The Family(80)

And then Sofia begins, like anyone would, to replay moments from the last year. Why can’t we sit together like a real family? Saul had been touchy, angry, sure of what a real family would do. Implying, Sofia realizes, that he didn’t have one. He has been unhappy, she realizes. And I have not been listening.

There is a phone number written on the first page of the notebook Sofia is holding. She picks up the phone on Saul’s desk and dials.

“Whoever is waking me up for the second fucking time tonight had better have a good fucking reason,” says a male voice on the other end.

“Who is this?” asks Sofia. She asks with the same certainty she had once asked Joey why. She asks, and she expects an answer. She calls it out of thin air; she demands it.

“Ma’am,” says the voice on the phone, “I think you might have the wrong number.” It is softened, now. It is off guard.

“I can assure you,” says Sofia, “I do not. Who are you?”

“My name is Eli,” says Eli Leibovich, “but I am certain you’ve dialed—” Sofia doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, because she has put the phone on the table. There is only one Eli whose number Saul would need to lock in a drawer. The way Saul has gotten into trouble becomes crystal clear.

Like she is in a dream, Sofia leaves the phone buzzing off its hook and floats downstairs to stand on her porch in the night air. As a child, she was scared of Lina’s helplessness, the way a part of her disappeared when Carlo did.

The part of Sofia that lives in Saul will disappear if Saul does, but Sofia, standing in her nightgown in the warm predawn air, is not going to let that happen.



* * *



—

As daylight grays the sky it reveals a building which stands alone at the edge of the Red Hook dockyard. It is a Monday, so the longshoremen are arriving in quiet pairs, with their lunch pails and their thermoses of coffee. The building looks like it must once have been grand, but soon the sky will be light enough that the cracks and missing chunks in the fa?ade will all be revealed.

If the longshoremen look closely, they can see something strange there. Something like a specter, a fairy tale. Something about which their mothers would have said, don’t get too close.

Did you see? one might ask the others. No, the others will reply. It’s best not to see.

But some of them will be sure they saw her. Lying in wait: a barefoot woman with wild hair, sitting on the steps to the building as dawn brims over.



* * *



—

Antonia wakes with a shooting pain running from the crown of her head down the side of her neck. Serves you right, she thinks, getting up from the floor of Robbie’s bedroom, for sleeping. And then: where is Paolo.

Antonia pads into the kitchen on soft feet. Her boys are sleeping, still as windless water. Paolo is not in the kitchen; he is not in the living room.

When Antonia was a teenager, she resented Lina for reminding her, again and again, about the pitfalls of Family life. Her mamma felt she married into a trap. Antonia can feel the metal teeth biting into her own leg now.

I should have listened to you, Mamma, Antonia thinks as she sits on the stool near the phone in the kitchen. She hovers her hand above the phone. She wills Paolo to call. Antonia’s worry has settled down into the throbbing of her neck, her back. It sits like lead in her intestines.

And then the phone rings.

Antonia answers before the first trill dies down. “Paolo.” A prayer.

“It’s Saul.”

“Saul.” Antonia’s neck twinges. Her hips are connected to the top of her head by a live wire of pain.

“Sofia didn’t answer. Have you talked to her?”

“Saul, what is going on? Where is Paolo?”

“I don’t know,” says Saul. “I’m sorry. But, Antonia, I can’t reach Sofia. I’ve been calling all morning.”

Antonia’s boys are still asleep. She can feel them through the walls. Somewhere, something rumbles: thunder, or her own self. Antonia grips the phone. “Did you try downstairs?”

“I don’t want to worry Rosa and Joey unless I have to,” Saul says.

“Saul, why don’t you go home? Go check on her? Where are you?”

“Just keep them safe,” says Saul. “Just tell them how much I love them.”

“Saul, please,” says Antonia. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m not, Tonia. I promise.”

“Saul,” says Antonia. “Are you going to be okay?” She does not say, I promised Sofia.

“Everything will be fine,” says Saul. There is a click. He is gone.

Antonia hangs up the phone. The silence buzzes. It crackles. It slams.

No—the front door slams. “Antonia?” Paolo.

The first thing Antonia thinks when she sees Paolo is that he looks like shit. His eyes are bloodshot and his shirt is untucked and dirty. His face is stubbled in rough black patches and he looks unsteady on his feet. She crosses the kitchen in two steps and hugs him, wraps herself around him, and the second thing she thinks is thank you. “What happened to you?” she asks, which feels wildly insufficient. And then, “Saul just called. He doesn’t sound okay. We have to help him.”

“Did he tell you what happened?” asks Paolo.