Sheneedsme? my thoughts mock as I return to my room. Hah! Joy Aldiss is irreverent enough to know how to handle herself. She doesn’t need me.
I need her.
Quickly pulling on a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops, I grab my camera and trot down the stairs. It’s not yet nine, hopefully early enough to still find Dad at Sunny Side Up staring at the new server. When I’m nearing the front door, though, I hear sounds from the kitchen.
Backtracking, I peer around the corner from the hall to find a woman at work. The silver hair piled on the top of her head barely moves as she bends to the dishwasher, gathers clean dishes, and straightens, bends, gathers, and straightens. She wears slim jeans and a loose blouse. Her back is to me.
What had Anne told me about the housekeeper? Not much other than that she is a local and needs the work.
Not wanting to startle her, I knock on the jamb, then do it louder when my first raps are lost in the clatter of forks and spoons being returned to a drawer. When she whips around, I realize that the white hair is stunning but misleading. Her skin is smooth. She can’t be more than sixty.
Her eyes go wide when she sees me. She isn’t frightened, exactly, but clearly surprised.
To put her at ease, I say a cheery, “Hello. I’m Mallory.” When there is no response, I raise my brows. “Anne’s sister?”
“I know,” she says. Her voice is quiet but, while not exactly hostile, far from warm.
Rolling my eyes in aduhkind of way, I smile. “Pictures going up the stairs.”
“You haven’t changed,” she says, but I realize she’s not talking about the pictures. She remembers me from the past.
And isn’t this awkward? She is vaguely familiar to me, like JoeyDiMinico was yesterday, but I can’t place her. He’s my contemporary. This woman is closer to my parents’ age.
I grimace, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You are…?”
“Lina Aiello,” she says and, for the first time, I hear the trace of an accent, so faint that it would appear only when saying something learned in childhood from a parent with a stronger accent. Fully a third of Westerly is of Italian descent, immigrants brought here generations ago to help quarry granite. When the quarries closed, they became a vital part of nearly every aspect of the local economy, fully assimilated even as they stayed close to their church, the saint from the Italian town where their forebears were born, and theirsoppressata.Thanks to Italian friends, I knew what the Feast of the Seven Fishes was about. I remember sneakingpizzellehome, hiding it in my bedroom, eating little bits each day. Thanks to those joyous Christmas Eves, I knew the potential of family warmth.
“Aiello?” I repeat, scouring my memory until I feel a warm suspicion. “Danny?” I ask with a smile, because if the memory is correct, it is pleasing. Danny wasn’t a close friend, certainly not close enough for me to be invited to his home. But we shared a love of American literature and coffee chip ice cream at Gendy’s, so we got along well.
Lina’s eyes move over my face. It’s like she’s looking for something, though, for the life of me, I don’t know what.
“How is Danny?” I ask.
“He’s fine.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Teaching English.”
I clap in delight. “Perfect. He was made for that. Will you give him my best?” I might have liked a nod, but she is still searching my face. I wait for her to speak. When she doesn’t, I raise my brows again. This time, my smile is forced. “Is… something wrong?”
Very quietly, she says, “You look like your mother, is all.”
“My daughter even more so. You’ll see her, I’m sure. It’s like seeing a ghost.” Truth be told, now that I say the words, Lina Aiello is the pale one, clearly unsettled by me.
Time to leave.I start to turn, then stop. It strikes me that if this woman is here every day, she could be a help. “I haven’t seen my father in a while. How’s he been?”
“Fine,” she replies.
“Does he talk to you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Anything of substance?”
“No.”
I take a different tack. “Do you clean his room?” When she nods, I tip my head and, like I’ve just thought of it, ask, “Have you ever seen a gun there?”
