April 9, 2018
Dear Sybil,
It was so nice to get your letter, and thank you for the book of poetry. I was somewhat familiar with Eavan Boland, but had not read much. The opening poem, “Quarantine,” is stunning.
I did notice the change in your penmanship and I am sorry to hear your eyesight has taken a downturn. It’s a fear I had for many years, losing my sight. It would be a significant loss. However, it’s wonderful your neighbor installed the magnifying device for you at your desk. The contraption sounds cumbersome but worthwhile. He sounds like a good person to have next door. You asked if I still write. I do, only less.
Between Mick’s interest in marrying you and this fascinating discovery of a sister in Scotland, your life has become very exciting. What will you do about the Texas man? I look forward to hearing how it unfolds. With love—
Joan
Sybil Van Antwerp
17 Farney Rd.
Arnold, MD 21012
29 April 2018
Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,
I read your letter. It was very full. I am surprised to be saying this, but I am sorry your son Gilbert died. My oldest daughter is with the angels. She left us the day after she was born, that was in 1992.
In spring last year 2015 my son took an overdose of heroin. The good rehab programs are so expensive. We took another mortgage on our house. He lives, but he is not the same, and we are always in worry. I think I can understand your sadness.
One thing, I wasn’t clear. My father is dead. He died when I was fifteen years old. This occurred in a terrible way. He got out of jail and borrowed money to come to Italy. By then he was like a dog in a junkyard. He was drinking and ill from it. He wanted my mother to come back to America and they would try again, but she was angry and would not have him. Life was very hard on her, and she was a black sheep because of my father’s crime. She is the second daughter in a family with four sisters, and my grandfather was not a rich man. He was of the mind she married a fool. Everyone knew she had gone away to America, and come back without my father. Everyone knew everything somehow. We were living with my nonna on the edge of Bergamo. My grandfather had died. My father arrived on the porch. My mother did not let him in the house because he was ragged and drunk. On this same night he went to a bar and after some hours they said he went out and he was hit by a car in the street. He died five days later in the hospital there. My papa was a good man, but this is the outcome. I think this is the reason I have been so angry.
My mother lives in Italy still, but I came to America whenI was nineteen. I have an Italian sandwich and meats shop in Hoboken called Nelli’s, which you may have heard if you have been in the area. The oil and vinegar blend I use is selling in most grocery stores in the Northeast and out west as far as Ohio.
Best regards,
Dezi Martinelli
FROM: [email protected]
DATE: May 5, 2018 01:14 AM
SUBJECT: A job for me
Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,
How are you doing? How are your eyes holding up? Are you maintaining correspondence with your biological sister?
Last time we emailed it was early in the year, and I am sorry for the long stretch. We have had a great deal of trouble the last months. Zoha had a seizure in February while she was at school. I was working and Kalee was at a house where she takes care of an elderly man, and unable to leave because I had the car. I left the office where I am working now and rushed to the hospital in San Francisco and she was sedated and intubated. She had fallen and knocked her head, so she had part of her beautiful hair shaved and a terrible sutured incision.
The reason I took the job I was in is because of the health insurance, which is not much, but is better than none at all. Health care in the US is very complex (at Kindred, the insurance was excellent). Zoha was in the hospital for three weeks while they were testing her to understand the origin of the seizure and we came away without the answer, but the doctors are saying it may happen again at any time and there is no way of knowing when or what causes it, plus the very expensive hospital charges.
During this time, Emir was having problems in school. He was having poor grades on tests and having his teachers calling to tell us and he has a few boys who are his friends, but they are troublesome and they lit a small tree in a park on fire one evening when Kaleeand I were still at work. He was picked up by the police. The officer was kind and did not log the incident, but of course it was terrible. He cannot do these things. It is very shameful to himself, and to his mother and me, and to other Syrian families we know here. I whipped him and took away his social privileges for three months (this is difficult to enforce when we are at work, however). We brought the children here to shield them from the life we left, to give them this good life in America. I don’t want them to know what we left behind because it is terrible. I am always trying to protect them, every decision is striving to protect them, and yet somehow we are doing things wrong.
This is all very bad news, and yet I have something hopeful to share with you. Dale Woodson interviewed me for the second time, this time with three of his colleagues, and I think he will offer me a job. It felt very good talking to them about the things I know. I remember when you said in an email that when you find a place for yourself in the world, it feels like music, and I thought of that, sitting over the table with Dale Woodson and talking about highway infrastructure. I guess I am a very boring sort of person, but to me highway infrastructure is a symphony.
This email is to tell you thank you, Ms. Van Antwerp, for setting a new course for my life.
With most sincere appreciation and respect,
Basam Mansour
