When the phone rang so late at night at her parents’ house, Angie knew it had to be relatives—either her father’s in India or her mother’s in Baltimore. From her perch at the top of the stairs on the second floor, she heard that it was her mother’s people: a cousin Elizabeth saying that Aunt Pina, her mother’s sister, died suddenly from a stroke, that she’d been at the dining room table, working a crossword puzzle one minute, then collapsed on the floor the next, pencil still in hand. Her mother put the phone on speaker, allowing Angie and her father to hear how Elizabeth had called 911, and paramedics failed to revive her despite arriving in minutes. Shocked by the suddenness of her mother’s death, Elizabeth sobbed as she repeated the story of Pina collapsing. “She was gone,” Elizabeth said. “Just like that at the snap of fingers. Just like that. She was there one minute, not there the next.”
Angie had never met Elizabeth. Nor her aunt. Still her eyes teared hearing her cousin’s shock and grief and her mother’s comforting tones. The only image she knew of Pina peered at her from a large, framed photo in the living room, of her parents’ wedding day. In that forty-year-old photo, a young and beautiful Pina’s textured pink gown complemented her peaches-and-cream complexion, and in her round, wire-frame glasses, she looked like a librarian or a teacher. Pina did neither and owned her own business as a seamstress of stylish clothing for high-end customers. She’d made her mother’s and her own gowns, and in the photo, Pina’s arm was wrapped around Gabi, wearing a red-and-gold wedding dress reflecting her father’s culture instead of the white of her own. Her father, the handsome groom in a navy-blue suit, beamed his toothy smile, his eyes twinkling beneath a white-and-gold turban, one that Pina had worked on special for the day. Gian towered over both his bride and Pina, his arms encircling both of them. With tears wetting her cheeks, Gabi consoled Elizabeth. After the conversation ended, her mother turned off the living room light, then the hall light, then the kitchen light and sat in the dark on the sofa. Her father sat next to her mother on the sofa and held her hand. Angie thought it best not to disturb her parents and retreated to her room.
The next day, her mother pulled out the old cigar box, its spine cracked, from the closet in her office and pulled out the sandwich bag containing a dried olive-pit rosary. This occurred every time news came that someone in her mother’s family died; Gabi had four siblings, and she was the baby. Her grandparents and her trio of uncles—Vince and the twins, Leo and Luca—had died long ago. Now Gabi repeated this odd ritual after the news about Pina, news that meant that she was the last of her birth family. They had not traveled to Baltimore for any funerals or family events in the past. As a child, Angie wondered why they had visited her mother’s family, but the questions were always waved away with one excuse or another. Except for Pina, no one else from Baltimore had called, not even Grandmom Ida, who sometimes sent thin paper letters to Angie’s mother. Although her father’s family lived on the other side of the planet, they felt closer with regular phone calls and warm, loud, emotional visits, while Gabi’s family could have lived in another dimension.
This time was different. Her father persuaded Gabi to make the trip to Baltimore, saying she’d regret not having closure with her sister, and that they’d go as a family with a strong, united presence.
“She’s always been there for you,” Gian said. “It’s only right.”
“Except for Elizabeth, we won’t know anyone there,” she said, sounding relieved.
Curious about relatives she’d never met, Angie jumped at the chance to take care of logistics with her father, and Gabi seemed relieved not having to worry about details.
“Why have you never gone back to visit?” Angie asked.
Gabi shrugged, pursed her lips. “Life happened,” she said, her voice almost a murmur. Gabi glanced at her husband, Gian, who’d removed his royal-blue turban, setting it on the chair, and who was now bent over untying his shoes. Seeing his now gray topknot, Angie remembered playing beautician as a child, brushing his sleek black hair as it cascaded down his back on summer evenings after he’d shampooed it and was relaxing on the back patio, reading a newspaper as it air-dried.
Her father eyed her mother. “Who are you protecting? Everyone’s dead now. Tell her why.”
“Why?” Angie asked. “Did something happen?”
Silent, Gabi turned away.
This time when Gabi brought out the rosary, she fingered it as if it had been made of precious stones instead of olive pits. Gabi, or formally Gabriella, said her grandmother Lucia had made it as a young girl in the old country, how she’d eaten the olives whose pits she saved and sanded, how olive groves had kept her family alive and thriving through the war when food was scarce, how their beautiful old almond, prickly pear, and olive trees had continued producing fruit despite soldiers pushing through, unable to rob the trees of their fruit the same way they had robbed the family’s bakery of its bread. They had not been wealthy but hardworking before the war and nearly destitute afterward with their menfolk sent to the fronts and the women’s work, no matter how hard, unable to sustain the land.
Now, Angie asked to hold it, turning the rough beads in between her fingers; she heard the thunderous whine of warplanes echoing in her ears, felt the reverberations of the bomb blasts as they dropped; counted her own heartbeats, wingbacks in her own ears as if she had been the one hiding in a bomb shelter or racing toward mountain caves as her great-grandmother had done, seeking refuge from the dropping bombs. She raised the beads to her nose, smelled the faint scent of olives and ash from her great-grandmother’s fingers as if she had crafted the rosary yesterday, connecting the olive pits with strands of her own hair scented with lemon shampoo. Holding it for the first time, she noticed that except for the left hand still pinned in place, the crucifix lacked the corpus, the tiny statue of the body of Jesus.
Later, Angie went into the living room and noticed the rosary carelessly left atop a pile of old family photos on the coffee table. Obviously, her parents had been poring through old photo albums. That was Gabi—dreamy, a poet, a professor, forgetting a family heirloom on the coffee table. Angie returned the rosary to its bag and noticed the aged, yellowed, dog-eared, and faded note inside, written not to Gabi but about her. “Grandmom Lucia made these beads at 12 years old during the war. In 2019, these beads will be 74 years old. Give them to Gabriella. It’s 1983 and she should have one memento to remember Grandmom, Grandpop, and our family. And don’t tell anyone that Gabi has them.”
The handwriting curled in small, neat letters, written by someone who learned how to write in the US, perhaps one of Gabi’s aunts or uncles, people Angie had never met. Gabi would know the stories from her own mother about her grandmother Lucia and the way she met her husband, Maurice, on the boat when they sailed to the US, got married, and started a family. But Gabi never passed them down to Angie, who reread the note as she walked into her mother’s office, a shiver starting along her arms.
“Sweetie.” Her mom looked up from the desk and set her pen on the paper she’d been grading.
Holding the bag with the rosary in one hand, Angie handed her mother the note.
“You left your rosary on the coffee table,” she said.
Gabi took it, glanced at the note, and blinked a few times, held it in her hand. She then set it on her base of the lamp. “Thanks for bringing it to me.”
“Did you see the Jesus is missing?”
“It was like that when I got it,” Gabi said. Still sitting, she picked up her pen, and her hand hovered over the pile of papers she was reading.
“That note looks old,” Angie said.
Gabi nodded. “Pina gave it to me on our wedding day. Won’t you be late for work?”
She would be late for work. Her patients depended on her to tell them about their inherited and sometimes hidden diseases and whether they’d pass them along to their children, an irony since she knew so little of her mother’s family. Still, she noticed her mother’s deft change of subject, and persisted. “Why do you need the rosary to remember your family when they live a few hours away? What did Dad mean about protecting someone?”
“A long story. For another time,” Gabi said. She wrapped Angie in a tight hug. “You’ll not want to keep anyone waiting.”
Before leaving, Angie checked her face in the mirror and applied her signature red lip stain. Her face belonged to her mother—heart-shaped, large, almond eyes with the same shade of watery blue, her smallish nose, heart-shaped lips, and a cleft in her chin. But she also resembled her father in her expressions, her height, her thick sheet of dark hair that hung to her waist, her naturally arched eyebrows like upside-down Vs, her high cheekbones, and her nutmeg complexion of his Punjabi heritage. As a geneticist, the combination of their features in her face and body fascinated her, and she wondered what else she inherited from them. She knew her father’s family’s medical history, but information about her mother’s represented a big fat zero. Not a single clue about her maternal hereditary, disease states and what could show itself later in subsequent generations, or what genetic risks, if any, her own children would face, despite her window being almost closed. She loved the mystery and the sacredness of the infinite ways genetics express themselves; she loved the beauty and symmetry of cells, the ballet of proteins advancing between them. She followed her father into medicine but discovered her mother’s poetry hidden there in the microworlds she viewed under her scopes on her glass slides.
For Angie, Baltimore felt a bit magical, a place where her mother came from and never returned. Whenever Angie visited, she did so as a tourist, wondering about her own relatives but knowing nothing about their lives or how to find them. Now during the drive, when her father mentioned in passing that Gabi’s family had once owned a bar with several pool tables where her grandmother Ida sold traditional foods, Gabi frowned.
“Your grandfather Frank took over the bar from your grandparents. Quite a colorful place,” Gian said. “It’s where I met your mom.”
“I thought you met in college,” Angie said.
“I glimpsed her washing dishes at the deep stainless steel sinks in the kitchen. Her arms in water up to her elbows. By the look on her face—that dreamy expression—her mind was a million miles away. I wanted to know what captivated her so deeply, she didn’t hear me at all, clearing my throat at the kitchen door,” Gian said. He grinned, glancing at his wife as he drove.
“We met in the college bookstore,” Gabi said.
“I saw her in the store, then asked her about the pool hall,” he said.
“We weren’t allowed in the bar when Frank was around. Not even Vince,” Gabi said. “But we always went when he was out of town to help Ma. No cameras back then. It was everybody’s secret. Everyone knew how Frank was.”
“How?” Angie asked.
Gabi waved away the question. “Difficult,” her mother said.
An hour later, they checked into a hotel near the funeral home, where they met Elizabeth, who was fussing over one of the many collages featuring Aunt Pina. She placed smaller collages on a table with the book for visitors to sign. Heavily pregnant, Elizabeth moved slowly, her body tilted backward. Angie noticed the family resemblance immediately, observing that Elizabeth resembled her mother so strongly that she could have been Gabi’s daughter. She recognized the same watery blue eyes, the same chin cleft, the heart-shaped face and lips.
“Mom would be pleased to see you,” she said.
Elizabeth hugged Angie and her father too.
“It’s been a long time,” Gian said with a grin. “You were an infant.”
“Why didn’t you mention you’re expecting?” Gabi asked.
Elizabeth shrugged, sucked in her cheeks. “Not married. Wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
“No judgment from me, my dear girl,” Gabi said.
Mourners began arriving. Angie lingered near her parents close to a window. Gian’s white turban seemed like a bright beacon; he stayed by Gabi’s side, his hand on the small of her back. The line of mourners, which included many of Pina’s customers, snaked through both rooms and out the front door, through the parking lot to the street. Angie also saw plenty of faces with the same watery blue eyes and heart-shaped faces mingled with those of Pina’s friends, clients, neighbors, a shocking number of people who gave envelopes to Elizabeth. Large and small floral arrangements, mostly roses of all colors, filled the room, their scent wafting through the rooms. Then one of the mourners—a tall, broad man—emerged from the receiving line, making a commotion, pushing and rushing his way toward Elizabeth. Another man followed close behind, one who appeared to be a caretaker. Gray-haired, the mourner resembled Elizabeth, Gabi, and Angie with the same watery blue eyes and heart-shaped face, which exuded a gentle innocence. Taller than Gabi and Elizabeth, the man sucked in his breath when he saw Gabi and stared openly at Angie.
“You look like her, like Ida,” he said to Angie, his hand caressing her face. “I’m Petey.” He turned toward Gabi. “You came,” he said. “At last.”
Clearly, Gabi did not remember Petey, who dressed simply in dark trousers, a white button-down shirt, and a thin black tie.
“You found Aunt Gabi,” Elizabeth said, her tone gentle.
“It was easy. I remember from the picture Pina gave me,” he said before breaking into a wide, joyful smile, his teeth square and white. Angie studied him, his strong hands, his calm stillness and a watchfulness as he stared at Gabi.
“I thought this day would never come,” he said. He reached for Gabi, squeezed her in a hug, and lifted her off her feet. He set her down and reached for Gian’s hand. “Pina said to find Gabi, look for the man wearing a turban. Like a game. Like Where’s Waldo.”
Delighted with himself, Petey laughed.
“I should have visited long ago,” Gabi said. She clearly did not know Petey.
Elizabeth held Petey’s hand. “I’m glad you came. Come, eat something.” She led him away from the viewing room toward the dedicated family room, where sandwich platters, fruit bowls, soft drinks, and bottled water covered the table.
Later, at Elizabeth’s house, when they arrived, Petey was already there, shaking everyone’s hands, repeating, “I thought this day would never come.”
Angie noticed striking abstract art throughout Pina’s home, paintings of various sizes featuring brilliant color combinations and arresting patterns.
“They’re Petey’s,” Elizabeth said as Angie gaped at them and leaned closer to one to see a signature. “Aren’t they stunning? They fetch decent prices too,” she said, handing Angie a card for an art gallery.
When Petey heard his name, he turned and saw Gabi and rushed toward her, announcing, “My baby sister!”
“Petey,” Gabi said, patting his shoulder. “Is Vince your dad? Or Luca or Leo?” Gabi held up her fingers and counted off her siblings for Petey. “First Vince, then Pina, then the twins, Luca and Leo, then me,” she said.
“No! No! No,” he said. “Frank is my dad. I’m your big brother. I’m first, before Vince,” he said, speaking slowly as if to be sure she could understand. “Pops left me.”
Gabi’s eyes grew wide. “You’re first? When did Pops leave you?”
“Five,” he said, holding up his fingers. “I was five. I didn’t want to go. I held Mama’s hands, but he pulled me away. He left me with the people at the gray building. I waited for him to come back. He didn’t. Mama came with Pina to visit all the time.”
Elizabeth toddled forward, rubbed Petey’s back. “Mom wanted to tell you. The timing never seemed right.”
Gabi’s eyes flashed. “How utterly insane! Am I the only one who didn’t know?”
Angie asked, “Who’s Pops?”
“Frank,” Gabi said. “My father.”
Elizabeth said, “He thought he was protecting the family.”
“From itself?” Gabi asked. “And everyone went along with his insanity? How cruel!”
Elizabeth flushed, her face crimson. “He banished you for marrying Uncle Gian, and like the obedient daughter, you stayed away instead of challenging him like my mom did,” Elizabeth said. “My mom refused to be bullied. She fought Frank at every turn. Endless, frightening battles. Screaming matches. She protected you. You were always the baby.”
Gabi started at her feet, her face filled with regret, loss, and sorrow, her eyes wet with tears.
Gian stepped toward her and hugged her from behind. “Lord, O Saints, the Dispeller of all distress,” he said into Gabi’s hair, his voice sotto.
“Pops is not coming back. Mama is not coming back. Pina is not coming back. But Gabriella has come back,” Petey said. “Gabi is back,” he repeated. “I’m happy.” Petey flashed a joyful smile and danced around Gabi.
Angie wanted to know more. In a family with secrets, often they scarred the heart and shredded the psyche long before they became known. She wanted to know if Petey had been born with challenges, or if they resulted from a high fever as a young child. She watched her parents, wondering how her grandmother Ida had recovered from having a child removed from her, or perhaps, more likely, she never did. Gian stood close to Gabi, whose hands trembled as she reached for Petey. One of his hands was clenched in a fist.
“What’s in your hand?” she asked.
“My lucky man,” he said, unfolding his fingers. “Mama was holding it when Pops pulled me away. The lucky man came with me.” In the palm of his hand lay a shiny silver Jesus corpus, its tiny arms raised, one missing hand.
