Happy Family Part 8

The painting sits, covered in a velvet cloth, on a gold easel in the middle of their living room. Mama's made a huge fuss getting everyone ready for Solomon's big surprise. Gusmanov is due in a few minutes, to hang the portrait above the fireplace. It's a Sat.u.r.day and Cheri is bored waiting for her father to come home, listening to Mama tell Cookie to watch out for his car, did she just hear it pulling into the driveway? Her father was only going into work for a few hours this morning, and Mama has made a special lunch.

"It's not a d.a.m.n surprise party," Cookie says, rolling her eyes. Cheri is just glad her part in this is over.

Every Sat.u.r.day for weeks Mama had been dragging her to her font of inspiration-Cecil's House of Fabric-so Mr. Cecil could paint their portrait. Mr. Cecil was a decorator but had paintings in a Montclair gallery "and Manhattan," her mother said proudly. He stank of BO and cologne and invited his favorite clients to the back room-his art studio-to smoke, drink, and eat cheese that looked like it could crawl across the plate on its own.

Cheri hated sitting for hours, frozen in place, on the sofa that smelled of stale tobacco with Mama's arm around her. She hated wearing a dress. Mama's efforts to girl her up stopped in kindergarten when Cheri had taken scissors to the bows on her dresses and then to her hair. She was almost eight now, but Mama burst into tears and said, "You are crus.h.i.+ng my heart, for this one time, please look like the pretty girl."

"The eagle has landed," Cookie says ominously, and Mama sends Cheri to wait in the living room. A minute later, Mama trots into the room, leading her father by the arm. He's still in his white lab coat. Mama s.h.i.+mmies behind the easel and dramatically pulls back the cloth: "Your family portrait!" Cheri thinks the portrait looks the same as it did last time they saw it: Mama is glamorous in her pink satin dress, her long blond hair in a "do-up." Her arm is a little too tightly around Cheri, who looks uncomfortable, posing with a weird, fake smile.

"Is beautiful, yes, Solomon?" Mama stands by Cheri's father, who is staring at the painting. He shakes his head and closes his eyes, clearly disappointed. "What is wrong?" Mama looks crestfallen. Gusmanov has arrived in the doorway with his tool kit but pauses at the sight of Cici's distress.

Sol pulls Mama aside and speaks quietly. Mama is talking with her hands and her father shakes his head and says, "Family portrait," like the words don't make sense. Mama puts her hand to her heart and then glances over at Cheri. "Go to your room, cara mia," she says.

Cheri feels the heaviness of her father's disapproval. For what, she's not quite sure, but she suspects that it has to do with her, as it usually does. Once upstairs, she becomes absorbed in her book of Greek mythology, imagining herself as Athena, turning her foe into a spider. When Mama calls her down for lunch, Cheri sees that the table is set for two. Mama's eyes are watery.

"Where is Dad?" Cheri asks.

"He had to go back to the office. He'll be home later." Mama puts pasta on plates and brings them to the table. They eat in unusual silence.

"I guess he didn't like the painting," Cheri finally ventures.

"Oh, no, cara. Is the misunderstanding. Cecil will fix everything and your father will be very happy." The corners of Mama's mouth turn up but her eyes are still turned down.

"Are you okay, Mama?" Mama nods and gives her hand a little pat. It makes her feel unsettled and angry at her father. Why can't her family just be normal?

Two weeks later, the curtain was about to be torn off yet another version of the Matzner family portrait. And just in time for her eighth birthday, Cheri learns she has living relatives. It wasn't as if she thought her parents had sprung fully grown from the head of Zeus, but they had always been silent on the subject of their families. Like all children, Cheri knew only what the grown-ups told her. When she was old enough to understand that everyone had grandparents, she asked where hers were. When "gone" wasn't the right answer on the family tree Cheri made in second grade, a note from her teacher shamed her mother into further explanation: Belle and Bernard Matzner had died in a car wreck before Cheri was born, and the D'Ameris, back in Italy, had gone to "a better place," save for Mama's sister Alida, who ran off and married Christ. A logical child by nature, Cheri had more questions about how you could marry a dead person than she did about the untimely demise of both sides of her family.

But Cheri learns about her mysterious forebears the day Cici marches into the kitchen while Cheri is eating breakfast, criticizes whatever jobs Gusmanov and Cookie are doing at the time, and announces: "Is time for my daughter to make her roots." She plunks two airline tickets down on the table in front of Cheri and taps them with a long, polished nail. "In the premier," she says, as if traveling in first cla.s.s explains everything.

"Ooof. I tell you this is food for pigs. You will see in Italia no-body eats the crunchy captain cereal. You will not find it at the table of my family. I tell you, Cookie, to toss the pig food." Cheri cradles her cereal bowl like a convict.

"Family? What family?"

"My sister Genny, you will say Zia Genny, her children-what do you call them, Cookie, the children of my sister?"

"But your family is dead, Mama. You said so."

"Niece if she's a girl, nephew for a boy," Cookie says.

"You told me they were all in heaven," Cheri insists.

"No-no-no. They are in Lago di Como. Is very nice, but heaven? No."

Cheri glances at Cookie in disbelief. Cookie shrugs: You know your mother.

"So you have family at a lake and I have cousins?"

"What is this cousin? Cookie says it is nice. You have three nice."

"They're cousins to me, Mama."

"Nieces like pieces, that's how you say it," Cookie mutters.

"Does this mean Papa's family is alive too?"

"Porca miseria, no!" Mama laughs so hard she snorts.

Just like that, Cheri's world expanded. She'd always been jealous of kids with big families, like her neighbor Stacey Walthers. Stacey had relatives at every end of the globe. Her house was always br.i.m.m.i.n.g with cousins, brothers, and Rottweilers. Cheri's lack of extended family was another thing that set her apart from most of her friends, along with the fact that she didn't look anything like either her mother or her father. n.o.body ever told her, "Oh, you have your mother's eyes," or "That's your father's chin." When Cheri got separated from Mama at Saks, a saleslady took care of her while they announced a lost child over the intercom system. When her overdressed mother ran to the sales desk, jewelry a-jangling, the saleslady didn't believe that this grubby little boy belonged to Mama. Incensed, Mama unfurled a wallet full of photographs of her daughter and stormed off, gripping Cheri's hand so tightly it hurt.

Cheri was thrilled to learn her family might consist of someone besides her mother and father. But if her father wasn't coming with them, then something was wrong. Did this have to do with the portrait?

That night, her father comes to the door of her room. He rarely gets home before Cheri's bedtime; Mama has told her that he's working on something that will change medicine. "Are you still up?" Cheri sits up in bed holding Bippy-a square patchwork pillow with eyes and a tongue she won at a fair. Mama keeps throwing Bippy in the trash because he is schifo, but Cookie always rescues him. She can just make out her father's silhouette in the doorway. "Dad, why aren't you coming to Italy with us?" Her father makes a throat-clearing noise. Not an ah-hem, but farther back in the throat, two clearings, one-two. At night, when she can't sleep, she can locate her father by that sound.

"Too much work right now," he says, "get some sleep."

Cheri lies back. "Dad, would you tuck me in?"

He pulls her blanket up under her chin, pats it down awkwardly. He's never tucked her in before so he doesn't know to pull the sheet tight. She closes her eyes and hears his ah-hem, ah-hem going down the hall.

Cheri knows there is more to her father not coming to Italy than work. She overheard him telling Mama, "You're not only a mother, you're a wife. I came first and I should come first." They've had this argument before. When her father wanted to take Mama to the Greek islands, she said no-no-no, they couldn't leave Cheri. Cookie had her own children to take care of and Cici couldn't possibly leave her child with a stranger. Cheri loved staying at Cookie's; she liked playing with baby Choo-Choo and was comfortable in Cookie's little house-practically everything in it came from their house anyway, but it all looked cozier at Cookie's. She wanted to tell them that, say that it was okay, please don't fight. But when her father came out of their bedroom and saw her standing there, he seemed mad so she just looked down at the floor.

Cheri doesn't want her father to be mad at her, but if he came to Italy she knows Mama would be different, more anxious to please, more critical of Cheri. The harder Mama worked on bringing everyone together, the more forced it seemed. The rare times Cheri was alone with her father, it was easier. If Mama was out getting her hair done on the weekend and Cheri heard the Good Humor truck down the street, her father would buy her a chocolate eclair ice cream bar. They'd walk back and she'd give him a bite because it was his favorite when he was a kid. But even then, he never seemed comfortable with Cheri-or with any other kids. He always spoke to them in a loud, formal voice, like they were miniature village idiots. Mama was more fun alone, except that she made Cheri sleep in bed with her. Mama would say, "How about you have the special treat and sleep with Mama tonight, I make the discretion." But Mama's "discretion" often became the rule rather than the exception. Would the relatives make her sleep in the same bed with Mama?

Cheri had a million other questions too. "Will my cousins have black hair like me?" Cheri asked. Mama said, with a touch of pride, that Zia Genny was not so blond. So Cheri imagined her cousins as brunettes, and, as Mama said they probably wouldn't speak English, she studied her Italian/English dictionary extra hard. Mama used to speak to Cheri in Italian all the time. Then one day, she stopped. Cheri asked why and Mama said, "Your father no like it. It makes him feel bad that we speak and he cannot understand. We speak, just not in front of him. S, cara?"

Cheri's first thought when she sees her cousins standing behind the security gate at the Milan airport is: Normal. Zia Genny and her three older cousins Maria, Donatella, and Lucia are groomed and polite and have mousy brown hair. They try not to stare at Cheri's mismatched eyes, but she catches Lucia checking her out. They have presents-a book of Italian fairy tales and a box of chocolate drops-but n.o.body squeals, "Oh my, look at you," like she'd seen with other families. Zia Genny resembles a greyhound; she is thin with close-cropped gray hair and a taut, alert air. She kisses Mama on both cheeks and then Mama drops her suitcase and holds Zia Genny's hands. They both start crying.

In the car, the sisters talk like Zia Genny drives: speeding ahead and then stopping suddenly. They slip back and forth between Italian and English. Between the luggage and the number of people in Zia Genny's matchbox of a car, Cheri winds up in Donatella's lap. n.o.body talks except for Mama and Zia Genny. Zia Genny asks what happened to Mama's tongue, she sounds like a foreigner. "Screw yourself," Mama says.

"Screw yourself twice, in the a.s.s," Zia Genny says. Cheri is used to Mama cursing but didn't expect it from another grown-up.

Many hours later, Cheri finds herself waking up on a cot in an attic room. She can see the sun setting through a lozenge pane of window. She follows the sound of voices and a piano downstairs to a great room that serves as living room, dining room, and, on one side, a kitchen. Maria is practicing on one of the two baby grand pianos that face each other; her fingers move like spiders across the keys. The walls are filled with oil paintings: portraits, still lifes, hunting scenes, a few of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the cross, His crown of thorns dripping with blood. The great room has high, wood-beamed ceilings. The tall gla.s.s windows look out on snowcapped mountains that soar up from a vast, deep blue lake. Something pungent and garlicky is bubbling on the stove. Zia Genny holds a large rabbit by its ears and skins it with a knife in long, sc.r.a.ping movements. When Cici sees Cheri at the foot of the stairs she leaps in front of Zia Genny, as if to block her daughter's view of something indecent. "How was your pisolino, cara?" Cici cries out, too cheerfully. Her cousin looks up from the piano and Cheri is embarra.s.sed. Why does her mother treat her like she is a baby, asking about her nap?

Rabbit, it turns out, is delicious. Cheri eats and eats and then has a stomachache all night. The next day, Zia Genny sends the girls to swim at the lake. Her cousins dip their toes and adjust their bathing suits while whispering things Cheri can't understand about the skinny, tan boys who punch each other in the stomach and scrabble up the rocks to see who can dive from the highest point. Not to be bested by boys, Cheri climbs up to the apex and jumps without hesitation, making a huge splash and getting water up her nose because she forgot to hold it shut. The cousins seemed unimpressed and she is pretty sure they are now talking about her because when she returns to where they are sitting, they all shut up.

Maria is eleven and the best bet for a comrade. In mangled English, she asks Cheri if she knows Donny Osmond. Maria provides a second ray of hope when she suggests throwing the knife in their picnic basket against the knot in a tree. Coincidentally, this is one of her favorite games to play with Gusmanov, but when she gets overconfident and proposes that Maria stand in front of the tree to make it more challenging, Donatella announces it's time to go home.

Zia Genny takes Cheri into the library and tells her to wait while she hunts for an Italian grammar book. Cheri peruses the shelves, looking at a few framed photographs of Zia Genny's family and finding one that is clearly Mama and her sisters. Mama looks like a beautiful little doll, not much older than Cheri is now. Behind the girls is a tall, stern man linking arms with a woman wearing a veiled hat and pearls. "Are those my grandparents?" she asks shyly.

Zia Genny walks over and looks at the picture. "This was at Chiesa Brunella. Marco D'Ameri is our stepfather and, yes, this is your nonna. She pa.s.sed three years ago next month. May G.o.d rest her soul." Zia Genny crosses herself.

"And Marco D'Ameri?"

Zia Genny waggles her finger. "Do not talk about Marco D'Ameri to your mama. They have not spoken in many years and it is best left that way. Va bene, come, let us work on your diction."

Zia Genny's English is better than Mama's, despite her fifteen years in America, and Genny's a more patient teacher. Cheri sits at the butcher block in the kitchen with her dictionary and workbooks while Zia Genny cooks and Mama uuffs around them, pointing out that n.o.body in America speaks other languages or travels, like Europeans, so why bother? Zia Genny ignores Mama and holds forth, especially since Cheri has proved to be not only an eager student but also a mushroom aficionado.

Zia Genny becomes another person when talking about mycology. Wild porcini, she explains, are a national treasure and the finest specimens are hiding right on our hillsides. "They wait, sheathed in darkness, yearning to be wet and moist, to push out from the earth with a firm stem. Oh, the joy-the thrill-to touch their smooth, brown caps. I know all their secret hiding places." Zia Genny grins, leaning into Cheri. She teaches Cheri the biological names of all the local species of fungi, bemoaning the fact that her children don't share her love of the hunt, and she is aghast that Cheri doesn't know Latin. "Your America," she says to Mama.

One night before bed, Lucia grabs Cheri's arm and twists it like a towel. "I give you a warning: you eat the wrong mushroom and your tongue, it will swell up. You will vomit blood. The intestines will come out of all the holes in your body. You will be black and stinking. Then you shrivel like a leaf and die." Apparently, she speaks English.

Soon the days begin to pa.s.s in a comfortable routine: scrabbling the rocky hillsides, swimming, fresh sunburn, fresh pasta, and Italian studies. In the evenings, when the other grown-ups are smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking grappa, Zia Genny plays Chopin and the girls take turns playing Fr Elise and tarantellas. Even Mama sings along. Here Mama is fun, even a little funny, not embarra.s.sing like she so often is back at home. Maria tugs on Cheri's hands-come, sing. They are like the Von Trapps; they are a family.

The easy routine that has quickly developed is interrupted on the weekends by the arrival of Zio Ettore, Genny's husband, who works in Varese during the week. Finally, Cheri thinks, a relative with dark hair like mine. She's never seen a man with so much hair. Not just on his head but in a forest of a beard, sticking out of his dark silk s.h.i.+rt-even on his knuckles. Zio Ettore makes a big fuss over Mama, kissing her cheeks until Mama giggles and says, "Stop, just stop." There is a noticeable change with a man in the house; priorities s.h.i.+ft. Mama wears red lipstick, mealtimes are fixed, children lower their voices. The great room smells of cigars and gun oil. Ettore often goes hunting with friends on Sat.u.r.day and spends most of his time deciding which shot to use in which gun. Zia Genny spends her time cleaning up the black marks his boots made on the floor.

That night Cheri dreams about mushrooms with sharp teeth chasing her through the mountains. She wakes up and looks out the window to try to tell the time; she sees mountain shapes beneath a veil of gray light. Ettore is trudging to his car, carrying guns and supplies. It will be hours before the rest of the house is up, but Cheri feels wide awake and she suddenly remembers the leftover chocolate torte in the pantry.

The stone floor is freezing and Cheri wishes she'd put on socks. She stands in the kitchen eating torte, licking its residue off her fingers. Distracted in her rapture, it takes her several minutes to notice a man standing in the doorway. He has a cap pulled over his eyes, is dressed in forest-colored hunting gear with a wood-barreled shotgun at his side. Cheri freezes. The man comes toward her. He's much older than her uncle or her father and he smells of tobacco, dark and mossy. He looks her over like she is a horse and starts speaking rapidly in Italian. Cheri can't translate quickly enough to know exactly what he is saying but can tell that he was expecting something and she wasn't it. He curses and shrugs. And then he's gone.

Before Cheri can go back upstairs, the man returns with a rucksack and several shotguns. He barks questions at her. She struggles to answer as quickly as she can: "Cheri Matzner. Eight years old. I..." He pulls out some clothes and a pair of muddy boots from the rucksack and thrusts them at her, indicating she should put them on. Then he breaks one of the shotguns noisily and holds it to the light to inspect the condition of the bores. She can now see his face and she recognizes the stern man from the photograph. "Marco D'Ameri?" He grunts.

"Frette!" He shakes a box of ammunition and glares at her impatiently. Cheri goes into the bathroom and changes. The clothes are itchy and cut for a boy, but luckily the boots almost fit. She knows her mother wouldn't approve of any of this. Maybe that's why her heart is racing with excitement.

Her grandfather is on the move, guns at his side, two spotted dogs trotting next to him. Cheri runs to catch up, hiking her pants up with one hand. They head to the hillside, away from the bridle path that leads to the lake. The path is dim in the early-morning light; she has to keep looking down at her feet to make sure she doesn't trip and fall. Her grandfather doesn't glance back to see where she is, which makes Cheri wonder if she's misunderstood that he wanted her to follow him. It's hard enough to understand people when they want to be understood. Her grandfather isn't a talker, but he makes himself clear. Like when he stops and she thinks, Whew, he's waiting for me, but instead he gives her a gun to carry. It's smaller than his gun. Later, when she knows about such things, she'll realize it was an open-choked 20-gauge shotgun clearly outfitted for a child. She can't believe he is letting her hold it and remembers what Gusmanov taught her about safety. She carries it snugged up against her shoulder like a soldier, hoping that's right.

As they climb higher into the mountains, the air is damp from the lake and smells like firewood. Cheri is thirsty, and the gun is growing heavy and awkward to carry. Her grandfather has a canteen, but he doesn't suggest stopping for a rest. Buck up, she tells herself. She doesn't know where she heard that expression but it seems like something this grandfather might say, if he spoke English.

She's lagging farther behind now and no longer catches glimpses of her grandfather or the dogs through the trees, which all look the same. The floor has the same brown needles, the same mossy patches, the same reddish dirt. It's scarily quiet. Cheri breaks into a run, clasping the gun, then stumbles on a rock and falls on her side, whomp. Her hip hurts and her eyes burn like she's going to cry, but she needs to get up. She sees a low area ahead that leads to a pond and courses through the shrubs and branches.

Suddenly, her grandfather appears from nowhere, grabs her by the arm, and motions to the dogs, who are behind him. You wait for the dog! Stupid girl, you scare them. As if on cue, there's an ominous flapping of wings and she sees birds flocking out of the bushes, gray noisy streaks in the pale sunlight. He has his forefinger against the trigger of his gun, tracking the birds as they swerve and flare and go higher in the air. The dogs are on point, bodies taut. In one fluid motion, the grandfather swings his barrel ahead of the birds' path and squeezes the trigger. Bam-bam-bam. It makes her wince. The gun is like an extension of his arm; he doesn't stop swinging as he fires again. Bam-bam-bam. Cheri feels as alert as the dogs, her pulse thumping in her temples. A bird falls out of the sky. "Uccello!" the grandfather commands. Bird! The dogs run into the clearing, their strong hindquarters pumping. They sniff and disappear in the tall gra.s.s by the pond and then come racing back. One dog gently deposits a bird at her grandfather's feet. Tan with brown and white mottled feathers, nearly perfect except for a broken wing. It doesn't look like roadkill or like the rabbit Zia Genny was skinning. It looks like the still-life pictures in the great room, with fruit and cheese and a bird with a raspberry patch of blood on its breast. Marco D'Ameri's eyes are dark s.h.i.+elds. He praises the dogs and pours water for them from his canteen into his hand.

For the rest of the hunt, Cheri stays close to him, but not too close. It's thrilling to watch the dogs tracking the birds; they cross left and then right, darting through the underbrush on the perimeter of a clearing, sniffing out the birds' hiding spots. When the birds are flushed and airborne, Cheri studies her grandfather's movements. He doesn't aim where the bird is but where it's going to be. How does he figure that out? He stops only once, to drink from his canteen. He sees Cheri eyeing it and thrusts it in her direction. She drinks greedily, but he grabs it back before she can down too much. He caps it and sets off again.

Cheri has lost all track of time. One of the dogs sniffs around a tree, lifts his leg, suddenly reminding Cheri she has to pee. She doesn't want to stop and get left behind. Now her grandfather is turning around and coming toward her. Is he going to yell at her? He takes her gun and snugs the stock tight against her cheek, then positions her right index finger softly on the trigger and points to a bird in the sky. He guides her to do as he did, starting with the gun muzzle behind the bird, catching up to it, then pa.s.sing it, then pulling the trigger. She lifts her head up but he pushes it down, gesturing that she should keep her head level. They repeat this movement a couple of times, practicing. Then he takes the gun, loads it, and shoves it back at her.

Loaded, the gun feels even heavier. Heart pounding, Cheri crouches in the brush with her grandfather. The dogs are on point and suddenly she hears the thundering beat of wings. She raises her gun quickly and her grandfather holds his hand up-Wait-pointing to wait for the birds to get into the air. Everything but her breathing has slowed down. The moment lasts only a second or two, but she distinctly feels the hot sun on her neck, a bead of sweat drip down her face. She blinks. Moving her gun like they did in practice, sighting ahead of the flock. She squeezes the trigger. Nothing has prepared her for the force of the kickback; it knocks her on her heels. "Wow," she says, as she repositions and fires again, "wowza." When they've made their shots, her grandfather gives her a slight nod. "Uccello!" he says to the dogs.

Cheri's shoulder throbs from the throwback, and she is breathing like she's run a marathon. One of the dogs has a bird in his mouth, waiting for the command to release. Her grandfather takes the mangled quail from the dog and holds it up so Cheri can see countless buckshot holes dotting its breast. His brow furrows in derision-n.o.body will be eating this. Cheri wills herself not to show any emotion over the dead creature. She focuses on the fact that she hit a bird on her first shot. She can't wait to tell Gusmanov! They trudge through the woods for a while longer, her grandfather carrying his long string of birds over his shoulder, Cheri tagging along with her one bird banging against her leg.

Cheri's face is flushed as she bursts into the kitchen. Where is everybody? Zio Ettore's car is gone and there's no sign of the women. Cheri wants to shout: Look what I got, come see what I did! The clock on the wall says it is ten fifteen, so they've been gone for hours. Mama is going to be insane with worry. But it doesn't matter. This has been the best day of her life. Her grandfather throws his string of birds on the butcher block; Cheri copies his action. He sets to cleaning his guns, his fingers dexterously working with a cloth and oil. Cheri is filled with pride. Marco D'Ameri is Zeus to her, the most powerful man she's ever met, and she is a member of his family. It doesn't matter that he is her step-grandfather and she doesn't literally share his blood. It doesn't matter if he doesn't love her. She loves him and will always love him.

Mama flings open the kitchen door, holding one of her ruined shoes in her hand. She has clearly been in the woods this morning, frantically searching for Cheri. She a.s.sesses the damage inside: dead birds on the kitchen table, shotguns disa.s.sembled for cleaning, her daughter's face scratched, hands cut and covered with black powder and blood, Marco D'Ameri calmly oiling his gun. She rushes toward her stepfather like a harpy. "You kick me away like I am dirt!" she cries. "You say if I go to America I can never come back. And now...you dare to take my child, without permission...with a gun. You could have killed her!" Marco D'Ameri doesn't look up during Mama's tirade. She uses words so bad that Cheri doesn't even have to know what they mean to know she must never repeat them. But it is the look-a narrowing of the eyes, a puffing of the chin like a lizard makes when it's threatened-that makes her mother so fierce. That look would have earned Cheri's respect had it not been directed at the object of her newfound adulation. Mama grabs a bird from the table and holds it up like it's the devil incarnate.

"No, that's mine. I shot that one, don't touch it!" Cheri s.n.a.t.c.hes at the bird but her mother lifts it higher. The dogs are in a frenzy of barking. Mama grabs Cheri by the collar with her empty hand.

"Stop, Mama, let me go."

Marco D'Ameri silently picks up his birds, whistles for his dogs, and walks out the door. He doesn't look back, not even when Mama throws Cheri's quail at him. She misses. The bird thumps on the wall and lands on the floor, its neck twisted at an impossible angle.

"I forbid you to ever speak with that man again. You will not see him, talk to him, nothing, ever. You will not fool with guns-ever! Never again will you go anywhere, anywhere, without telling me. Understand?" Mama shakes her violently. "Say you understand. Say it! We will stand here forever until you say 'I understand.'" Cheri fights to free herself.

"I hate you!" Cheri yells. She doesn't see Mama's hand until it has smacked her across the face. She tastes the iron of her own blood and pushes her mother away as hard as she can. She wants to run outside but is badly positioned for an escape. The best she can do is race upstairs and lock herself in the bathroom where, at last, she is finally able to pee. Her shoulder still aches from the recoil of the rifle and her lip is bleeding. The pain is nothing compared to the hatred and confusion she feels. It courses through her body and comes out through her trembling fingertips. Cheri is silent when emissaries from downstairs come knocking, asking if she's okay.

Hours later, the gurgling in Cheri's stomach wakes her up. Judging from how dark it is outside, she's been sleeping on the bathroom floor for quite a while. The last thing she ate was the chocolate torte early that morning and she's starving. On her way downstairs she sees Mama's bags lined up outside her room. The m.u.f.fled, conspiratorial voices of her cousins are floating from Donatella's bedroom. Did you see what she was wearing? I heard she had blood all over her face. Cheri tells herself to keep walking, but she has to know what they are saying. She was holding a gun. She looks like a boy so he treated her like a boy. Don't you know that in America, women burn their bras? They speak so quickly it's hard for Cheri to get it all, even with her ear against the door. Like listening for a bad heart, she waits for the skipped beat that confirms a malfunction. You're a stupid idiot! Open your eyes. Can't you tell she's not one of us? There is one word they toss back and forth like a ball: adottata.

Cheri's stomach drops at the sound of the word. Somehow, she already knows what it's going to mean. It's going to explain why she doesn't look like her parents or her cousins. It's going to explain why she has the funny feeling that she doesn't belong in Montclair, with its fancy china and crystal and silk curtains. It's going to explain why Sol always looks at her like he can't quite figure out where she came from or what she's doing in his family. She races to Zia Genny's library and looks it up in her dog-eared Italian/English dictionary. "Adopted." Given away because your parents didn't want you. Not one of us. The only person Cheri knew who was adopted was a Vietnamese girl in her cla.s.s, Mary Frances O'Leary. On the first day of school, Sister Agnes kept calling her name because she refused to believe it belonged to the girl who was raising her hand. There are not many Vietnamese people in Montclair, and they weren't named Mary Frances O'Leary. Cheri was the same as Mary Frances? How could Mama have kept this from her?

Cheri hesitates before she goes into the kitchen, feeling like she's got an arrow pointing to her saying exactly why she's the thing that's not like the others. But she's starving. The floor of the kitchen is swept clean of all traces of bird and grandfather. Bread, olives, cheese, and cured pork are set out on the butcher block, and Cheri forgets her manners and grabs at whatever is closest. Mama appears at her side, saying, "Slow down. Here, use a plate, you're making crumbs on the counter." Zia Genny gives her a lemon soda and waves Cici off. "Let the child eat."

"You. You told him we were here."

"Shhhhhhht," Genny says. "How was I to know he would show his face? I could not have known he would take your daughter-"

"Donatella says I'm adottada," Cheri blurts. The women fall silent. Then Mama looks up at her sister and hisses, "How dare your Donatella say-" Zia Genny quickly interrupts her. "For the sake of Jesus on the cross, don't put the blame on Donatella; you are the adult, start acting like it for once in your life." "It's true then," Cheri says to Mama, "you aren't my real mother."

"It is true that you did not come from my body," Cici says gently, bending down so she is at Cheri's eye level. "But I love you just as much. I love you even more because I could not have children any other way. Being a mother...it does not come because we have the same blood or the same face. It comes from having your heart live outside your body. That is how I felt from the day your father brought you home to me."

Zia Genny goes upstairs to have words with Donatella. A little later, Donatella comes downstairs and, within earshot of the grown-ups, apologizes to Cheri in loud broken English. Zia Genny looks sad and tells Cheri that she is sorry that her sister is so bullheaded and insists on leaving tomorrow. "We will have our mushroom hunt another time, yes?"

Shortly after they get back from Italy, Mama comes home with the family portrait and Gusmanov hangs it above the mantel in the sitting room. It now includes her father, standing stiffly behind the couch, with his arms on either side of Mama. Everyone looks even more awkward. n.o.body looks like they go together; how could Mama not have told her the truth? "There, see, we are a happy family," Mama says, giving Cheri one of those big hugs that gets tighter when she tries to pull away. Was it because she was adopted that her father was mad about the painting? She tries to picture her parents going into an orphanage and picking her out, like in Little Orphan Annie. Mama clearly told him what happened with Donatella because, about a week after their return, he stops in her room and says, "I know your mother has said this, but I want you to know that you are our daughter and we are your parents. No different than any other family, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, okay?" Okay, she'd nodded.

If something bad happened and Mama wanted to make you feel better she'd say it was a "blessing in the skies." The grown-ups keep telling her nothing has changed, her parents are still her parents, and Mama's family is her family. But something has changed. Somewhere out there, she has a real mother and father. They were like the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in her book of Greek myths. They had her pale skin and strange eyes and must have had a very good reason for giving her away. It might just be a matter of time before they come and take her back.

The Bad Seed.

Gluten is the devil. For the past few weeks since his physical, Michael has been seeing a gastroenterologist and is convinced that gluten is what's been wreaking havoc with his digestive system. He's performing an exorcism in their kitchen. Cheri walks in on his sorting and tossing-mostly of her main food groups, carbs and sugar.

"What the h.e.l.l? This is perfectly good stuff. What's wrong with licorice and ketchup?" Cheri pulls the items from the trash.

"Hidden wheat repositories."

"You've been eating wheat your whole life and now it's suddenly poisoning you?"

"Celiac disease can manifest over time; it's often overlooked or misdiagnosed. Don't start putting stuff back, it needs to be segregated. Can't you see I've got a system going? Everything on the counter goes on the bottom shelf."

"Meaning I get one shelf and the rest is for millet-isn't that for birds? And oatmeal doesn't have wheat, why is that in this pile?"

"It has to be gluten-free oats. Plus, I do all the shopping. I get to organize the food according to what my system can digest."

"You don't even know if you've got this condition. You don't even have a diagnosis."

"I will today," he says.

"You get the test results today?" Cheri knew that Michael had recently had a battery of tests done, but he hadn't offered details and she hadn't probed. "I'll come with you."

"Thanks, but I've got it under control."

"I'm sure you do," she says. "But I'm coming."

Cheri doesn't want to fight; it seems any subject can make one of them start foaming at the mouth. Since she'd thrown down the separation gauntlet the night of her birthday, they've retreated to their own corners, coc.o.o.ning themselves in avoidance. Her corner is now the den; she's stacked boxes from her office to stake her claim but hasn't unpacked them yet. She tries to distract herself by looking through some late Bronze Age Ugaritic texts, sniffing at a thesis for mourning rituals that traces cutting and tattoos back to ceremonial pagan rites. But all she has are filaments, nothing for a full-fledged book.