchen floor.

She felt hungry for the road and she wanted to drive and drive and drive. She wanted to remember, in her bones, that same feeling she had during all of her road trips. The good feelings, not the scary ones. She wanted to feel the strength and courage that lived inside of her like some great warrior who only fought with the world when it stifled her soaring spirit. In addition to being strong and brave, she was independent and adaptable. She could change a tire on the side of the highway alone. She could set up a campsite alone. When it was raining or too cold to sleep outside, she could check into a motel alone.

So, she drove south until she couldn't drive any further within the state of New Jersey. She went until she reached Cape May, the most southern point of the state and a place where she could see an unobstructed view of the sunset. As she approached the town, she caught sight of a white heron with its little beak pointed up to the sky, its skinny legs dangling in the air, and its delicate angel wings spread free.

She drove over a bridge, entered into the town harbor, and followed the signs to the beach. It was a weekday before the busy summer season, so the Victorian house-filled city wasn't terribly crowded. She parked only a couple of blocks from the beach and stopped by a pizza stand to grab a slice that she took with her to the boardwalk. She sat on a bench and ate, seagulls gathered around her waiting for her to throw them a crumb. One brazen gull came and stood on the bench right beside her as if threatening to take her food away, which caused her to eat so quickly that she got indigestion.

So, she walked in hopes of getting her stomach to feel better. She walked the length of the boardwalk, which was short and quiet, relative to other boardwalks on the South Jersey coast. There were few shops, one of which sold chocolate covered strawberries that she couldn't resist.

The shore brought back memories of being with Grandma Tucci. These memories were vague and beautiful and looked like an Impressionistic painting in her mind's eye. She remembered sitting on the beach with her in late summer with wet, salty breezes blowing gently while they ate strawberry shortcake popsicles. They didn't speak or need words. They were bound together like fingers crossed or shoe strings tied. Just listening to the music of the waves—rhythmic, constant, and forever.

Silvia came to know peace through her grandma and their time together at the beach. If she hadn't experienced this sacred space, she might not crave it so much. But she did know peace. She knew what it felt like in her bones, in her stomach, and in her head. Because she knew peace, she knew war. She could sense when a fight was in the air, feel the aftermath of a fight, and surely knew when a fight was happening. She knew the looks and sounds of a fight. The hateful words thoughtlessly thrown into the air, as if they could be taken back one day or travel backwards in time. She recalled all of the times that Frank called Cosmo a failure, until the word failure eventually became a part of Cosmo's skin. There was also the absence of words—a type of silent warfare—like the time that Frank told Vince that he loved him and Vince said nothing back.

All of their battles had some point of origin, with most continuing for so long that the origin got lost or buried far beneath the house where a tunnel of lost causes lived. They happened organically, and with both parents being raised in fighting families, Silvia's own fighting family was just a natural extension of those of her parents. And who knew how far back the fighting lived in both families?

For the first time in her life, Silvia felt the bigness of her family's feuding. It had a life of its own with roots going back to the late 1800s, when one of Frank's great aunts caught her sister sleeping with her husband in their Naples apartment, or when one of Donna's great grandfathers ran through the streets of Milan chasing his brother for stealing his money.

She feared that her family was going in the same direction as her parents' families. Frank had enough money for his children to fight over once he was dead, and although Silvia couldn't imagine that happening, she was sure that Donna also hadn't foreseen that happening in old her family. She thought about other potential conflicts. Surely, Doug would not be the last spouse that wasn't liked by one or more of her siblings. She could imagine whatever militant hippie chick Vince would one day marry and how Angie would condescend upon her. The godfather fight between Angie and Cosmo couldn't be the last of this sort of thing to occur within their family. As Frank and Donna moved further away from each other, a divide in their family was bound to evolve, with Angie by Frank's side and Vince by Donna's side and Cosmo and Silvia left floating somewhere in between, inside a muddy swamp of disharmony.

As fighting scenes of Silvia's past life ran through her mind, she saw herself sitting on the cellar steps of Frank's house and dreaming about going somewhere far away. She had never been to a far-away place but had seen pictures of such places on the television and on the computer. One of those places was Paris. She imagined that she lived in a charming, bright, colorful studio apartment with a black and white cat. She also lived in a white cottage with red trim that was surrounded by chickens and sheep and situated in the pristine English countryside. Sometimes, she lived in a weathered beach house on the California coast. As she got older and realized that living at any of these wonderful residencies depended on her having money, she imagined a career for herself. When she lived in the country or at the beach side, she made a living as a painter. When she lived in Paris, she managed an art gallery.

When old enough to move on her own, she traded moving in her head for moving in the real world. She looked down upon her dad's restlessness and his inability to stop searching for a lost frying pan. But how was she so different? She searched for happiness in places the way that Frank searched for it in a bottle of gin.

As she sat eating her chocolate covered strawberries, looking out onto the sea and listening to the waves on this perfect late spring, early evening, she wondered how she could feel such a strong and urgent need to move, to start over. She heard the words of the man at the AA meeting, who called himself a geographic, talking about how many times he had started over. She heard Cosmo saying, "What's wrong with here?" Indeed, what was wrong with here? She was hard pressed to find anything wrong with her surroundings or anything wrong with this day, short of the mooching seagull. Why was the next place always better than the present one?

As the sun was setting, she kept her eyes on it, not wanting to miss any of the very quick show of a sunset. Once the sun touched the ocean, it would sink fast into the horizon. The ramble in her brain quieted down as the big yellow ball slid down behind the ocean. At that moment, she realized that making peace in her family wasn't only for her parents and siblings. It was for her sake as well. As the sun made its final decent into the water, she felt a new energy for her cause to reunite her family, and it was pure and beautiful like the heron she'd seen on the way here. She felt determined to make the family gathering happen. She knew that if all of her family members could be in the same room and see into each other's eyes, they would remember that they loved each other.

She stayed in Cape May until nighttime when the outdoor mall lit up and was filled with people enjoying the lovely mild evening. The mall was on a cobblestone street and filled with cafes, pubs, and shops selling ice cream, fudge, and seashell souvenirs. With no cars on the street, Silvia didn't have to hear the roar of motors, beeping horns, and drivers yelling. The car-free aspect made it an especially pleasant place to walk and window shop.

She strolled by a restaurant with outdoor seating where a tall, dark, curly haired waiter smiled at her. She smiled back, but then started walking fast. Immediately, she regretted not doing more and wished that she had gone and talked to him. Flirting wasn't something that never came natural to her, and it was only very recently that she acquired the skill of flirting at all. While in college, it was all too easy to meet guys, so she never had to worry about doing anything like approaching a strange man and conversing with him.

She wondered if she should go back to the restaurant where she saw the waiter and attempt to talk to him, but decided it was probably too late and that she'd missed her window of opportunity. Besides, she would be moving to Portland soon. More than that, she just felt stupid going back to talk to him, so she just continued walking on, feeling regretful and relieved at the same time. Then something inside of her made her turn around and walk back to the restaurant. To her dismay, the waiter was nowhere to be seen, and it looked like the restaurant might be closing.

Just as well, she thought to herself. She got back on the road heading home and soon after got a call from Donna. "What are you doing driving down to Cape May by yourself at night? What if something happens, like a blow out? You'll be stranded on the side of the road alone." She could hear her mom's panic through the phone. Donna didn't know about all the road trips Silvia had taken alone. She could never tell her. She'd just lie and say that a friend was coming with her.

"I'm sorry Mom. Don't worry," Silvia said. "I'll be home soon,"

"I want you to call me as soon as you get home," Donna said in her most firm tone of voice.

Silvia called her mom as soon as she pulled into the driveway of her dad's house. She wasn't on the phone long when Donna reminded her that today was the anniversary of her mom's death. Silvia had always remembered and commemorated this occasion in some way every year, but this year, with all that was on her plate, the date slipped her mind. She now supposed it was more than just coincidental that she went to the beach today, as this was the place where she most strongly felt her grandma's presence.

Silvia's other siblings didn't understand her need to commemorate this occasion, as they didn't have the closeness with their grandma that she had. Grandma Tucci wasn't the type of person to show favoritism outwardly, but Silvia was her favorite of all the grandchildren. And that was a tough contest to win, as she had, altogether, fifteen grandchildren. It was Grandma Tucci who sat beside Silvia when she was sick in bed, who made her tortellini chicken soup, who shared boxes of Godiva chocolates with her on the way back from their little shopping trips, who took Silvia for long walks on hot summer days, and cried with her when her cat died. It was Grandma Tucci who did the things that Donna couldn't do, maybe because she was too busy fighting Frank off.

And it was tough for the other grandchildren to hold a candle to Silvia's sweetness. She'd sit still and quiet when the other grandchildren ran wild and rowdily taunted each other. She and her Grandma had built sand castles at the beach, while her siblings and cousins had played Frisbee and splashed in the ocean. She'd assisted her Grandma dutifully in the kitchen on Christmas morning, while the others showed off their shiny new toys to each other.

Silvia was most grateful for the special bond, and she cried so hard when her Grandma died that her eyes felt as if they might be permanently burnt. After a while, she began to feel herself crying on the inside as if her tears had no place else to go. She became emaciated from not eating and had dark circles under her eyes from not sleeping.

Then one night, she closed her eyes and saw her Grandma's face, shiny and glimmering like an angel looking down upon her and saying, "Be happy, Silvie." More than seeing this image, she keenly felt her grandma's presence. After this vision, she knew that she wasn't alone in the world, that she would never be alone. She knew she would always have her Grandma beside her.
CHAPTER FIVE: REMEMBER THE BONSAI

Silvia told her mom that she would talk to Vince about the party for him when she got home, but her plans got derailed when she saw Frank running around the house closing windows. This action served as a prelude to a fight because he didn't want the neighbors to hear his yelling.

"I'm not helping you with your tuition either, you ingrate!" He screamed into the air as Silvia entered the kitchen.

"I don't want your help!" Vince yelled back.

"That's right!" Frank yelled back like he didn't hear Vince's reply. "I work hard for my money!"

Frank must have sensed that Silvia was home because she was only half way through the back door when he ran into the kitchen to tell her his side of the story.

"See what that brother of yours got started this time? I don't hear a word out of him. He sits in his room like an introvert, and when he does talk, it's only to be a pain in the ass." Clearly, he was trying to elicit her support.

"I don't want to get involved," she said, still tranquil from her day at the beach. She felt like a well-practiced Buddhist monk walking through a minefield.

"That brother of yours is giving me a lot of crap about some plastic bags I bought!" His eyes were filled with the desperate hope of a losing gambler. He wanted to sway her to his side, but her face remained solid and serene, while his face turned to one of a sad and despairing. It then dawned on her that this would be a good opportunity for her to get in her dad's good graces by agreeing to talk to Vince. She could use the favor as bargaining ammunition for getting him to the reunion dinner.

"I'll talk to him, Dad," she said, walking towards Vince's bedroom.

When she knocked on Vince's door, he said to go away in an annoyed voice. She persisted by saying "C'mon Vince, just open the door." She could hear him get off his bed and come to the door. His face was long with frustration darting through his eyes.

"I feel like a fucking idiot," he said, sitting down on his bed and burying his face in his hands.

"Why?" Silvia asked.

"Because I should never have believed him when he said he'd help. I should have known better. I should have applied to Rutgers too. It would be way cheaper than Berkeley, and then I'd be less dependent on him. I don't want to depend on him for anything. I don't want to depend on anyone but myself."

Silvia knew that she had to get Vince to apologize to Frank because Frank would never apologize to Vince. She knew that she couldn't delay any longer in telling her brother about the reunion. She knew that if she could appeal to his need for Frank's financial help, then maybe he would apologize and would be receptive to the idea of a family get-together for his graduation.

"Hey Vince, you know he goes back and forth with all of us about helping out with money. I think he may have even threatened Angie in the past. I know he's been especially bad lately, but maybe if he wasn't so fucked up about Mom leaving him, he wouldn't be acting this way."

"That's not my problem," he said, shrugging. "And who can blame Mom for leaving him anyway?"

"No one. But that's not the point. She was his only means of survival. He's lost without her. It's nobody's fault but his own that she left, but it still sucks for him. Instead of crying about it or trying to get healthy, he does the only things he knows how to do—drink and fight." Vince looked up at his sister like he understood what she had to say, so she continued. "It's always like walking on egg shells with him. You never know what's going to set him off. And he does try to provoke us. He looks for fights. But you can't give him what he wants. He wants a fight. It's a diversion from his pain."

"I try to walk away, and then he gets more upset. What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

"Just act really nice to him. And don't give him any shit about plastic bags! I know you like to be genuine around everyone, but I'm telling you that you can't be that way around everyone, especially around people who are crazy like Dad. And the earlier you learn this lesson, the easier your life will be."

Vince's face was pointed down at the floor, and although he looked like he appreciated what she was saying, she knew that getting him to go along with her advice would not be easy. He was anything but a phony and couldn't help but speak his mind at all times. She needed something, besides the idea of Frank helping him with his tuition, to persuade him to go out and apologize to their father. Suddenly, she remembered something that Grandma Tucci had taught her when she was angry with Donna.

She had told Silvia that a good way to stop being angry at someone was to remember something kind that person had done for her. The first thing that had come to Silvia was the bonsai tree her mom had bought for her, knowing that she had recently grown infatuated with this type of plant and that she had wanted one very badly. Donna also helped Silvia, who was only ten at the time, to properly care for the high maintenance plant. From that point on whenever Silvia got mad at Donna, she would simply remember the bonsai tree. Even more than the tree itself, she remembered the kindness and thoughtfulness that prompted her mom to buy the plant. Now, she needed to impart this lesson onto her younger brother.

"Hey Vince, I know that Dad has a lot of bad qualities and that he can be a real jerk, but sometimes you need to see the good in him. You need to remember that he's not all bad. You must know that we are lucky to have a Dad who gives us any help with our college tuition. You know most kids pay their own way. They take out loans and work full time while they're in school—"

"Oh, so now I'm supposed to feel like crap."

There was a period of silence during which Silvia hoped that something was sinking into her brother's head.

"Why are you always angry at him anyway?" she said.

"Can you blame me? He's done nothing but pit us against each other for as long as I can remember. He's been terrible to Mom. He makes promises only to break them later. He—"

"Maybe that's all he knows how to do. Maybe he doesn't know how to be a better dad or husband, and he's just doing the best he can, like we all are."

"Well then maybe he shouldn't have gotten married or had kids."

She didn't even reply to this last comment, as she didn't feel that it was deserving of a response. Instead, she recalled a nice deed that Frank had done for Vince and reminded her brother of this act of kindness.

"What about the time you had that really terrible flu, and Dad drove you to the hospital at like three in the morning? Mom couldn't bring you because she was sick too. It was probably the only time you were sick in your life, so I know you remember it. I remember it too, because I came with you. And I remember him staying right by your bedside until you woke up in your hospital bed."

He looked like he might be shifting into forgiveness mode, but then his eyes turned angry again. There was something in him that would not let him let go of his anger. In fact, he had a tough time letting go of anything, most of all bad memories.

"Well, so he did a good thing that once. What about the time he hit Mom? How can I forget about that?"

"Do you ever think of all the times he came home with flowers for Mom? How he always told her she was beautiful? How sorry he was for hitting her?"

His eyes softened once again, and Silvia took advantage of the shift. "Be the bigger person and apologize to him, Vince. I know that he's much older than you and that he's the parent, but you are much more mature than Dad could ever be." She knew that Vince would not be able to resist this last point. It won him over. He walked out of his room, begrudgingly yet compliant, and did exactly what his older sister told him to do.

When he came back, she gave him a big hug and decided this was a perfect time to tell him about the party she was planning for him.

"So, I was waiting to tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise," she started, being sure to be ever so careful with her wording. "But I was never much good at planning surprises, so here it goes. We're going to have a nice dinner out after your graduation ceremony. It won't be anything big. Just the family." She didn't use words like party or reunion or even gathering.

Vince's face got really pale, and his eyes filled with dread. "Please, don't, Silv. I don't want anything like that. When our family gets together, there's always a lot of tension. I'm under enough stress." She knew this would be his response but still wasn't exactly sure how to come back at it until she glanced over at the peace poster on his wall.

"Peace begins at home, you know," she said, like some wise, old sage.

"Does it?" he said, as if he didn't trust her words.

"Well, it has to start somewhere. It..." It was tough to go on as long as his face remained stubborn with his lips slammed shut and unconvinced eyes as if she was trying to tell him that the world was flat.

"How can you care so much about something like world peace if you're not at peace with your own family? If you want to make peace in the world, you have to start at home."

"I get along just fine with our family," he said, defensively.

"What about Dad?"

"Who gets along with Dad?"

"What about how you can't stand Doug? What did he ever do to you?"

Vince raised his eyebrows, smiled sardonically, and said "What did he ever do to me? How about what he did to the whole country? The whole world! He's a criminal like all those Wall Street bastards!" He spoke loud and passionate like an Evangelical preacher.

"Oh, c'mon, Vince," she said.

"It's tough to forgive a bunch of criminals that are never blamed for their criminal activity. If anything, they're rewarded for it."

"Maybe he doesn't really know the criminality of the system he works for. Ever think of that? He does seem naïve at times."

"He's highly educated. I think he's wise enough to know the difference between right and wrong."

"But can't you, at least, give him the benefit of the doubt? And if you were not so busy hating him, you might one day have an opportunity to get through to him. And that goes for all people like him. How are you going to change the world if you can't talk to people like Doug?"

Vince looked like he wanted to say something back but didn't have a good comeback to this one. So, he just listened to the rest of what his suddenly didactic sister had to say about peace, love, and Wall Street.

"All I'm saying," she continued. "Is that maybe if people like you could get through to people like Doug, we might not be in the state that we're in. Maybe if groups of people didn't hate each other and encapsulate themselves from each other the way they do, it might be a different world. A better world."

It looked as though she was winning Vince over, and maybe she was, but he wasn't relenting that easily. "I'd much rather just the four of us go to dinner somewhere," he said. "Me, you, Mom, and Cosmo."

"So, you want to piss Dad off by excluding him and guarantee he won't help you with your tuition, and you want to deprive Mom of an opportunity to see her only grandchild?" This negotiating thing was starting to feel very natural for her. "And make Angie feel left out and unloved?"

"No, I'm not saying that. Dad doesn't have to know about it. And Mom can always go up to visit Angie, and Angie can always come down here. I thought this whole thing was supposed to be for me. So why should it be something that will make me uncomfortable? Something I don't want?"

"First of all, knowing our family, it will get back to both of them that they were uninvited and second of all, it is for you but why can't it also be something for us? Maybe this gathering can be more than just a celebration for your graduation. Maybe it can be the start of something new in our family. Maybe we can start living in peace with each other."

There was a brief silence, and she knew that with these final words, she had won, and Vince looked up at her with relenting eyes and said, "Well, all right then."

Silvia was surprised to find herself waking up at seven in the morning, so she could get to work early. Having always had a problem with punctuality in the past, she managed to get to work on time every day since she started her candy store job, and today she was even going in early. Maybe it was a new leaf or maybe an increased sense of responsibility that was growing inside of her. She wanted to be a good example to the employees as a store manager, and she even took interest in boosting the sales. She never imagined that she would have cared if she received a shipment of blue whales instead of gummy bears, but she did. In fact, she cared so much that when her delivery contained a box of blue whales instead of the gummy bears she'd ordered, she called the distribution center and practically screamed at them for messing up and demanded that they send a box of gummy bears to her store location immediately.

As she loaded a bin full with gourmet jellybeans, a mom and three children came in. These kids were especially cute and well behaved, and two of them were carrying child-sized instruments with them. The mom appeared to be particularly strict, letting them each have only five candies. One of the children required assistance in getting some candy, as she was too short to reach the bin that contained the lemon-drops she wanted. Seeing this, Silvia ran over and helped her get out a small scoop of five candies. The little girl shyly said thank you to Silvia and walked over to stand by her mom. They were so amazingly well behaved that they seemed like they were from the past.

Not all children were sweet and cute though. They sometimes were rowdy, demanding, or whiny. Some threw tantrums with shrill shrieks. Candy was the last thing the rambunctious and hyper kids needed, and Silvia felt tempted to tell their moms how their kids might be better off with carrot sticks and grapes. But she held her tongue. Besides, such advice would not be the best thing for business. When the not-so-happy kids came into the store, all Silvia could think of was how much happier they would probably be if art was a part of their lives. Of course, she couldn't possibly know that art wasn't already a part of their lives. She just assumed that they were leading art-free lives and wanted, very badly, to fill this void. She thought that the challenge of working with the more difficult children might be even more rewarding than working with the easy ones.

She couldn't wait to tell Donna about this latest realization. She imagined Donna smiling proudly at her and then asking if she'd had a chance to check out any teacher certification programs. She imagined Donna trying to convince her to attend school somewhere in the area as she'd previously expressed her concern about her daughter's inability to stay still.

Silvia knew in her heart that her mom was right. She might move to Portland, get another dead-end job, and again put off getting into a meaningful career. She was starting to see the senselessness in her continual relocating and how much time, money, and energy had been wasted on all her moving. All the starting over had been hard and stressful. She saw herself pushing a big box full of her stuff up a five-story walk up in Brooklyn. She remembered being so broke in Tucson that she lost weight from not having money to buy food. She saw herself being lonely, depressed, and freezing in Chicago. She remembered living in a slum apartment in a bad neighborhood in Philadelphia because it was all she could afford. It had been hard. And despite all of the many and varied experiences that of her moves had given her, they had really only held her back.

In part, she wanted to settle down simply because she was tired. Tired of moving from place to place like she was an outlaw on the run; tired of sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor; tired of not having enough money to shop anywhere else but Goodwill and the Salvation Army; tired of being afraid to establish relationships because she would soon be leaving wherever she was; tired of living in places with five or six other roommates. She wanted to sleep on a bed and not on a futon on the floor. She wanted to shop for new clothes in real shops. She wanted to live in an apartment by herself or with one other roommate at the most. She wanted a cat, a boyfriend, and a place to call home.

As Silvia got off the old, rusty elevator in Cosmo's building and began walking down the hallway, she smelled something baking, and the aroma was intoxicating. Tired and hungry after a long workday, she was delighted when Cosmo came to the door with a plate full of fresh baked ricotta cookies. They looked amazing, but then again, whatever Cosmo did, he did great. He said that the tree bark cookies she'd brought over to his apartment previously inspired him. She bit into one of his cookies, to find that they were even more delicious than they smelled.

"These are fucking amazing! Is there anything you can't do, Cosmo?" she said, buttering him up. She was determined, during this visit, to get him to agree to go to the reunion and to possibly get him to agree to drive with her to Portland.

He smiled and stood tall releasing, for a second, the hunch that had become a part of his body. He then walked into the kitchen to get the teakettle that was screaming on the stove.

"Tea?" he asked, getting out a box of Earl Grey.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied, sitting down at his kitchen table.

"How's everything at home?" he asked as he prepared their tea. "Dad still crazy?"

"The other night he and Vince were fighting. He said Vince was giving him a bunch of crap about buying some plastic bags. Dad's itching for a fight all the time, and here Vince goes giving him shit about plastic bags. You know Vince though with all the causes he's got going."

"Yeah," Cosmo said, as if he understood completely. "I'm sure he considers plastic to be evil."

"Right," she said as though she didn't also oppose the use of plastic bags.

"Somehow, I managed to reconcile them," Silvia said with surprise in her face like she wasn't sure how she'd managed to do such a thing. "I also told him about the party we want to have for him. It's going to be great you know."

"Yeah," he said, sarcastically. "It'll be really great, especially now right after Mom walked out on Dad and with me and Angie not talking and with Vince who hates being the center of attention. Yeah, fun times. I doubt you're going to get anybody to even go."

"So far, Mom, Angie, and Vince are going. Once Dad knows Angie and Mom will be there, not only will he want to go, but he'll even gladly fork for the bill."

Cosmo looked back at her like he knew exactly what she was doing and said, "So I show up because I'm the good older brother, huh?"

"Yes," she said, remembering that she could never lie to him or fool him in any way because he knew her too well.

He rolled his eyes, gave a small laugh, and said, "And just where do you plan on having this party?"

"Well, first I should say that it's really not going to be a party. It will just be our family. I've just been calling it a party for convenience sake. Sometimes, I call it a family dinner."

Cosmo didn't seem too interested in her tangent on semantics, and he simply repeated his question. "Where are we going to have this dinner?"

"I'm not sure. Some place near home. Some place..."

"Cheap," Cosmo finishing her sentence. "Definitely cheap with Dad footing the bill. Maybe McDonald's."

"Dad always mentions some place called Russo's," she said, disregarding his attempt at humor. "Says the owner couldn't make his whole legal fee years ago, so now Dad can eat there free whenever he wants. He's always offering to bring me there for lunch. I don't think they're very accommodating to vegetarians though."

"Russo's Bar and Grill?!" Cosmo said, laughing.

"Yeah, I think that's it."

"Yeah, they're sure not accommodating to vegetarians. It's a biker bar!" He was fully laughing now with his biggest, heartiest laugh. He then got slightly serious and said, "But it is good to know that the barter system is still in use."

"What about the Central Cafe?" Silvia said, not laughing at all. "We drove past it on our way back from an AA meeting. It's nice and unassuming and not too pricey."

"AA meeting?! You and Dad?!" He nearly spit his tea out of his mouth. "Oh, what the fuck! This is too funny. You got to spread this stuff out, Silv."

"What's so funny about getting Dad to go to an AA meeting? I happen to think it's pretty great."

"It is. It is. I'm sorry. It's just funny, is all. Picturing Dad sitting in one of those meetings where everybody introduces themselves as drunks. Hey, he didn't introduce himself like that, did he?" He then began to impersonate an imagined version of their dad. "'Hello, I'm Frank Greco, and I'm an alcoholic.'" He laughed as Silvia remained serious and composed.

"You know, you should take it easy on him," she said.

"Why should I do that?" he said, turning serious. "He's treated me like crap my whole life. And why are you defending him all of sudden, anyway?"

"I'm just trying to have compassion for people lately. That's all."

"Okay, Gandhi," he said, smirking, "why you're giving all this compassion away to everyone, I wish that you'd fucking send some my way!"

"Why should I?"

"Because I spent my whole life being on the top of Dad's shit list for no apparent reason. That's why."

"So, you turned out okay," she said. And it was true. He turned out fine. But she also knew that he probably would have turned out a lot better had their dad treated him differently. He also knew this.

"Yeah sure, I turned out fine. But I could have turned out a lot better if he hadn't called me a fail—"

"Cosmo Greco, I thought you were a bigger person than the type who sits around and blames other people for their problems."

"Well, I'm not," he said with complete indifference.

"Well, maybe he hasn't had it so easy either." Silvia persisted, even though she was pretty sure that it was too late for Cosmo to forgive Frank.

"Well, that doesn't justify having kids just so you can try to fuck them up."

"I'm sure his intention in having kids wasn't so he could fuck them up, Cosmo! I'm sure that he was like lots of other parents who never bothered getting themselves together before they had kids," she said, and then continued with, "But what about forgiving him, anyway? Don't you get tired of carrying all that blame and anger around with you?" Truly, he, like many people, was carrying much more than he needed to carry, making himself and his life heavier than it needed to be.

Her brother still seemed completely unconvinced by her arguments in favor of forgiveness, and so she thought that now might be a good time to tell him about her bonsai tree lesson. She recalled Frank taking him for violin lessons every Saturday morning when he was a child.

"Do you remember when Dad used to bring you for violin lessons every Saturday morning?" Silvia asked.

Cosmo looked like he'd long forgotten about the lessons and was remembering them for the first time in years. "I do," he said, without giving anything else away.

"Well, don't you think that was a kind thing? I mean, I know that you may have not been having the time of your life going to them, but the fact that he wanted you to learn an instrument is such a great thing."

"I suppose." He was indifferent, but indifference, at this point, was an improvement over anger and bitterness.

"I bet remembering him bringing you to those lessons makes you feel a lot better, as opposed to remembering the times that he put you down." She was careful not to say the word failure to him.

Cosmo had an expression of being slightly convinced—an expression he so rarely wore. He looked like he was wearing a mask.

"So, you're going to come to the dinner?" She said this more like a statement than a question.

He shrugged, still unwilling to give her a definite response. She sat expressionless, waiting for an answer, and finally he said, "All right, I'll be there," in a fighting voice that had just been defeated.

"Thank you. It will mean a lot to Vince."

"Yeah, right," he said, begrudgingly.

Silvia took a brief moment, without talking, to eat a third cookie and just savor its deliciousness. Then she was on to the next item on her agenda.

"So, have you given any more thought to coming to Portland?"

"Jesus Christ! What did you come over here for anyway? To ask for favors?"

"That, and to eat cookies," she said, smiling.

Cosmo shook his head and said, "No, I haven't given it any more thought. But it seems like a crazy thing to do. To leave my secure, decent paying job and move to a place where I'd probably be lucky to get a job as a barista in some trendy café."

He was right, and she knew it, but she persisted none-the-less, "Why don't you just drive out there with me, and see how you like it?"

"I'll think about it," he said, as if he had no intention to think of any such thing.

"I'll pay for your plane ticket back."

"Well, that's very nice. But I still need to think about it."

"It could just be like a little vacation for you. Don't you want to get away?"

"Not really."

"Maybe you don't think you want to get away, but once you do, you'll realize how much you wanted it all along." She really couldn't understand his way of life. She couldn't imagine him not wanting to move out of Philadelphia, let alone not take a vacation. How could he not be bored out of his mind?

He just looked back at her as if to say that there was nothing but nonsense coming out of her mouth, and although she knew that she sounded kind of ridiculous, she believed in her words. She believed that she spoke the truth. She also knew that convincing Cosmo of this truth was just not happening. Not tonight anyway.

CHAPTER SIX: LIGHTNING BUGS AT DUSK

As soon as Silvia got back to Frank's house, she went to her room to find her lonely self-portrait screaming out for company. She'd neglected the painting for just the right amount of time, and now she could return to it with fresh eyes. Often times, she wouldn't know what she wanted to paint and would start painting and let the image come to her. Now, she found herself painting her mom's face on the canvas, so she decided that this work of art was destined to be a family portrait.

She wanted to capture the sparkle that had been in Donna's face before Frank wore her down—the sparkle that was just starting to reemerge. She wanted to show the love that her mom had had for her children coming through her eyes. She wanted to get the way her skin glimmered, even when she was tired, and the way she always looked so held together and sure of herself, even when she wasn't. She painted her mom on the edge of the canvas, leaving room between herself and Donna for other family members.

Vince would be right beside Donna, as they needed no space. She wanted to paint the way that his eyes shone with earnestness and honesty; the way his bleeding heart bled through his skin; the way he was always going forward, as if backwards wasn't even an option; the way he looked, acted, and moved through life, with the conviction and courage of a fierce warrior.

When she was finished with Vince, she started on Cosmo, who she placed on the right side of herself, as he was the closest family member to her. She was so comfortable with him, in fact, that having him around sometimes felt like having no one around at all. She sometimes got irritated by the way he wasn't the most diplomatic person, and sometimes he'd say stuff that was downright hurtful, but the deepest level, she appreciated his honesty.

She painted him looking kind of like a tree that had grown crookedly. She wanted to paint his cold scientific rationality trying to squeeze through his goofy misfit self. She wanted to paint his eyes that hid nothing and that always seemed to know what was right. More than anything, she wanted to paint his hand with their long, skinny fingers—hands of a person she thought too expressive to be wasted on video games and other computer nonsense.

There was just the right amount of room to the right of Cosmo for two more people. She absolutely didn't want to put him near Frank because she knew how bad Frank was for him. She knew that he wouldn't want to be near Angie, but since she had only Angie or Frank left, she chose the former. While they didn't like one another, they would just have to deal with being next to each other for this painting, and that was all there was to it!

Silvia painted Angie like the Snow-White look-alike she was, groomed to perfection like one of her expensive dogs that had just got back from the beauty parlor. But she also wanted to paint the sadness hidden behind her beauty. She wanted to paint the way she was always looking out, as if she'd ordered happiness on a menu in some fine restaurant and was waiting at a table for a waiter to bring it to her on an ornate, silver tray.

She left enough space on the right of her sister for one more person, who undoubtedly would be Frank. As it was four in the morning, she couldn't possibly start Frank. The very early sunlight trickled in through her window making bright white spots dance throughout the floor and walls of her room. She closed the curtains to make her room almost as dark as Cosmo's apartment, collapsed on her bed, and fell instantly asleep.

When Silvia came home later that night, she was relieved to find that Frank seemed to be in a descent mood, because tonight she'd planned on getting him to commit to the reunion dinner. She went into the kitchen where he was busily cooking, sat down at the table, and tried to think of something to say in an effort to make conversation. She was treading new ground by attempting to make conversation with her dad. She couldn't remember ever having a conversation with him. Her words always seemed to bounce off of him when she talked to him, and when he talked to her or anyone else, he spoke in monologues, leaving no space for interaction.

As she watched him move from one side of the room to another, she realized for the first time in her life, just how closely he had resembled his mom. She used to shuffle around in the same restless, wasteful manner. Silvia usually thought of genetics as something that only influenced a person's physical traits. She rarely thought of it as influencing something like the way a person moves through the world. She wondered if he'd been this way as a boy, but she couldn't imagine a young boy scrambling about in this manner. She'd once heard about people becoming like their parents as they age. She wondered if she would become more like Frank as she grew older. She'd definitely inherited his restless nature. She hoped that she might become a hard worker but really didn't want to grow into a little old lady shuffling about in her kitchen. She visualized this for few seconds and shook herself out of the nightmarish fantasy by sitting up straight and forcing herself to ask Frank about what he was cooking.

"Sausage and peppers," he replied skeptically, probably because he was wondering why his daughter had a sudden interest his cooking. Silvia looked over to the side of the stove to see some stale looking rolls sitting in a plastic bag that looked as if it had been re-used several times already.

"Where did you buy the rolls, Dad?"

He looked at her with squinted confused eyes and said, "Why do you care?"

"I'm just making conversation," she said, going over to look at the rolls like she was actually interested in them.

"I got them at Scaffidi's." His voice was less suspicious, but his eyes remained circumspect as if trying to figure out her motive for making conversation.

"Oh, isn't that near the Central Cafe?"

"Yeah." Frank said this more like a question.

"That's a really nice little place, huh?"

"I suppose."

"I was thinking we could have a nice dinner there after Vince's graduation." She was ever so vigilant about her wording and her manner of speaking.

"Oh jeez, are you still on that?" He took a second away from his cooking to wave his arm in the air.

"Yeah, I'm still on that." She was careful not to be defensive, even though she felt a strong urge to be.

"Well, you should stop wasting your time worrying about Vince. He's not worrying about you."

Silvia decided to ignore her dad's attempt to cultivate bad feelings between her and Vince and persisted on with the one argument that was bound to compel her dad.

"It would mean a lot to Mom, you know."

"How do you know?" He turned completely away from his cooking and looked directly at his daughter.

"She suggested it to me."

He turned away from the stove and looked like he might be willing to reason with her when the smell of burning meat came from the frying pan, and he was forced to turn his attention back to the sausages. He turned down the flame and diligently began flipping the sausages.

"Like I was saying," Silvia went on. "Mom was the person who suggested it to me. She wanted to do something for Vince's graduation and thought that having all the family gather for a nice dinner would be a really great way to commemorate the occasion."

"I thought she never wanted to see me again," he said, turning back around to face her and raising one of his eyebrows as though he was cracking a murder mystery. "Now all of a sudden she wants to see me?"

"Maybe," Silvia said, not too surprised that Frank managed to make this thing about himself.

"Well, I was thinking that the Central Cafe would be perfect for the occasion, Dad. What do you think?" She knew how much he loved it when anyone, especially his children, requested his advice or opinion, as they did so very infrequently.

"I suppose," he said, putting the sausages and peppers into a roll. As he opened a can of beer and took a sip equivalent to about half of the can, she thought of saying something to stop him from drinking the rest of the beer. She knew it would lead to another and another and so on.

But she held her tongue.

She was starting to understand why her dad drank, as a newfound sympathy for him was rising up inside of her. Last night, she dreamt of a baby boy crying out in the night for his mom, who, for some mysterious dream reason, couldn't be there for him. It didn't take her long, after waking, to figure out that the little boy was her dad. Most of her dreams were forgotten by the time she got out of her bed, but this one stayed with her all day, with the image playing over and over in her mind. She wanted to feel angry with her Grandma Greco for being such a lousy mom to her dad and most likely the primary impetus behind his drinking, which in turn, made him be a lousy dad. She wanted someone to blame. But then she thought of how she had just talked to Cosmo about how he should stop blaming Frank for his problems. She had to practice what she preached or she would be a hypocrite. Besides, maybe Frank's mom, like him, did the best she could.

Frank walked in the den with his sandwich and his beer, and in doing so, broke his own rule of eating outside of the kitchen. Silvia followed him into the den where he turned on the TV that blasted into the air. He switched about a hundred channels before settling on some nature show with a crocodile eating a zebra.

"So, should I make the reservations, then?" she asked.

"Huh?" he said, like he was completely unaware of anything she'd said during the past half hour.

"Should I make reservations at The Central Café for dinner for all of us for Saturday night?"

No response. He pretended as if he hadn't heard her.

"I can call now to make the reservations for the seven of us and one baby," she said, knowing that once he knew Angie was going, it was a sure deal.

"Seven?" He stopped eating and looked at his daughter. "What do you mean seven plus a baby? Angie's coming?"

"Yeah," Silvia said, feeling a great sense of accomplishment for getting his undivided attention. "She's really looking forward to it too."

"She's coming with Doug?" He asked, as if he didn't already know the answer to this question.

"And Isabella," Silvia said, nodding.

Frank looked at the floor for a few seconds and then at Silvia. She assumed that he was thinking that this dinner was a good idea after all, but there was still one thing nagging at him.

"You know who's going to have to pay for the whole thing? Don't you?" He didn't seem as put out as she thought he would be about having to foot the bill. She figured that the combination of seeing Donna and Angie with having an opportunity to look good in his son-in-law's eyes was more important than the price of dinner.

"Well yeah, Dad, but think of how good you will look in everyone's eyes." And when she said everyone, she was really only referring to Donna, Doug, and Angie.

"That's true," he said, with an expression like he was trying to visualize how everyone would be responding to his great act of generosity. He told her to make the reservation.

After she made did so, she was surprised to find herself going back into the den to sit in front of the television with Frank. She would normally retreat to her room and paint, write emails, or plan her move to Portland. But she felt something inside that directed her back towards the den as if, maybe, for the first time in her life, she wanted her dad's company.

"What now?" he said to her as if her re-entrance into the room was purely opportunistic.

"Nothing. I just thought I'd watch TV with you." He asked her if there was anything special she wanted to watch. Her mind went blank. She rarely watched television and was unfamiliar with the current programming. She imagined that most every channel was showing some terrible reality show. She told him that the nature show was fine. They'd now moved on to a segment about giraffes.

As soon as he finished his sandwich, he began looking around the room like he was uncomfortable and then blurted out, "I got the worst sweet tooth. Damn, I wish I'd stopped for some ice cream. They have Breyers on sale at the ACME. Wish I had some now."

Silvia knew that he was fishing for an offer for her to go get some ice cream, so she told him that she would go and pick some up. At that, his face brightened and he made a special request for mint chocolate chip. "If they don't have that, get chocolate fudge...and if they don't have that, just plain chocolate." She said okay, walked out of the room, and was almost out of the back door when she heard him say, "If they don't have any of those flavors, just call me."

"Righto," she said, and hurried out of the door.

When she came back home, he was staring out of the kitchen window anxiously awaiting her arrival.

"I got mint chocolate chip," she said as soon as she walked in the door. Frank looked like he wanted to jump up and down and clap his hands and shout hurray. He had the bowls and spoons out, and he began digging the ice cream as soon as she put the carton down on the table.

They ate their ice cream while watching wild animals on TV, and during one of the commercials, Frank turned to his daughter and said, "You know something? You're good company." He said this as though it was a brand-new realization for him, and in some way, maybe it was. She smiled graciously.

"So, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your life?" he asked. She knew what he meant by this strange question. If he was more skilled at the art of conversation, he might say something like, "Have you explored any new career options recently?"

"I'm thinking of getting a certification in elementary education and becoming an art teacher."

Frank raised his eyebrows and said, "Now you're using your head," as if she wasn't using her head before. And then he added, "Too bad that teachers are getting laid off left and right these days."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But what isn't tough these days?" She felt like an old person saying these days He nodded in agreement as he ate some of his ice cream.

"Where are you thinking of getting your certification?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she said, not wanting to divulge her plans to move to Portland to him. She knew that he thought of her moving around from place to place to be completely senseless, and she didn't want to lessen the respect that he was now giving her.

"You can stay here if you want. It won't cost you anything. You can commute to Rowan. That's not far."

When she'd considered this option previously, she'd felt sick in her stomach. But now as she sat eating ice cream, watching the nature channel with the mellow version of Frank, she felt like maybe she could live here. Maybe it might not be all that bad.

After a couple of hours of TV, Silvia said goodnight to Frank and went in her bedroom. She got undressed and without thinking, opened up her old bureau and put her T-shirt inside of it. Then, she stood, still as a store mannequin, with her bureau drawer still open. She didn't know whether to close the drawer with her clothing in it or whether to take her T-shirt out and put it in one of her loyal, old orange crates. The orange crates, that had always looked good to her, now looked like the disposable pieces of crap that they were. The bureau, with it's cherry wood stain, looked beautiful, sturdy, and permanent. She took off her pants and put them in the same drawer as the T-shirt and closed it.

Silvia was glad that Donna decided to meet her at the mall for dinner. She was starting to learn all kinds of stuff about the mall. Probably more information than she ever wanted to know about the shopping center that she had devoutly avoided for most of her life. She'd discovered a restaurant with the best French onion soup she'd ever had. When she got to the restaurant, Donna was sitting at a table, dressed in a plain black top and glasses, reading from an eBook reader, sipping a glass of red wine. Silvia gave her mom a hug, sat down, and began buttering a piece of bread from a basket that was in the center of the table.

"How was work?" Donna asked, turning her reader off and putting it away in her bag.

"All right, I guess," Silvia said as she rolled her eyes. "You know. Could be better." In truth, she was starting to get sick of the whole candy thing. Today, she'd decided firmly that she wouldn't eat any more of it because all the sugar seemed to be intensifying the dizziness she already had just from being in the mall.

"Have you given the teaching thing any more thought?"

"I did. I did. A lot more. And I think I want to do it." Her face lit up like a carnival ride. "I would have to get a teacher certification, unless I opt to teach in a private school, but the pay in private schools tends to be much lower."

"A private school would be a great way to get in, though, and see if teaching is something you really like," Donna said as the waiter appeared at their table. He tried to look awake and alert, but Silvia could see the exhaustion coming right through his skin, and she felt empathy for him. After her mom got through with asking him several questions about the menu, she really felt for him.

"So, I've been considering whether to stay at home and go to school, or to move away to Portland and start school there," Silvia said as soon as the waiter left. "I keep going back and forth."

"Home?" Donna said, like she didn't hear anything but the word home. "I haven't heard you call your dad's house 'home' in a while."

Silvia wasn't even aware that she had called her dad's house home, but she took her mom's word for it. She also noted that Donna was now calling it "your dad's house," and that Frank had apparently been demoted from being called Dad to your dad.

"I suppose I did call it home," Silvia said. "It has been feeling more like home lately."

Donna didn't seem to like hearing this and right away she said, "So, do you think you can live with your dad?" She said this like she was prompting her daughter to answer the question negatively. Silvia was surprised, because Donna was the person who had previously suggested that she lived with Frank while attending school.

"Well, I guess I should just move to Portland then," Silvia said as their food arrived.

"What do you mean? That's crazy," Donna said. "Like the only two options you have are living with your dad or moving to Portland."

"What are you suggesting? That I move back to Philadelphia for the fourth time, Mom?"

"What about getting an apartment near Rowan?"

"Why would I pay to live in this area when I can live home for free? That makes no sense."

"Living with your dad is not necessarily free."

"Well, he hasn't really been so bad lately."

Donna looked at Silvia as if to say that they both knew better, and Silvia, in turn, decided that defending Frank might not be the best way to go in this instance.

"You know what I mean, Mom. If I'm going to pay rent, I may as well just move to Portland and be some place I want to be."

Before her mom could say anything back, Silvia ate a big spoonful of soup and enjoyed it as much as she could before having to hear her mom's response.

"Well, I think you should, at least, stick with a New Jersey college so you can get in-state tuition. I think you should just put Portland out of your mind."

"I can always get residency in Oregon and get in-state tuition there."

"So, you're going to put your life off for another year, while you search for a perfect place to live?" Donna said with frustration in her voice.

"Just because I'm not starting school right away doesn't mean that I'm putting my life off. I'm still living my life."

"I know you're living your life, but I also know that you don't want to spend much more time working at a job that...." Donna made a big and mighty sigh.

"That what?" Silvia asked.

"Well, you know that your candy store job is not the most rewarding kind of job for you. You know that you want to do something where you can use your artistic talents."

Silvia knew this only too well, but the idea of committing to a place still frightened her, especially a place that held so many old, stale memories. She knew that her mom could never understand how she felt. How would her mom, who had contentedly lived in the same area for her entire life, ever understand? She could tell her about things like the caged lion she saw in Arizona, but Donna still wouldn't get it and would probably think her daughter melodramatic to use such an analogy. She could tell her about how she realized that her restlessness was tied to growing up in such a disharmonious household, but then Donna might feel guilty for contributing to her daughter's inability to stay still.

Silvia felt very far away from her mom even though she was sitting only a couple of feet away. Donna had no idea of what she felt, and stuck as she was in her cluelessness, she continued on, rather anxiously, with her plans for her daughter.

"I think you should try to start school right here in this area in the fall. Maybe we can get a two-bedroom apartment together. And, of course, I'll pay most of the rent. And—"

"Mom," Silva interrupted. "You work part time at a community college. How are you going to do that?" Donna looked down at her plate of food as if her feelings were hurt, and Silvia, seeing how she had hurt her mom's feelings said, "I'm so sorry Mom. I didn't mean to say that. And I would love to live with you, and I think that your offer is so nice and generous. It's just that I don't want to add any more stress to your life, especially at a time like this."

"It is a stressful time for me, and speaking of being stressed out, seeing your dad right now would greatly add to my stress," she said, completely changing the course of the conversation. Silvia felt slightly shocked, and Donna went on to her daughter that she thought it might be nicer if they all celebrated separately with Vince, so as to give him more opportunity to bask in his achievements.

"But I know Vince, and he doesn't want to bask in anything," Silvia said. "He wants to get the whole thing over with and move on. That's why having one thing would be best for him."

"How about if just the four of us go out to dinner—me, you, Cosmo and Vince?"

"What about Dad and Angie?"

"Vince isn't that close to Angie and he doesn't get along with your dad. You know that."

Of course, she knew that, and she also knew that Vince would be much more comfortable with a night out with just the four of them. But the reunion she was planning wasn't only for Vince. It was for all of them, and perhaps herself most of all. What started as a favor to her mom and a celebration for Vince's graduation had evolved into an opportunity to bring peace to her family and keep them from devolving into loveless families like those of her parents. Even more, this reunion was for her own sake, her own happiness, and her own peace of mind. She was sure, more than ever, that if she could make peace within her family, she would have peace within herself, and maybe then, she would be able to settle down. She would stop running.

She felt that big, gaping hole between the two of them grow and could almost see the table falling into it. She could appreciate Donna's stress about seeing Frank but thought it selfish of her mom to put herself before her family. Also, Donna had no idea of how hard Silvia had worked on the task of getting everyone to agree to go. And there was still time for the others to back out or try to back out, just as her mom was doing right now.

Donna must have seen the sadness in Silvia, who sat in front of her delicious soup as if it was a plate of chicken livers, and she then explained herself to her daughter.

"Silvie, I'm just starting to feel strong and independent for the first time since before I met your dad, and I'm afraid that if I see him now, I might weaken. It's a fragile time. You must know what I mean." Donna looked right into her daughter's eyes with a sincere expression that begged for some sort of understanding, and while Silvia could understand, she also felt angry for losing her Mom's support for the very thing she, herself, had initiated.

"Well that's all good and fine, Mom, but what about all the work and effort I put into this whole thing?"

Donna looked back at Silvia with surprise that hinged on shock as if she didn't have the slightest idea of all of the effort that her daughter had put into planning the occasion.

"I had no idea you put so much into it. I guess I didn't realize it was so important to you," Donna said.

"Well, it is."

"Why?"

"I happen to think that this would really be a great thing for Vince. I know he acts like he hates being the center of attention and doesn't like family gatherings, but when I told him about it, you should have seen the look on his face. I haven't seen him looking so happy since he was a little boy. He knows that I made the reservations, and if I was to go and tell him that it's off now because you don't want to go, how do you think that would make him feel, Mom?" Silvia was both pleased and disgusted with herself for being such a great, big liar, but she felt that she had no choice at this point.

Donna got a look of shame and started apologizing profusely for putting her feelings before the good of her family and for neglecting all of Silvia's hard work. Silvia thanked her mom and thought that her appetite would return with full force but she was sad about what her mom had said about not wanting to see Frank. How could she be anything but overjoyed at Donna committing to leaving him? Somewhere in the back of her head, some useless fantasy lived about them being all together again for good. The rational, intellectual part of her knew that this was just a fantasy and that they'd be lucky to have one night of togetherness, but there was still her little-girl self that blazed through the wiser part every now and then.

Silvia thought of telling her mom that her dad may have been changing and that they had a really good time watching TV together the other night. She thought of telling her how much he missed her. Even though Frank hadn't said anything about missing her, Silvia knew that he did, and besides, what was one more little white lie—she could always tell Donna that she'd overheard him talking to a friend and telling him how much he'd missed her.

But in the end, she said nothing. The waiter came to the table and Donna insisted that they order a hot fudge sundae to share, and so they did.

Silvia got home at dusk, when lightning bugs lingered in the yard and crickets sang loud into the air. She sat on the hood of her car and took in the beautiful night. At times like these, she thought that living in South Jersey might not be so bad after all. She thought of watching TV with Frank while eating bowls of ice cream. She thought of having dinners with Donna, going to movies with Cosmo, going to the beach with Angie, and seeing Vince when he came home from college. She thought of being able to see Isabella grow into girl and into a woman. She thought of having a teaching job and an apartment someplace right around here. It didn't look so bad at all to her. Of course, it might not be forever, but it could be for now.

The sky had a tint of pink, and the air was balmy and soft as she sat watching the magical lightning bugs appear and disappear. She listened to the soft breezes flow through the trees' leaf filled branches and the chirping of the summer time insects. She could hear Cosmo asking "What's wrong with here?" The answer she had for this question was now very clear. There was nothing wrong with here. Not one thing.
CHAPTER SEVEN: TOO LATE FOR SAVING

Some people are born with a smile on their face, while others are born with a frown. Silvia saw Frank as one of the latter, and she wanted to be sure to get his sad frown in her painting, with his lips bent downward like a horseshoe. She was determined to finish her painting tonight. She saved Frank, the most complicated person, for last. She would start him, like she started every person she painted, with the feature that she considered to be the heart of their essence, the thing that made them who they were. For Frank, it was in his eyes. They were eyes of mystery because when he got drunk and angry, they got really dark and hollowed out like a cave with no exit. But when he wasn't angry, fear peaked out of them like a hunted animal checking to make sure the coast is clear. Behind his mighty façade, he was just a frightened child calling out for a mother who was never there for him.

Often times, it was tough to remember the frightened part of him, like on that very night when he'd slammed through the kitchen, opening the door like he was trying to break it down and then slamming it shut so hard that Silvia could hear birds, perched on the roof of the house, fly away in fright. He pounded down the hallway, with heavy footsteps that sounded like his feet might go through the floor. Silvia could hear him banging on Vince's door and opening it without giving Vince a chance to do so himself. She ran outside of her room, into the hallway, and could see her dad standing in his fighting position.

"You're nothing but an introvert and an ingrate!" he yelled. "I never see you or hear a peep out of you until you want something!"

"Isn't that what you want? To never see me or hear from me?" Vince's tone of voice was low, calm, and indifferent, and this indifference fired up Frank, who then raised his voice and said, "Well that's it then, I'm not helping you with your tuition!"

Silvia went back into her room and hid her painting in the closet where Frank would not see it. As she was doing this, she heard his heavy, determined footsteps coming down the hallway towards her room. Her stomach filled with nausea, as if she'd just drunk a glass of old milk. Her head felt disconnected from her body like it was floating above the rest of her. Her fingertips tingled, and she wished that she was, somehow, able to jump out of her skin.

"That brother of yours has nothing to say to me except when he needs something! I'm tired of being made into a fool! And you want to have a party for him? He's a fucking ingrate! That's all he is!"

"Dad, calm down," she said, trying to have compassion in her voice. She regretted saying this as soon as the words came out. She knew better than to tell a mad man to calm down.

"Get your stuff and get the fuck out of my house!" he said, automatic and fierce, like a bolt of thunder. Silvia's response was just as automatic. She got her backpack and grabbed Vince, who was all ready to go, and together they made their getaway.

The two of them were synchronized like a flock of birds flying south for the winter, as they got in her car and zoomed down the driveway. They moved in silence as they drove away, and Silvia recalled all of the times they made similar escapes with their mom and two other siblings. Usually they would have to evacuate in the middle of the night, when they were all sleeping or trying to sleep. They would awaken to the sounds of Frank screaming, and glasses and plates crashing onto the floor. Angie would get up out of her bed and get her overnight bag out of the closet, and Silvia, being her little sister, would follow. There was no shock in either of them. No words. No need for instruction. Almost as if they had intuited exactly what needed to be done. Angie and Silvia would meet up with the other three outside, and then all five of them would pile into Donna's car and flee the house. Donna would back out of the driveway, quickly and clumsily, with Frank chasing them down on foot, as if he, himself, was stronger and more powerful than the car she drove. His limp seemed to vanish as he ran, almost as if the anger had somehow fixed it.

It was no wonder that Silvia was so good at running. She knew what it was like to always be ready, to never know when she might have to, once again, take flight. She had been trained in the battleground of uncertainty. There was always some sense of urgency about her moves, like she was still running from one of her dad's tantrums.

She was sorry that she had moved any of her clothing into her old bureau and wondered if by doing so, she'd jinxed herself. She was sorry that she had ever referred to that place as home and that she had temporarily stopped thinking of it for what it was and what it would always be—her dad's house. She was sorry that she'd ever considered living there with Frank or living anywhere near him.

They drove to Cosmo's apartment in silence, where she knew that they could sleep peacefully, without being woken in the middle of the night by a raging lunatic. Her head rattled with the remnants of Frank's tantrum, as she walked up the steps to Cosmo's apartment. The familiar dinginess of the hallway in his apartment building had become a comfort since she'd been living with her dad, and tonight, after escaping the madness of Frank's house, it was particularly comforting. She even began to see beauty in the vomit green colored carpeting and the peeling beige wall paint.

Cosmo came to the door playing a game that disabled him from saying a proper hello to them. Neither of them minded the lack of reception. They just walked in, sat down, sighed a bunch, and stared out into the space in front of them. Cosmo looked up from his game for a half of a second to say that he would be finished in a minute, but Vince and Silvia were indifferent to having his attention, and the pair just continued staring at the empty space like they were waiting to see some sort of magical appearance.

Silvia was sure that Cosmo knew why they were there but showed little concern. It wasn't that he didn't care, but Cosmo was the one, who stood with both of his feet planted firmly on the ground at all times. Because he had his feet on the ground, he always knew what was coming. So, it would be no surprise to him that Frank showed up drunk and kicked them out of the house. There was no distortion in his sight, and he functioned like a perfect mirror for the very idealistic Silvia, who was beginning to think more of her older brother's ability to live his life, and less of her own.

At this moment, she didn't see him as a quitter. She saw him as someone content with the life he'd been given. He went to work, played his video games, went for the occasional drink with his friends, ate without analyzing every bite of food he put in his mouth, and stayed clear of lost causes and the arguments that such causes create. He knew simplicity. His mind seemed pretty Zen to her now. It wasn't polluted with causes, beliefs, and ideas, like the rest of their minds. Unlike Angie, he didn't care what anyone thought of him. Unlike Donna, he would never get involved in some drama-laden relationship. He would never attempt to search for happiness in a bottle of scotch like Frank. He would never rant about causes like Vince. And unlike her, he didn't try to change people, go on endless searches for perfect places, or try to make peace in a family that knew nothing but war.

"Dad had another one of his episodes tonight, I assume," Cosmo said, putting his phone down.

"How did you guess?" Vince said, sarcastically.

"Are you surprised?" Cosmo said.

"What do you think?" Silvia said.

"I think you thought you could change him," Cosmo said to Silvia.

"So, what if I did? Does that make me a bad person for wanting to help him?"

"No," Cosmo said, smiling deviously. "It does make you a fool, though."

"Fuck off, Cosmo," she said without the slightest bit of expression in her voice.

"People don't change, little sister," he said, flopping down in a chair without regard for her fuck off remark. "Especially people like Dad."

He was right. She knew it, but she still couldn't resist telling her brother that their dad did seem like he was changing. There was still the tiniest bit of idealism that flickered inside of her, like a candle struggling to stay lit in a drafty house. Cosmo turned to Vince, who then verified that their dad didn't seem any different to him. Cosmo needed no further proof, and his face bore a smug look of satisfaction. So, he was right. He was always right, damn it! But there was no time for being mad at her brother for always being right. There were too many bigger worries that had hijacked her brain and were now pressing in on it with the force and strength of a sumo wrestler.

Where was she going to live now that she'd been kicked out of Frank's house? It was just like her dad to wait until she was all situated to pull something like this. And what about the reunion that would save them all? She couldn't possibly think of quitting this cause now. Cosmo must have been reading her mind at this very moment, as he said, "So, I guess there won't be any dinner or anything for Vince's graduation, huh?" He sounded greatly relieved.

"No," Silvia said, looking up at the ceiling stubbornly. "It doesn't mean that, at all."

"Hey Silvia, I don't mind if—" Vince started.

"We're having a dinner, God damn it!" Silvia said. "And it's going to be great! Just fucking great!"

"Yeah, I'm sure it will be," Cosmo said, as if he was trying to humor a mental patient.

"Do you still want to have it this Saturday?" Vince spoke like he was slightly afraid of his sister.

"Yeah. It's still going to be this Saturday at the fucking Central Cafe after your graduation! I made reservations! Angie's coming down with Doug and Isabella!" She shouted every word, as if she were making an announcement in a sports arena. She then looked back at Vince offensively as if she was expecting him to make some kind of negative response. She appeared to be very ready and willing to deal with him if he would. Vince, seeing this, looked down at the floor and refrained from speaking a word.

In an effort to block the noise in her head, Silvia grabbed the TV remote that was on a small, dented end table next to her chair, and turned on the television. She was hoping for something comedic, like a Seinfeld or Simpson's episode, but, instead, she got an update on the latest casualties in Afghanistan. This was even worse than the noise in her head. The war reminded her of her family, and her family reminded her of the war. Fucking war! Never ending fucking war! The thing that has always been and will always be. Arrows morphed into missiles. Sticks and stones turned into atomic bombs. No end and no beginning, just like the fighting that existed and would probably always exist within her family.

She looked over at Vince, who looked like he wanted to jump into the television set and make everything right. She looked at Cosmo, who looked jaded, expressionless, and complacent as a turtle. He was the person who knew how it all really was and knew that their family was just like the rest of the world. Too late for saving. A family of divisions and alliances. A family with so many lines that had grown thicker with time and would just continue to thicken as time went on. Lines that could never be erased.

"When will this war ever end?" Vince said, his arms flying through the air.

"Whenever it does, you can rest assure that another one is right around the corner," Cosmo said.

"Yeah," Silvia said, her eyes transfixed on the television set.

"But why?" Vince cried. "Why does it have to be that way?"

"Because it is," Silvia said, who was suddenly talking like a realist.

"As long as people have been around, they've been fighting with each other," Cosmo said, getting up from his chair. "I mean, think of the cavemen. They fought with each other over buffalo and women."

"As long as I can remember, our family's been fighting too," Silvia said.

"Well that doesn't mean we all have to go on fighting for the rest of our lives," Vince said, surprising Silvia with his sudden concern for the well-being of their family.

"I tried Vince," Silvia said. "I tried to fix things in our family. Look where it got me."

"Where?" Vince said.

"Nowhere," Silvia said. "No. I'm worse than nowhere. I'm defeated."

"Trying to make peace in our family?" Cosmo said. "You'd have better luck in the Middle East."

"Well, I think it's great that you tried," Vince said to Silvia, like he was a parent commending his defeated child.

"I do, too," Cosmo said, surprising Silvia. "Just a tad idealistic though."

"I wish I wasn't so idealistic sometimes," Silvia said.

"Why is that?" Cosmo asked with a sudden curiosity for the way his sister operated.

"Because if I wasn't idealistic, I wouldn't search for things that didn't exist. I wouldn't try to fix people or to change things. My life would be a lot easier."

"You can't fight your nature," Cosmo said. "I mean, you are who you are. I am who I am. I wouldn't try to be a dreamer, and you shouldn't try to be a realist." When had he suddenly become so sagacious about life?

"That's right," Vince said. "And the world needs more people like you. Maybe you didn't make peace in our family, but at least you tried. If you weren't such an idealist, I'm sure you wouldn't have even tried."

Silvia could feel the look of disgust and anger melting from her face as Vince's words settled inside of her, and she lifted slightly from her bad mood to thank him. He was so right. Only a dreamer like herself would attempt to make peace in a family that had never known peace, and even though she was feeling like a bit of a failure at the moment, she could still recognize the fact that she did, in fact, make some worthy progress. She did get Frank to an AA meeting. She did get through to Cosmo about how he shouldn't blame other people for his problems. She taught Vince about the importance of peace starting at home. She taught Angie to assume the best about Cosmo, and she even taught Donna to always put her family before herself. She taught them all about forgiveness and got them to agree to go to the reunion.

She'd gone from feeling like a worthless piece of crap to feeling good about herself in a matter of seconds and wished that she could have enjoyed her feeling of accomplishment a little longer, but Cosmo brought her back to reality when he said, "So, I guess you won't be living with Dad much longer, huh?"

"No, I guess not," she said, her face filling with gloom once again.

"What about you, Vince?" Cosmo said, causing Silvia to turn towards Vince. Then a thought came to her. Maybe he would consider moving out to Portland with her. Together, they could make a new, clean start away from the contaminated, stale, old part of their family. He could go back to school there and be completely comfortable amongst the other like-minded people, and she could have her younger brother by her side. In no time at all, she had both her and Vince's life planned as the dynamic brother-sister duo living in Portland—the ones that got away, the ones that made it.

Just as the sadness was beginning to float out of her body, Vince said that he'd probably move up to New Brunswick and go to Rutgers in the spring semester. She felt a drop inside of her stomach with the sinking feeling of a bowling ball dropping. When she saw Cosmo nodding his head in agreement with Vince's alternative plan, her head became light and distant from her body. She was alone once again. Completely alone. And it was probably this severe aloneness that caused her to make a spiteful remark to Vince.

"That'll be great, Vince. You'll be right near Angie and Doug." She knew it was the wrong thing to say, but she couldn't help herself.

"Why did you have to say that, Silvia?" Cosmo said. "You know he can't stand Doug. You're trying to start trouble."

She stopped herself from saying anything back, because she knew Cosmo was right once again. Instead, she just looked away from both of them and towards the ceiling with an indignant face.

"What's wrong, Silvia? Why are you upset at me for going to Rutgers?" Vince asked.

"I'm not. I'm sorry," she said, turning towards him and attempting to wipe the disturbed expression from her face. "I just thought we could move to Portland together. That's all. Before what happened tonight, I was planning on maybe living with that maniac. I guess I was fooling myself into thinking he was changing and wouldn't be so bad to live with."

"Why do you want to stay in this area, anyway?" Cosmo asked. "I thought you hated it here."

"You're right about that. But I was thinking of going back to school and getting certified to teach art, and I thought that if I went to school in New Jersey, I could get in-state tuition. I thought of staying at Dad's because it would be free."

"But would it really be free?" Cosmo said, repeating the same words that Donna had previously spoken to her. They were both right. The price of living with Frank was much more costly than rent would be in a penthouse apartment in New York City.

She shrugged and said nothing. Without a plan, she felt lost in an ugly labyrinth made of steel. She wished, in fact, that she could make a life for herself like Cosmo had made for himself. She wished that she had not inherited the Greco gene for being malcontented. They were all malcontents, except for Cosmo, which may have been the reason for her hanging around him so much. He was a sturdy, old tree in her life, and one that would not fall over or even bend with the strongest of winds. Maybe she was hoping that his contentedness could somehow rub off on her. But it had not.

"Why do you want to move there anyway, Silvia?" Vince said. "I mean, what can you do there that you can't do here?"

"It has nothing to do with what I can do in one place versus what I can do in another," she said, like the answer should have been apparent to him.

"Well, then, why do you want to move there?" Vince said, like he was really trying hard to understand his sister's rational for moving.

"It's because this place sucks," Cosmo said, answering for Silvia. "In fact, the whole North East sucks as far as Silvia's concerned."

Silvia didn't bother defending herself out of lack of energy more than anything else. So, Vince turned to her and asked, "Is this true?" She said it wasn't completely true. She said it wasn't all bad and that places like Burlington, Vermont might be all right if she was an old, retired hippie who didn't mind the cold weather. She said that she felt stale, tired, and depressed here. But she knew that she was fooling herself and that that feeling had nothing to do with where she was. She knew that it had always been her sadness that could make the most beautiful of tropical islands look ugly, the most exciting of all cosmopolitan centers seem boring, and the most inviting of small towns to be unfriendly. But what she knew in her mind and what she felt in her body had not yet come together. She hoped that one day they would.

Vince slept on the floor, while Silvia slept on the couch. It was hard and creaky, and the gray blanket that Cosmo gave her, which looked like it might have been white at one time, was about as warm as a towel. But even if she was sleeping on a luxury mattress with clean sheets and cozy blankets, she still wouldn't have slept well. Her mind was too crammed full of stuff, like whether she should stay in the area and look for an apartment and start school, or move to Portland and put school off for another year or two and hope for the best in terms of finding a job there. Periodically, her mind would switch to plans for the reunion. As a result of the continual stream of thoughts racing about her head like bees inside of a hive, she spent the night in one of those light sleeps, more awake than asleep, almost like she was watching herself sleeping. She could hear Vince sleeping soundly on the cold, hard floor beside her. She wished that she could feel happy for him for sleeping after their very stressful day, but in truth, she was jealous for his ability to sleep through the night while she lay awake, isolated in her insomnia.

She wanted to be angry with Frank for coming home like such a raging bull. She wanted to be angry with having to grow up in a house where things always went wrong, like all the Sunday dinners that ended in a fight between Frank and Cosmo, or like the summer road trip vacations with Frank threatening to turn the car around and driving back home just as they were nearing their destination. But as much as she wanted to be angry with him, she knew that he could only be who he was, and she really understood, now more than ever, that he just couldn't help himself.

She wanted to be angry with Donna for not leaving her dad long ago and taking all of them with her. Why did she stay as long as she did and, in her own way, help to make him into who he was? But she knew that her mom, like most people, just did the best that she could do. And besides, Silvia knew that blame was a wasteful thing. That is what she told Cosmo and Vince. So why was she letting her mind go wayward now? The simplest and most truthful answer was that she was tired. So, she got up and made herself a cup of chamomile tea with a bag she happened to have stashed in her backpack. Finding a clean cup in Cosmo's messy kitchen wasn't as difficult as she'd expected, and shortly after making and drinking the tea, she nodded off.

The sun poured into the room like it was angry with Silvia for sleeping in at a time like this. She noticed that, for once, Cosmo had left his curtains open and thought that he might have been trying to brighten the place up. He couldn't have picked a worser time to start trying to brighten his place up though. The black she saw through her closed eyes turned into a reddish black, making her pull the blanket over her eyes, which did allow her to doze back off into a state of restless sleep. But she was awakened again shortly after, this time by the ring of Vince's phone. She could no longer fool herself that going back to sleep was even a remote possibility.

She could hear Vince talking on the phone to one of his friends, telling him about last night's events and refreshing the whole scene in her memory. She opened her eyes and Cosmo popped in the room to tell her about the breakfast options.

"There's Cheerios or Cornflakes. Help yourself," Cosmo said as he put his jacket on. "Gotta run. Just make sure to lock the door behind you."

"Hey, Cosmo," Silvia said as he was about to run out the door.

"Yeah?" Cosmo asked.

"Thanks a lot for everything," she said, her eyes filled with gratitude.

She then moped into the kitchen to make coffee and eat a bowl of cereal, while planning her day. She would drop Vince off at school and go straight to work. She'd probably go back to her dad's house after work, unless he was still raging. She was planning to call him during her work break to find out. Just then, her own phone rang. It was Frank, remorseful and apologetic. "Hey, Silvia, about last night...I don't know what gets into me sometimes."

She felt like saying that she did know what gets into him sometimes and that that something was alcohol. But she refrained. She knew that she needed to use the opportunity at hand to get his support for the family reunion, and she knew that she wouldn't accomplish this by letting him off the hook easy. She needed to use this rare occasion, in which Frank was feeling sorry, to make him feel sorrier than he felt already. And she knew just how to begin.

"Dad, Vince is really upset," she said.

"I know," Frank said. "I feel terrible. Maybe I had too much to drink last night." This was the great understatement of the year and not really worthy of a response, so she said nothing. Her lack of response was also a smart tactic. By leaving some space and silence in their conversation, Frank's feelings of remorsefulness and guilt would continue to escalate until he had to say something to redeem himself.

"Just so you know, I'm going to be helping him out with his tuition. In fact, I plan on paying for the first semester in full. And the second, if I can."

But that wasn't enough for Silvia, who then said, "And the dinner after his graduation, Dad? What about that?"

"Yeah, I'll pay for that too. I already said I would." He had a hint of defensiveness in his voice, as if he might have momentarily forgotten his rampage last night. But still, his response was clear, and there was no trace of reluctance in his voice. Silvia began to think that she could ask him for anything now, as he was so very anxious to buy her forgiveness.

"Hey, do me a favor though," he said.

"What's that?"

"Don't mention anything about last night to Mom."

"I won't say anything to her, Dad. Promise."

When Silvia arrived at work, she was feeling grateful for being there and for anything that was a diversion from her life plans and her family drama. Although she struggled with her tired, lazy mind to keep her thoughts clear and simple for the day, her efforts were of little use. Her mind continued to race and ramble throughout the day and to fill with clutter and complication, all while she rang up orders, filled bins with candy, helped customers, and ordered the next candy shipment. She was at work in body only.

Her head was filled with lots of questions and all of the questions wanted immediate answers. When would Frank's mood turn bad again? Would it be before Vince's graduation? Or, worse, yet, during the family reunion? Would she be able to stay at his house until she could move to Portland? Or should she get an apartment with Donna in Philadelphia? Or maybe she should just rent a room somewhere in the area? Should she go back to school in New Jersey, or try to get her residency in Portland and go to school there?

She couldn't possibly answer all of these questions today. As Vince's graduation was tomorrow, she decided that the reunion demanded more of her attention presently than her life plans. Her original enthusiasm for the family gathering had drained out of her, like water draining out of a bathtub once the stopper is pulled. She thought of all of the energy that had been required to persuade her family members to be a part of the reunion had been a big part of the energy drain. There was Vince, who wasn't keen on family gatherings and much less keen on being the focus of such a gathering. And then, there was Donna, who originally suggested the whole thing and then turned against it. There was Angie and Cosmo, both hoping to avoid each other for the rest of their lives. And, last but not least of all, there was Frank, who was an energy drain just by being. But with the dinner tomorrow, she knew that she would have to refuel her original passion for this whole thing, especially with the very real possibility of one or more of them backing out.

When she got home from work that night, Frank wasn't there, but his presence was everywhere, in every messy room, in every dusty corner, in every space, and in every crevice. She could feel him shuffling around the kitchen, emptying bottles, pounding the floor with his heavy step and slamming doors. She could hear his anger, guilt, and sadness stirring around inside of him. She could feel her own sadness mixing with his, almost as if their combined sadness was creating a separate entity. She would never stop feeling sad for him now that she had realized that he had no chance for happiness. She had relinquished her cause of trying to save him, and she knew that he would never attempt to save himself.

She went into her room, took the painting out of the closet, and stared at it. Last night, it felt complete, but tonight it felt incomplete. Something inside of each one of them wasn't coming through as much as it could. It was the something that was beyond their skin. It was the part of them that remained the same even as time moved through their bodies. The part of them that was who they were. She thought that if she could look at some old family photographs, she might be able to see what was missing in each of them, and then she could paint the missing parts. She ran into the den, opened a cabinet full of old books, and pulled out a big box containing family pictures that had been thrown inside as if wanting to be forgotten.

She very slowly and carefully opened the box, almost as if its contents were under pressure. This box, that had been stowed conveniently away for years and that held their family memories, felt as if it was bursting with emotion—both good and bad. Pictures were thrown in like old playing cards, some curled, some bent, some discolored, some streaked, and some faded. A few really old, black and white photos looked like they had been taken in Italy, or the old country, as the people in the photo probably called it.

The first photo she examined was of all six of them at Stouffer's Restaurant in Philadelphia on one of the coldest days of the year. Silvia had worn her blue and white ski jacket and her new Levi jeans. Cosmo had just turned thirteen and, therefore, was too cool to be seen with his family. Silvia remembered him walking a long distance away from the rest of them for the entire day. Angie whined about how she wanted to shop, and didn't stop until they were finally all forced inside a Macy's for warmth. Donna worried about Vince getting frostbite. Silvia only wanted to look at the tops of all of the buildings. And Frank. Poor Frank. That was one of the many days when he blamed them all for driving him to drink. And to his great relief, Stouffer's had some pretty good happy hour specials.

There was a photo of their spring vacation in Florida when Silvia was five years old. They all stayed with Frank's friend, Joe, who he'd met in law school. Joe had a big black mustache and talked with a slight lisp. He had a girlfriend, a dog, and no kids of his own, so he seemed to enjoy an opportunity to spend time with the Greco kids. He took Silvia out looking for seashells on the beach every morning. By the end of their stay, she had wished that she could trade in her own dad for Joe, or as she came to know him, Uncle Joe. He went with the family to Disney World, where Angie got food poisoning on a hot dog, Cosmo got lost, and the Three Little Pigs sexually harassed Donna. No one could believe their eyes. The three, short, chubby, costumed men surrounded her, and began laughing like you would expect short, chubby costumed men to laugh—like munchkins. Then one quickly put his pudgy little hand on one of Donna's breasts. Frank ran fast and furious towards Donna and chased the little men, but never caught up to them, as they hid themselves away in some staff-only area. He then divided the rest of the day between complaining about the event at the customer service department and contemplating bringing a suit against Disney World on sexual harassment charges. In the end, he decided that he would not bring a suit against them, as he always blamed such types of lawsuits for the cheapening and ruining the legal profession.

Then there was a photo of Frank, Donna, and Cosmo taken right before Cosmo's confirmation. Donna looked proud, but tired, as she did in almost all of her pictures. Frank looked like he couldn't wait to get this obligatory thing over with. And Cosmo had the look of dread his eyes, as if he knew from experience what was to happen after the ceremony. Frank and Grandpa Tucci got embroiled in their worst fight yet. And who could have foreseen that such a vicious battle would ensue over who got the last piece of eggplant Parmesan? Donna regretted not making another platter, but she thought one would be plenty. She'd fret for many years to come and had condemned herself as the culprit for this very unfortunate event.

There was a picture of Angie's wedding before Frank's drunken toast. The picture included Vince, who was eleven or twelve and looked really happy to be there. Who would have ever guessed that he would grow into an adult disliking his new brother-in-law as much as he did? Silvia was in a pink, long, puffy dress she was forced to wear as the Maid of Honor. And Angie looked simultaneously radiant and panicked. Her panic undoubtedly came from the fact that Frank might end up making a fool of himself and dragging her down with his foolishness. Her fears, of course, were well justified.

There was a photo of the summer of Silvia's eighth year when they had vacationed at the shore. They rented the top level of a house in Sea Isle City. It was light pink house with a dark pink canvas awning, under which Donna, Angie, and Silvia spent long, humid days sitting, reading, and listening to the ocean. Frank spent most of the vacation inside sleeping in front of the television set as he wasn't a fan of the sun, or the sea, or the sand. Vince built sand castles on the beach, while Cosmo sat beside him reading comic books underneath a green and yellow striped umbrella. At night, they all walked on the boardwalk and went to the amusement park, which was Silvia's favorite part. She loved the rides that spun around, the cotton candy, and the freaky house of mirrors. She remembered it being a mostly mellow holiday, with only one relatively minor explosion from Frank that resulted from the high cost of a dinner one night.

"Jesus Christ," he complained to Donna on the car ride home from the restaurant. "I'd like to know when the hell food got so God damned expensive!"

"Oh, c'mon, Frank. We deserve one night out at a nice restaurant."

"Well, that's easy for you to say! You're not the one who pays the bills! You're not the one who's got to go around to all those one-horse courtrooms like a fucking dog!" At one time, Donna may have tried to stop Frank from cursing in front of her children, but had given up.

There was a photo of Donna's fortieth birthday party with everyone gathered around the dining room table with a big, white cake in the center. Angie looked busy cutting the cake and serving slices to everyone. Cosmo's face had not yet turned cynical. Frank looked only slightly hammered. Vince looked too young to know anything about the significance of a woman turning forty. In fact, he probably had no concerns at all, except for getting the biggest rose on the cake. Silvia was smiling big and effortlessly like her family's gathering was all that she needed for her happiness. This photo gave her a shiver and even produced a tear. She felt a strong desire to get inside of the picture and to be a part of it.

She then came upon a picture of her riding her first two-wheel bike at the age of four. Cosmo had taken the training wheels off of her little blue Schwinn, and he and Angie ran alongside while holding onto her as she peddled. They let go of her when she was about half way up the driveway. She could still remember the feeling of exhilaration she had as she took her first peddles. It made her sad to remember that there was a time when Cosmo and Angie were at least close enough to make the joint effort of helping her learn to ride a bike.

The next picture was in the kitchen during one of their Sunday dinners, which seemed to last all day long. Donna was wearing a red and white apron, cooking busily and happily, and waving her arms about in a most animated way. This was before the day that Frank so wrongly pronounced himself a cook, and when Donna still reigned free in the kitchen to cook her delicious dinners that never faltered in any way. Cosmo and Angie were sitting side by side, as if they could stand each other and even looked like they could pass for friends. Silvia was setting the table, and Vince was smiling big for the camera and sitting next to Frank, who had one of those tired, hard-working smiles.

There was a picture of Cosmo and Frank playing pool in the basement. Frank was a really good pool player. Even great. Silvia was sure that he must have loved being better at something than Cosmo. This may have been the only photo with just the two of them together. Frank looked happy, or at least, mildly content. Cosmo had a goofy expression and jokingly had a pool stick pointed at his head.

The next photo was of their summer trip to Quebec. They all packed into their Cadillac in late August in the early morning hours and headed up to Canada. They stopped only for coffee and bathroom breaks and ate whatever they brought with them in the car, like chips, fruit, nuts, cheese, and juice boxes. Vince was at the center of the photo, a boy of three, wide eyed with curiosity, seeing the world outside of New Jersey for the first time in his life. Silvia was beside him, holding his hand in a protective sort of way. Angie was standing in front of them all, as if posing for a high fashion magazine. Cosmo was standing as far away from Frank as possible, undoubtedly due to having taken such a long ride up in the same car with him. Donna was looking straight out at the camera, her smile taking over her entire face. Frank didn't look angry. Instead, he was looking at Donna, as if he was still in love with her.

The closer Silvia looked at the photo, the more she saw. His eyes were filled with both love and remorse, as if to say that he was sorry that he couldn't be a better husband but that he was doing the best he could. If Silvia looked at any one of her family members, really looked at them, she might see this same sort of sadness in their eyes. If they could all put the sad parts of their eyes together, it would equal Frank's eyes. Almost as if the remorse that lived within Frank's body had fractionalized and was doled out evenly to each of his family members.

The next picture was of Frank and Donna on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City with Donna's face glowing brilliantly and filled with love. The longer Silvia stared at this picture, the clearer Donna's ambiguity towards Frank became. Maybe her staying with him wasn't so much based on fear, confusion, and sacrifice. Maybe it was based on love and, as Grandma Tucci would have said, "You can't help who you fall in love with." She undoubtedly was referring to herself and to her daughter when she had said this, and, perhaps, to all the other people who'd fallen in love with someone who wasn't the right one. Silvia felt a great understanding for her mom and for her confusion, her sometimes selfishness, and other times selflessness. It all made sense to her now.

The next photo was one of the only Christmases she remembered that wasn't demolished by one of Frank's usual holiday outbursts. In the picture, Angie sat at the piano playing carols with Donna singing beside her, while the other three decorated the tree. Silvia remembered Frank taking the picture. She was looking right at the camera, smiling as bold, bright, and shiny as a newly bloomed flower. It was the same smile that was on her face in the photo from Donna's fortieth birthday party—a smile that she hadn't made in years. When she tried to smile like that now, it made her jaws feel strained and awkward.

Only a person who was truly happy could make such a smile. And she was truly happy in these pictures. She was perfectly able to be happy in her hometown in New Jersey. She had these photos to prove it. The words "you can be happy anywhere," spoken to her once by a friend, resounded in her head and although these same words previously bounced off of her, they were now penetrating her skin, and going deep inside of her. She suddenly felt lightness in her body and a feeling of warmth in her stomach. She knew now that it didn't matter whether she stayed in New Jersey or moved to Portland because happiness really had nothing to do with anything outside of herself. It never did, and it never would. She got one of those lumps in her throat that comes before crying.

But instead of crying, she got up and went in to her bedroom, with her energy for the reunion revived and stronger than ever. She got on her computer and sent out emails to all of her family members reminding them of the time and location of Vince's graduation party. She sent individual invites, as well as a group invitation. She attached maps to all the emails, even though she knew they all knew just where the restaurant was as it was in the center of their hometown. She didn't leave room for RSVPs, thus not giving them an opportunity to say that they couldn't attend, to make excuses, or to be their usual cowardly selves. She simply said that she had made the reservation for a party of seven and one baby for seven o'clock on the evening of June seventh. 'What a lot of sevens!' she wrote, followed by 'See you all then' and closed with, 'Should be a great time!'
CHAPTER EIGHT: KEEPING THE GOOD

On the evening of Vince's graduation, the Central Cafe seemed darker than Silvia had remembered it to be. It looked as if the owners had decided to conserve energy by keeping the lights off. She thought that if that was the case, then they should, at least, invest in some candles. She was glad that she'd decided to wear something cheerful— a white and mint green dress. A few small windows allowed some of the setting sun to pour in, giving the room a slight glimmer. Just as Silvia was getting used to the darkness and thinking that the dim light would allow the family to feel less self-conscious, a brunette lady turned the lights up. She greeted Silvia, who in turn told her about the reservations. The lady, who appeared to be the hostess, went to check the reservations. This left Silvia alone, giving her an unwanted opportunity to get nervous about the coming evening.

There was still time to leave the whole scene, to weasel out. Of course, she would never do anything like that, but she got some strange sense of comfort in the thought of it. This must have been what her mom felt like all the times that she had planned holiday dinners that had had a good chance of being destroyed. Or what Angie must have felt like on the morning of her wedding, as if brides aren't nervous enough without having to be apprehensive about what their dad might do.

It seemed like Frank was always ruining or destroying something. He couldn't help himself. Silvia thought that he must have been the type of kid to stomp on another kid's sand castle. She recalled, with sadness, the time that she and Angie spent a long, hot summer day making blueberry buckle, only to have it thrown from the kitchen countertop while it was cooling, by none other than the inebriated Frank. Silvia, upon hearing the sound of crashing glass, knew just what it was. She ran in to look at her and Angie's work, splattered on the floor like the corpse of a person who'd jumped out of a high-rise building. Being too young and stupid to know any better, she thought it might be salvageable. When she ran towards the fallen dish, her mom screamed at her to get away, gripping her arm as if she was pulling her up from a mountain ledge.

Would this night be a repeat of a typical holiday dinner, Angie's wedding, or the destroyed dish of blueberry buckle? Or would it be different? Why should it? How could she think that she was capable, somehow, of making it different than most of the previous family occasions? She stared at the red neon exit sign above the door like it was her salvation. She imagined herself escaping the place, followed by her family members arriving, dumbfounded, looking around, trying hard not to look at each other, growing in discomfort, wondering where Silvia had gone, and wondering if something happened to her—something terrible like a car accident.

She envisioned her mom calling the police. She got a strange kind of pleasure in knowing the extreme guilt that they would all feel when they assumed that Silvia, in her altruistic efforts to bring them together, had been hurt or worse yet, killed. Maybe then they would all gain some perspective, realize the triteness and silliness of their fighting, and realize what is really important in life. Their worry, guilt, and new-found perspective might even unite them.

Then her imagination took a very sharp turn. She now saw her family members yelling and berating her, and seeing her as nothing more than a weak, little coward for running out on them. This vision made her jump up and zoom over to the hostess, with maniac enthusiasm, and check on their reservation. The hostess assured Silvia that their table would be ready any minute, but Silvia seemed dissatisfied with this assurance. She wanted more specific details, like exactly how much of the table had been set, and what about the cake that she'd ordered? Had it arrived? Was it in the kitchen? She rushed back to ask the hostess about it, her little body awakening with new life, new nervousness, and new hopes. She began walking back and forth like her dad would pace in the kitchen while cooking.

And as she noticed this, she looked up and saw him in the restaurant talking to the hostess and calling her by her first name, Anna. Frank spoke with all of the charm and charisma that he could turn on and off like a light switch, making Anna laugh and even blush. His eyes met with his daughter's eyes that returned his look with a combination of approval and admiration. In his return gaze, Frank's face said, 'I came through. I did what was right. I'm here.' He was the first one to show up. He was even well-dressed in a gray suit and a light blue button-down shirt.

There was still a possibility that one or more of the others would not show up, but Frank was here and, therefore, she had succeeded! She felt a relief in her stomach that spread throughout the rest of her body, all the way into her toes and fingertips. The rest would be cake, which Anna had then confirmed was sitting on a counter top in the kitchen.

"It's carrot cake, right?" Silvia asked, still some nervousness in her voice.

"I think so," Anna said, who was beginning to seem almost as nervous as Silvia, like Silvia's anxiety had somehow spread.

"We'd better make sure," Silvia said, biting on one of her nails.

"I'm sure it's carrot, and it will be great," Frank said, who all of sudden seemed to be taking on the role of the calm, together one. It was a role that he rarely was able to play, and he seemed to enjoy playing it. Silvia knew that in his heart of hearts, he would rather build than destroy. Destroying had just become a habit, and habits are, after all, hard to break.

She felt a sort of calm from his reassurance, and for a couple of minutes she remained stationary and made a conscious effort to not pace or check on the status of cakes and tables. Just as she began sinking into a state of calm, Donna walked in. Again, Silvia's body filled with tension. This was the first time that her mom and dad had seen each other since Donna had left him. Why couldn't Angie have shown up first? Angie, with little Isabella, who would be running around and distracting everyone with her cuteness. Silvia now wished she had sent individual emails with different times for everyone, so as to prevent this very awkward moment.

Donna saw Frank, and Frank saw Donna, and Silvia saw both pairs of their eyes meet. Their eyes reflected a wide array of feelings: discomfort, resentment, sadness, love, anger, remorse, and lost hope. Donna did what she could to kill the awkwardness by saying "Hello, Frank," as if there was nothing wrong. As if she had never left. As if he'd never hurt her time and again. As if the big space between them didn't exist. He didn't say anything but not because he was ignoring her. It was almost as if he'd forgotten how to talk.

He sat there with his mouth open, gazing at his wife, who looked absolutely lovely. Silvia wondered how her mom's radiance made Frank feel. Whenever Silvia saw an ex-boyfriend, she hoped he would look bad. This would give her a sense of satisfaction, as if her leaving him was the cause of his deterioration and ruination. If she ever saw one looking as good as her mom looked right now, she would be miserable. And misery was exactly what she saw in her dad's face. Surely, he was regretting how much he'd messed things up. He must be kicking himself so hard right now. But through the self-berating, the regretting, and the misery, he finally did manage to say a hello. It was a somber, painstaking hello, without the mention of her name, but still, it was a hello.

Silvia abruptly decided that she couldn't take another second of this tension and got up to greet her mom. As she stood up, she noticed Anna standing in the corner, and decided that this innocent bystander would be a perfect distraction from the moment's awkwardness. She approached Anna as if she was her long-lost friend and introduced her to Donna. She then turned to Donna and said, "Anna has everything under control, so there's no need for any worry." Donna didn't look in the slightest bit worried, and her daughter's comment made her face puzzle in confusion. Silvia's comment may have not been the only thing making Donna confused. She may have been wondering why her daughter was being so charming? Had she'd suddenly inherited Frank's charm? Or maybe she had it all along, and Donna was just seeing it now. Silvia had no regard for her mom's confusion, as she was only concerned with dispersing some of the tension. Anna's presence did serve to assuage the tension, and soon they were all involved in a conversation about this hostess.

Anna had just begun work at the restaurant a month ago, and she was going to school full time. She was doing coursework to get her teacher certification. Now, they were all talking about how Silvia was planning to do the very same thing.

"Well, I think teaching is a great idea," Frank said to Silvia. "Now you're using your head." He would probably continue to re-use this 'using your head' phrase with Silvia, but she didn't mind it. She did, however, notice her mom's eyes rolling at Frank's remark, so she did what she could to detract from any more attention paid to her dad's comment by saying, "I have Mom to thank for the suggestion." Frank looked at Donna, his eyes still sad.

"Anna," a stout man yelled from the hostess stand. Anna excused herself and left the three of them to wonder what to talk about next.

"The ceremony was nice," Donna said, breaking the silence that was only seconds but that seemed like hours.

"Yeah, it was nice. Short and sweet," Silvia said, smiling a nervous smile.

Frank looked down guiltily, which led Silvia to assume that he missed the graduation ceremony. And just when this assumption was cemented in her mind, Frank raised his head up and said, "Yes, it was nice."

Frank looked exhausted with his thick worry lines and eyelids that looked so heavy, as if they were being pushed down over his eyes against their own will. Maybe he was tired. Tired of fighting over nothing, tired of drinking, and tired of being tired. Maybe he was at a crossroad. He wasn't too old. He still could change.

As Silvia drifted into her fantasy world where miraculous transformations of character occur, where there is no fighting, where everyone gets along all the time, and lives in harmony, Cosmo appeared in the doorway of the restaurant. People seemed to be showing up in the reverse order that she would have preferred. When Frank excused himself to get a drink at the bar, Silvia not only understood his action, but had also wished that she too could excuse herself and join him in a drink. The idea of drinking with her dad always repulsed her, as he seemed to delight in her having a drink, and this seemed very wrong to her. But, right now, she didn't care about his bad parenting skills. She cared more about releasing the tension in her body, for it was almost too much for her little self to contain.

"Hey," Cosmo said, entering the room as his usual self, dressed in mismatched clothing and a fedora hat.

"Hi, Cosmo," Frank said on his way to the bar, like he'd just seen his son yesterday.

"Hey, Dad," Cosmo said with much of the same indifference as Frank. Then he walked over to where his mom and sister were standing and gave them both a hug.

"Thanks for coming Cosmo," Silvia said, giving him a hug.

"Sure," he said. And then he just stood there and calmly stared out into the space in front of him. His mellow presence should have calmed Silvia. Instead, it made her more anxious, as if she was compensating for his lack of nervousness by being more nervous herself.

"All the time I lived in this town, I've never been to this place," Cosmo said.

"Your dad and I had one of our first dates here," Donna said, making Silvia think she should have picked another place. Her mom looked around at the place as if remembering the date. She turned to Silvia and said, "You picked a winner," as if she knew her daughter needed this reassurance.

And as the three of them experienced a mutual moment of togetherness and calm, Frank re-entered the room, drink in hand, and once again, tension filled the air—loud, thick, and heavy. Silvia had to say something frivolous about something like the weather, or better yet, cake.

"We got a great looking carrot cake in the back. That's Vince's favorite. I think it's a lot of people's favorite. I prefer it to chocolate cake myself." She spoke very quickly, knowing how little her family must have genuinely cared about her feelings for carrot cake, but they all pretended that what she was saying was something very interesting.

"Yeah, I love carrot cake myself," Frank said, who loved all sweets. Donna and Cosmo nodded, grinning in agreement, and as their exchange about carrot cake grew into a thing of great beauty, Angie came in the door with Doug and little Isabella dressed in a pink, plaid jumper and looking all ready for a party. Frank's face brightened with smiling lips and cheerfully squinting eyes. Meanwhile, Cosmo's face became tense with worry and his body seemed to turn stiff. Silvia was surprised to see her brother react this way as he so rarely got anxious. He seemed to get more anxious as Angie came over to greet her family with her movie star smile. She wore black pants, an off-white blouse, and a red scarf.

Silvia smiled admiringly at her sister, knowing that it couldn't have had been easy to be with all of her family for the first time since her awkward wedding and knowing that she felt rejected by Cosmo and felt her usual distance from Donna. She seemed fine though. In fact, she was better than fine. She was happy to see her family, and she hugged Cosmo as if all that had happened between them was forgotten. And with that hug, all of their resentment-filled past seemed to fade into the air that was beginning to fill with the delicious smells of gravy and garlic. Cosmo grinned, his shoulders came down, and his body seemed to visibly loosen as he reverted back to his usual caterpillar-like posture.

Then Donna embraced Angie like she had never done before, like she was trying to close up the distance between them. A distance that just happened and had been allowed to live and grow, unfettered and uninterrupted. A distance that was never intended. Everyone seemed to partake in the hug in a vicarious way.

Doug was busy chasing his daughter, as the five of them looked up to see the guest of honor walk through the door. Vince was dressed in his only suit, which was black and looked way too hot for the season. His smile looked as if it had been painted on and like he'd rather be somewhere else—anywhere else. It was an expression that combined obligation and stage fright.

"Hey, Vince," Silvia said, as naturally as she could, in hopes of relaxing him. He smiled his awkward smile at his family and walked over to Donna. As Vince and Donna were hugging, Anna came out to say that the table was ready. All of them poured into the smaller private room that was reserved for large parties. The only table in the room was set with shiny white plates, silverware in perfect order, and maroon colored napkins folded like captain hats. The lighting was warm and made everyone look especially beautiful and helped Silvia to relax a bit.

No one wanted to be the first to sit down, as if doing so was rude, so Silvia broke the discomfort by sitting in the place where she sat at their dinner table at home, and by doing so, the others followed suit. She even moved the high chair so that Angie could be in her usual place. Doug would just have to fall where he could, which inconveniently happened to be right beside Vince. Frank was next to Cosmo, so that they could both irritate each other with their presence and their smacking jaws. Angie was next to Donna, so they could feel the distance that lived between them. Silvia and Vince were next to each other, so that they could partake in their silent competition.

Why did her mom arrange her family that way, anyway? Or maybe she didn't arrange it. Maybe they just masochistically arranged themselves to allow for optimum discomfort. Grandma Tucci would say that they were sitting just where they were supposed to sit. She firmly believed in a divine plan that permeated all aspects of people's lives, and she would have said that they sat in these particular places to learn something. She would have said that they needed to learn how to be more comfortable around people with whom they didn't feel comfortable. Vince and Silvia needed to learn not to be so competitive. Cosmo and Frank needed to learn to tolerate each other. Angie and Donna needed to learn to connect with each other and to stop pushing each other away. Angie and Cosmo needed to overlook their differences and simply get along.

But Grandma Tucci wasn't here to say any of this. And had she been present, she would not have been heard. Her voice had always been clear, but lacking in the ferocity needed to be heard amidst the Greco crew. So, she went unheard to all, except Silvia, who was fortunate to know what was important at a young age. She wondered if somehow the other members of her family were now also hearing Grandma Tucci's wisdom. She noticed Cosmo and Frank sitting next to each other without their usual antagonism, with guards down, not up. Isabella seemed to tie Donna and Angie together, as if erasing the line between them.

Silvia's main concern was Frank's frequent gazes at Donna from across the table. Maybe he was admiring how radiant she looked with her beet red lipstick and elegant black, sleeveless dress. Maybe he was hoping that she had changed her mind about him. Her other main concern was with Vince and Doug, but Doug wasted no time in spurring up a conversation about Berkeley, allowing Silvia's anxiety about them to subside. Doug had lived close by Berkeley for a short while. Of course, it was in some place in Silicon Valley, a place that Vince would probably never set foot because it was too conservative. None-the-less, Doug knew about the general area.

"You're gonna love it out there," Doug said, stretching his arms out over his tired looking face.

"Yeah," Vince said, his tone of voice with a mixture of enthusiasm and cautiousness. "I'm a bit nervous about going so far away, but I think I'll like Berkeley."

"He's going to fit right in," Silvia added, making her big smile even bigger.

She assumed that her dad must have told Vince that he would be helping him with his tuition. Of course, there was always the chance that Frank would change his mind, maybe forty or fifty times more before Vince was safely out of the house. Silvia then thought of something she could do to prevent this from happening.

"Hey everyone," she said, standing up and banging a spoon on her water glass. She'd never made a toast before and kind of surprised herself when she stood up to take center stage. If she'd been more sophisticated, she may have waited to make her announcement when there was wine, thereby making it a real toast.

"I just wanted to thank everyone for coming to celebrate Vince's graduation from high school and his acceptance into Berkeley, where he'll be going in the fall." Everyone smiled at Vince and at Silvia, who then turned towards Frank and said, "And I would especially like to thank you, Dad, for making Vince's dream a reality. And also, for making this gathering a possibility." And at this, everyone clapped their hands, especially little Isabella who saw this as an opportunity to clap and bounce and say "Yay!" in her toddler voice. Frank had such a look of gratitude in his eyes, as though this moment, in itself, would be enough for him to live on for the rest of his life. She then sat down, Frank still smiling at her like she was the greatest person alive. She may have even been promoted to Frank's favorite that night.

From where Silvia sat, she could overhear fragments of all the conversations surrounding her. Donna was talking baby talk to Isabella, with Angie chiming in about her daughter's likes and dislikes. Cosmo was saying something to Frank about how his workplace was becoming less and less departmentalized, as more and more people were being laid off. Doug was still talking to Vince about the area in which he would soon reside. Everyone was interacting with each other, as if their fight-filled past had never existed and as if it had been completely erased from their minds. Maybe they were learning. Maybe Grandma Tucci was sitting beside them all, silently showing them the way. Or maybe they were all just acting in accord to get through the night. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. All that mattered was how wonderful this time was.

Silva felt covetous of this time, as she knew that, like all really good times, it would pass too quickly. The thought of Frank's milkshake came into her head. She knew only too well that at any second Angie might remember how Cosmo rejected her offer to be Isabella's godfather. Or Donna might remember one of the many times Frank stumbled in from a night of drinking and cheating. They might all collectively remember that they should not be getting along so well.

She wanted to preserve it and carry it with her for the rest of her life. She wanted to throw away all of the bad family stuff that had lived within her for so long. She wanted this memory to be tattooed in her mind so that when things, once again, turned bad within her family, she would have this moment of light to hang onto. The only way to do this would be to keep the good, to choose to have this time be a part of her, and to leave the bad times by the side of the road, where they belong.

She loved the feeling of being so light that she felt as if she was floating over the table and watching everyone from above. The waiter came to the table with antipasto and had it not been for the big gaping hole in her stomach, she would have floated a little longer. But she knew she needed to get some salad before her family finished it up. In fact, she knew to serve herself first, so that she could be assured of getting the best of what was in the bowl.

"You're taking all the tomatoes," Donna said to Silvia.

"I barely ate all day," Silvia said. "Give me a break."

Isabella began to make sounds and point to the bowl of lettuce as if she was trying to say 'salad.'

"She loves anything green," Angie said, proudly. "You should see how excited she gets when I make spinach."

After bragging about her little girl, Angie jumped up, smart phone in hand, to take a picture of them all, and Doug insisted on taking it so that his wife could be in it. Silvia couldn't believe that she had forgotten about getting a picture of the occasion. She was grateful that Angie had remembered and really grateful that Angie then said that she would email a copy to everyone.

Voices rose and fell together making a symphony of chatter. Around midway through dinner, Vince turned to Silvia and said, "Thanks for everything, Silv." And she knew exactly what he meant by everything, as if they had communicated telepathically. It wasn't just making this celebration happen. It wasn't just announcing to everyone that Frank would be helping him with his tuition, thereby, making sure Frank abided by the promise he'd made and broken several times. It was for all that she'd taught him this past month, like getting along with people who had different values than him, biting his tongue and being diplomatic, remembering the good in all people, and being able to forgive.

Donna seemed oblivious to the awkwardness present between Cosmo and Angie, as she was too preoccupied with feeding her granddaughter. But Silvia was perfectly aware of it. She was relieved when Cosmo made the opening gesture towards Angie. What he said was nothing like a piece of ordinary conversation. It was nothing like, 'So, how's North Jersey?' or 'Do you make it in to New York a lot? or 'You must be enjoying being a mom, huh?' Anything like that would have been too banal for Cosmo. Instead, he grabbed something from his pants pocket and said playfully, "I gotta magic trick for Isabella." He walked over to his niece smiling his big, goofy smile, while Angie followed him with her eyes. He acted like a big clown and looked like one, even without face makeup and big floppy shoes. Isabella looked at him as if she knew she was about to be entertained.

"Oh look! You have something behind your ear," Cosmo said to the little girl, as he put his hand behind her ear and pulled out a quarter. She began to laugh and jump up and down in her high chair.

When he took his seat again, grinning big and wide, Angie patted him on the shoulder affectionately and said, "I didn't know we had a magician in the family."

"Yeah," he responded. "I guess I should be learning some more tricks now that there's a little one around."

Silvia was so touched by the whole exchange and she thanked her big brother with smiling eyes. He reciprocated her graciousness by saying the very thing that she'd wanted to hear him say for the past month. She just wished that he hadn't said it from across the table so that everyone could hear.

"I've been giving that Portland thing some more thought. It does look like a great place. Maybe I will come out there with you and check it out."

She stared back at him with bewilderment. She was happy to hear this, but not overjoyed. She told him that she wasn't sure that she would be going any time soon but that it might be a great thing for the two of them to move there together one day. For the first time in a very long time, there was no rush to get to some place new. She didn't need to continue to search for the perfect place. She felt that she'd found it right where she was. She felt that it would come with her wherever she went, whether that place was Portland, New Jersey, or on the moon.

The magic continued throughout the delicious dinner that included homemade raviolis, chicken cacciatore, and spaghetti with clams. The laughter and the conversation blurred together into one big, gorgeous thing. Through Silvia's hard work, the circle of fighting that went on and on in their family and the families that preceded them, had been broken. Most likely it would be temporary, as someone would inevitably remember something to be angry about. But she didn't have the future and she didn't have the past. She only had now and now was good.

It wasn't until they'd all started to walk out to the parking lot that Silvia remembered the family portrait she'd painted. "I have something to show you all," she said, leading them over to her car. She opened her trunk and took out the painting. At first, all of their voices simultaneously declared what a great painting it was. Then Angie squabbled a bit about how she didn't like the eyes that her sister had given her. And Cosmo said that she made him too lanky. Frank said that he was much better looking in real life than in the painting. Vince and Donna just stood there admiring this thing of beauty. And then a great silence overtook them all, and their voices melted in the air. It was the kind of silence that was bigger than any earthly sound. It was the same thing that Silvia had heard in the Cape May sunset. It was the sound of togetherness. The sound of six becoming one. The sound that rises above it all. The sound of peace.

THE END
Acknowledgements

James "Gaddy" Gadbois

Annamae Jacobs

Yvonne Gill of Fiction Book Reviews

Kathleen Higgins-Andersen of Jersey Girl Book Reviews

Alicia Young

Jodi Hanson of Chapters & Chats Book Reviews

Cynthia Shepp Book Reviews

Lisa Binion of Bella Online Reviews

Charlotte Sanders

Bob Finlayson

Penelope Houston

