Rococo Read Free Page B

son waste himself on
that?
”
    “Maybe he loves her.”
    Toot gives me a look as though the stench from the Carbone paper factory in Hazlet were right here in Peppermint Candy Land. “If only Ma was here.”
    “If Ma were here, what? She’d commiserate, but neither of you would say or do one damn thing to fix it, because you’re Italian mothers.” I feel my face flush as I raise my voice. Toot looks startled. “That’s right, Toot, you’re all talk. You have these sons—you treat them like kings, waiting on them hand and foot, spoiling them, coddling them, worshipping them, never expecting them to lift a finger to help you in any way—then you’re surprised when they fall for these come-hither French maids instead of nice Catholic girls. You want to know why they end up with harlots? Because your boys know
easy,
that’s why!”
    “I suppose it’s all
my
fault!” Toot says, banging the table and beginning to weep. Her mascara runs. Big navy blue tears roll down her face like ink from a dropper. She wipes the streaks away with a white
moppeen.
    “Partly!” I yell back. “But not all! Mama raised me like you raised your boys, with one difference. I knew better! I wanted to take care of myself. I took pride in my surroundings. I tried to build upon what our parents taught us. When I watched Ma iron, I thought,
I can do that collar better,
and I’d show her how. When she made soup, I thought,
I can chop the celery finer,
and I’d take the knife from her hands. When she decorated the Christmas wreath, I thought,
That bow is too big,
and I’d fix it. Mama was never my maid.”
    Toot wearily opens a cabinet neatly filled with extra utensils from Chinese takeout, a stack of paper plates from last summer’s Fourth of July party, and plastic cups that say HAPPY EASTER. She pulls out a Santa-and-the-reindeer paper plate and stacks cookies on it. “What can I do now? They’re men. The ship has failed.”
    “
Sailed,
sis. Sailed.”
    “I want you to take these over to Nicky. God knows if he gets enough to eat over there. Of course, that’s probably my fault too.”
    “Probably. If your Mother Guilt was paint, I’d have enough to put a coat on Yankee Stadium. You did the best you could.
Fini.
”
    A buzzer blasts from the laundry room.
    “That’s the dryer.” Toot wipes away her tears, then gets up and goes into the next room. She returns with a basket of freshly laundered whites. She pulls a pristine undershirt from the pile and folds it.
    “Whose laundry is that?”
    “What?” she asks innocently.
    “Whose is it?”
    “Nicky’s,” she says softly.
    “He’s living in his own home and you’re still doing his laundry? What kind of nonsense is that?”
    Toot ignores the question and tilts her chin toward heaven. “Do you think Ma knows her favorite grandson is living in sin?”
    “Of course she knows, and she doesn’t care. She’s flying around up there like an angel, probably at the speed of sound to avoid running into Pop.”
    “That’s where all this started. It started with their sick marriage. I didn’t have a good example.”
    “We’ve been through this,” I tell her firmly. “Don’t start.”
    Toot grows pensive. Despite my eagerness to change the subject, she goes on a diatribe about our immigrant parents and their arranged marriage and how that scarred her for life, and I’m not excluded because “Look at you, you’re almost forty and you’re not married.” I let her talk while I have another cookie.
    I never feel the need to defend my bachelorhood. In fact, when I look over the landscape of my life, it’s the best choice I ever made. I love living alone—knowing there’s exactly enough milk in the fridge for cereal, always knowing where the roll of Scotch tape is, sleeping in the buff, waking up to
silencio
instead of bells and yells. I don’t miss a thing about living with family. I had eighteen years of it with my parents and my sister, and that cured me of any desire