The Family(8)

Over the course of those walks home Joey grew into his adult form, which would be tall and broad, with straight shoulders and arms crisscrossed with ropes of hardworking muscle. Joey’s nose lengthened and his eyes sharpened. And as they did, he began to evolve out of his little boy’s empathy for his father. You brought us here, he imagined saying. This is your fault!

Joey’s ears also began to pick up more sound; he started listening to the hum of rumors that sustained the construction crew as they raised roofs and dug foundations. It was said that there were organizations in Manhattan; small hubs of Italian men with real power, who walked where they wanted. Who ate at beautiful restaurants; not just Italian ones, but American steakhouses; small cafés where the owners served delicacies from their own homelands: spiced meats wrapped in pastry, raw fish with gingered dressings. These men did not live in poor facsimiles of the villages back home. They lived in America.

Because Joey was young and shimmering with potential, it was not hard for him to wend his way into the good graces of Tommy Fianzo, who recognized in Joey a combination of determination and canniness that would serve him well in the intestinal New York streets.

And, ignoring his mother’s entreaties and his father’s stunned silence, and the rumors that as the organizations grew bigger, so did the acts of violence they were compelled to commit, and the jail sentences they were compelled to serve, Giuseppe Colicchio strode chest first, eyes blazing, into the new world on his own.



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Maybe the difference between Joey and Carlo can be explained like this: When Antonia was born, Carlo wept, and apologized to the silky down on top of her head, for not being able to escape his job before she arrived. When Sofia was born, Joey kissed Rosa, donned his hat, took a car to the Lower East Side, and bought a gun.



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In the front seat, next to Joey, Rosa Colicchio is imagining what she will name their next baby, even though she worries it is bad luck. She is thinking of the name Francesca, which was her grandmother’s name. Her grandmother, whom Rosa never met, sent each of her children to America with one jar full of tears and another of olive pits, for luck. Rosa Colicchio is in need of some luck. When Sofia was a baby, Rosa imagined surrounding herself with children. Now that Sofia has lengthened—suddenly!—into a little girl, with big hands and feet and fierce eyes and a sharp tongue, Rosa has narrowed her wishes down to just one. One more child. She thinks of Sofia, growing up without siblings. There is Antonia, for whom Rosa is immeasurably grateful. But Rosa’s childhood was suffused with an inimitable sense of belonging, and she wants to give that to Sofia. To be surrounded by other people who were made like you. Together, to be a river, rather than a solitary puddle.

Rosa does not have the vocabulary to be disappointed in her body’s function, or lack thereof. But something unnameable would feel more full, more complete, better, if she had another child. She would feel good—a good mother, a good wife. Rosa has always wanted to be good. She turns her face away from the window and blinks to clear her eyes and breathes away quick clenching panic.

“The air is starting to smell like ocean,” says Joey. They are driving alongside sand and sparse grasses now. Small birds dart riotously across the road.

There is a collective sniff and sigh of appreciation, and then everyone in the car falls back into their own thoughts. By the time they get to the inn, everyone is exhausted and on edge.

Dinner is served on the porch, and the wind blows lazily at napkins and shirtsleeves. It is the first time Antonia or Sofia has had lobster, and they try to pinch each other with the claws until they dissolve in a fit of hysterical laughter and Rosa has to say basta! in a sharp whisper. But Sofia sees her smile a little, when she looks away.

The ocean stretches out in front of them, endless and roiling, as though there is nothing but water forever in all directions. The sunset turns the sky and the water pink, and then orange and a brilliant, hazy red before the sun slips away. Everyone watches until all they can see are flashes of moon reflected in the peaks of waves.



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In the morning, Carlo teaches the girls to wade when the tide is still low and the waves small. Their mammas pick their way down from the sheltered porch and shade their eyes with their hands to watch. “Be careful,” Carlo says, “if you see foam on top of a wave. That means it’s going to crash.” Sofia runs in after him and is soon soaked. Antonia stands in water up to her ankles and lets the tide tug her, toward shore and then away. She feels very small, and tired, as though the whole world is rocking her to sleep. Her feet are buried in sand underwater.

She does not see Sofia waving to her. “Look how far I am, Tonia! Look!” Sofia faces her friend, backlit by morning sun. “Look how deep it’s getting!” Neither Antonia nor Sofia notices the wave until it breaks: right at the small of Sofia’s back, just surprising enough and strong enough to sweep her under the water.

Antonia shrieks, and yanks her feet out of the sand, and feels the ocean and the earth try to suck her in as she runs toward the spot where Sofia was pulled under. But just as suddenly, Sofia is up again, wiping her eyes and coughing, spitting out brine. Carlo has wrapped his big fingers around Sofia’s shoulder, and Antonia is left with a pounding heart and unused adrenaline. She is surprised and comforted to realize that she would have gone in. She would have gone all the way in, if she needed to. She looks back at the mammas, standing on the shore. They are faraway shadows, but Antonia knows they would have gone in too.