Long After I'm Gone

Cloudy skies threatened rain, and a frigid breeze swirled through the opened and quickly shut door, as the family members gathered in the living room. The solemn mood belied the joviality of the last gathering only a few short months before, when they gathered beneath the brightly-lit, heavily-tinseled tree, passing gaily wrapped gifts around the room, amid shouts and cheers. Now soft weeping and sniffles, along with sober faces, replaced them.

The smell of fresh brewed coffee wafted on the breeze, as the door opened and shut again. The little ones grew antsy and began to fidget; their voices rising over the whispered, respectful conversations. Directions from Aunt Mary for the bigger ones to take the younger ones down to the rec room soon ensued.

Backs were clapped, hugs were shared, as family members came and went all afternoon. Nonna, the matriarch of the family, would soon be leaving them for the pearly gates that she had prayed for faithfully every week.

“Don, how are you?” boomed cousin Lynn’s husband Charles as he pumped his hand heartily. “I’m so sorry. What are they saying?”

Francis, better known to everyone as Frank, wandered into the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee, hoping to avoid a repeat of the conversation that they’ve had numerous times already throughout the day. 

He leaned his tall, muscled frame against the kitchen counter and stared out the window overlooking the expansive backyard that was encompassed by mature oak trees, now devoid of their leaves. 

His tiny little Nonna, who was so very special to him, had always seemed larger than life. They had a special bond all these years. He was closer to her than any of his siblings or numerous cousins, maybe because he was the youngest in the family, even though he was grown, in his late twenties now, everyone considered him the baby, even though mostly all of them had babies of their own. 

He spent so much time with her growing up; she had been like a mother to him. His father was always working, and his mother, well, she didn’t have time for anyone but herself. So he spent many weekends learning how to can vegetables, make homemade sauce, and pick herbs from her garden; these special memories with his Nonna were irreplaceable. She had taken him under her wing, and taught him a lot. He had so many wonderful memories of her, and she played such a significant role in his life, even as he grew older, and brought some girlfriends home, all of which she said were never good enough. 

This was going to be hard. He didn’t know if he would have the strength to handle this. 

Anna came up and wrapped her arms around him, her dark curly hair tickling his cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“I don’t know.” 

He leaned into his older sister and squeezed her back. Fifteen years separated them, but the love spanned the distance. Family was everything.

Placing a water bottle in his hand, she urged him to switch to water, then hurried off, her heels clicking on the tile floor, as she chased after her middle daughter down the hallway.

“She’s asking for you.”

His cousin Mare stood in the doorway with her hand on her hip, and bags under her eyes. He guessed the six children, all under the age of ten, didn’t allow for much sleep. Her hair was sticking up in the back, and the baby had spit up on her blouse. She usually didn’t make much effort to pull herself together anymore. Apparently that was one of the reasons her husband gave when he got caught by their cousin Fred for stepping out on her last year. Whether Mare knew what her husband was up to or not was a mystery to Frank. He wondered what excuse he gave her for his black eye. With so many family members, he found it best to mind his business as much as possible.

“How is she?” He replied with a twist of his lips. Straightening the sleeve of his shirt, he fidgeted wanting to put this moment off as long as possible.

“The nurse just checked her again. She said it could be any hour now. She doubts she’ll make it through the night. Her breathing is very labored. They’re trying to make her as comfortable as they can.”

Running his sweaty hands on the seat of his Amiri’s, he stiffened his spine and headed down the hallway towards the room at the back of the hall.

In the few hours that had passed since he’d last been in here, the room seemed darker, more suffocating, like death had already claimed the room.

 Passing his Uncle Thomas and his cousin Tommy, who stood solemnly next to his Nonna’s bed, he walked over and yanked at the heavy-roped, opulent drapery, tugging it open fully to allow some natural light into the room. Though the winter day was cold and gray, the room did brighten, chasing death from the room, as light chased the shadows. 

Leaning down to kiss her forehead, they excused themselves from the room, leaving Frank alone with his Nonna’s diminutive form huddled under the layers of blankets on her huge mahogany four poster bed.

“It’s still daytime,” the weak voice barely traveled across the room. 

“Yes, Nonna. It is.”

“I won’t be here by tomorrow, Francis. I can feel it.” 

“I will be here with you until you take your last breath, and St. Peter himself welcomes you into Heaven,” Frank replied, as he sat in the chair next to her bed, and reached for her hand. 

Holding her frail hand into his much larger one, his eyes welled up with tears.

“Nonna, how am I going to survive this world without you?”

She coughed weakly, and tried to sit up. Jumping up from the chair, he helped her re-position herself and stuffed another pillow under her head. Checking to see if she approved and was comfortable, he sat back down next to her. Struggling to compose himself, he looked out the window.

“You’ve always been my favorite, you know?” 

Frank laughed. “Of course. And you’ve always been mine.”

He smiled down into her soft blue eyes. Her face was covered in wrinkles, and her hair was a white as fresh snow. She had never looked more beautiful to him. Her eyes were losing their color, as if the blue would slowly leak out of them, until she would fade away completely.

“Francis? I need to tell you something.” The words came out as softly as a whisper, so he leaned closer to hear.

“What is it, Nonna? Do you need something?”

“I have everything I need now that you’re here with me.”

She patted his hand.

“But there is something that I’ve kept inside all of these years, and I feel that I must tell you, even if you’ll hate me.”

“What? Nonna, I could never hate you! What are you talking about?” 

Feeling a pit of dread begin in his stomach, he reached over the bible and the rosaries, for the pitcher on the table and poured water into the glass sitting next to it. Putting the glass to his lips, he gulped down several sips.

“Francis. I want to tell you a story, and then, finally, I will be able to go.” 

She paused and asked for a sip of water herself, before she continued in her feeble voice. “Many years ago, before your father or your Aunt Mary were born, before I had even met and married your beloved Nonno, God rest his soul, I was a spunky young girl. My parents had sacrificed everything to come to this country for a better life. I was very small, so I don’t really remember the journey, but once we got here, we all had to work very hard, and it was not at all what we thought it was going to be.” 

“Growing up, I remember my poor daddy, he was treated like dirt, even though he worked so hard every day, and my mama, she worked her fingers to the bones, so much so, that she miscarried my younger sister right there on the kitchen floor in our tiny apartment. My parents, who spoke very little English, would tell me how grateful we should be for this new life, but I secretly hated it, and that hate ate at me. As I grew older, became a teenager, I acted out a little. Oh I’m ashamed now of some of the things that I did back then.” She ruefully shook her head reminiscing those years. 

She paused in her story-telling when Aunt Mary stuck her head in through the door, wiping her hands on the apron that covered her enormous bosom, and asked if anything was needed. Lifting her frail hand, she waved her daughter away.

“It was after a few months of this reckless rebellion, that I met Mario. He was older and seemed so very sophisticated to me. I had young, foolish dreams about us running away, and living some kind of magical life together.” 

For a few moments, her cloudy eyes seemed to drift away as she recalled only something she could see.

“Well, it wasn’t very long after that, that I realized I was uh …. How do I say this delicately? …. in-a-family-way.” She dropped her eyes, as Frank’s flew open wide.

“I knew I couldn’t tell my parents. I was so ashamed. I thought that Mario would marry me and make an honest woman of me, or we would elope, and run away together. But he laughed at me and called me stupid, among some other vile names.”

A coughing fit ensued, and some small sips of water postponed the story that Frank now knew he definitely didn’t want to hear, yet how could he deny her anything?

“I hid the pregnancy as long as I possibly could. I went to school, and did my chores, and acted like life was the same mundane life as always. Until the day came that I could not pretend anymore. The pain was unbearable. My mother was out collecting laundry that she would bring back and wash by hand in our tiny apartment, and my father was at work. I had just finished my school work, and was getting ready to start dinner, when the pain came on so strongly and so suddenly that I knew something was terribly wrong.”

“I will spare you all of the details but after those hours of sweat, and pain, and tears, I delivered a baby boy on my bathroom floor. He was pale and silent, and l believed he was dead. I had no idea what to do. I guess I was in shock. The past few hours of pain had left me weak, and addled. I remember holding him in my hands and staring at him. Then, I must have reverently wrapped him in a blanket and placed his tiny body in a cardboard box. I cleaned up the apartment so no one would notice anything was amiss, and I carried that box out of our apartment building and down the street. I don’t know what I was thinking, or even if I was thinking, because the next thing I actually recall was that I was back in our kitchen peeling the carrots for the roast I was making for dinner, as if nothing had ever happened.”

Frank tried to hide the shock he felt. He ran his large hands through his hair, and over his face. He cleared his throat and wondered what words he could offer to comfort her.

“The thing is Francis. I never told another living soul about this, until now.”

Frank reached forward and grabbed both of her soft hands in his. He looked deep into her eyes, and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Nonna. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Anger flashed in her eyes, and color flooded her previously pale face.

“Don’t be sorry for me! I don’t deserve it! I don’t deserve any kindness or sympathy! Don’t you see? I’m a murderer. I killed my own baby and then I threw him away like trash!” 

She broke down into breath-tearing sobs.

The door opened just as thunder boomed outside the window. 

Aunt Mary was silhouetted in the light from the hallway. 

“Oh My God! What’s wrong? What’s happening? Mama?” She rushed into the room knocking Frank out of the way. More people crowded in to see what was happening, so it made it easier for Frank to slip out of the room unnoticed.

Standing in front of the large picture window in the parlor, Frank poured two fingers full of whiskey from a crystal cut decanter into a glass, and took a hefty sip. He felt that he aged twenty years in the last few minutes. 

He sensed more than saw his father standing in the doorway behind him.

“Is she ok, dad?” His voice broke.

“What happened son?” His father asked in his mild mannered way.

“I don’t know.” Frank responded without making eye contact. 

He turned his back to the man he admired most, and poured another two inches of whiskey in the bottom of the glass. 

Aunt Mary’s continuous stream of chatter could be heard issuing orders long before she approached and stuck her gray streaked dark head around the doorway to the parlor.

“Oh Frank, honey. Are you alright?” Her curls framed her round, usually jovial face. More lines now deepened around her mouth then were there even last week.

“Nonna?”

“She’s sleeping. I gave her one of those pills the nurse left to help her relax.”

Wrapping her arms around him, she rested her head on his chest. “That must have been frightening for you. I’m sorry. I should have been there to help. I’ve read that the end can suddenly be very tumultuous.”

Don walked forward and placed his hand on his sister’s back. She turned from Frank to him, clutching his shirt front. Don enveloped her in his arms, and she cried heartedly. 

“I need some air,” Frank murmured as he walked swiftly out of the room and slipped out the back door onto the deck. 

Standing under the overhang, Frank tried to keep the rain that was now pouring down and pounding the ground and deck, from hitting the tips of his shoes. 

Taking some deep breaths, it didn’t take long for the cold to seep into him. He shivered. He was stunned and confused and astonished at the things his meek grandmother, who he had placed on a pedestal and assumed was a perfect angel her whole life, was now claiming on her deathbed. 

She must have been confused; obviously the baby was still born. She had already admitted that she blanked out and didn’t remember what had actually happened. She couldn’t possibly have done something to him? Could she?

When he couldn't take the cold anymore, he wandered back inside. He didn’t want to think about it anymore. Seeing his middle sister struggling with a sleeping toddler, he helped her wrangle all of her children and stuff them into their coats. Her husband was going to take the children home.

 Leaving them to their goodbyes, amid yawns and cries, Frank wandered down the hallway and opened her bedroom door. He stood in the doorway watching her sleep. Her slight frame was almost unrecognizable on the enormous bed, covered with heavy quilts. The curtains were drawn again and the Tiffany lamp in the corner cast a soft yellow glow upon the room.

“Francis. I’m sorry.”

“You’re awake.”

“I’m sorry, Francis,” she gasped breathlessly.

“Nonna. Stop. You’re confused. You don’t know what you’re saying. There is nothing for you to be sorry for.”

She shook her head repeatedly. “No. I’m sorry, but it’s true. All of it.”

“Why me, Nonna?” He demanded in a strained, raspy voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’ve already confessed my sins. That’s not what this is about.”

Confused, Frank moved further into the room. He crossed his long arms across his chest, and leaned against the chair placed next to her bed. The crucifix hanging on the wall drew his eye.

“What is it about then?”

“So you will have the answers when they ask.”

Brows furrowed, Frank moved forward and stood in between the bed and the chair. “What do you mean?” 

For all of her health failings, her mind was still as sharp as a tack, so he didn’t understand her crypticism.

“Do you remember a few months back when the news was doing a story on a cold case? They called him, "The Boy in a Box?””

“Vaguely,” he responded slowly. His knees felt loose, so he let himself slump into the chair.

“That was your uncle. The baby boy that died that day.”

Speechless, Frank tried to recall what he could from the local media reports about the dead body of a baby boy that they had found on the edge of a wooded area over 60 years ago. He thought maybe it was still an open investigation.

“Now you know my terrible secret. And someone on this earth will have the answers long after I’m gone.” She closed her eyes and took small shaky breaths until the final one.

Days later when the services were concluded, Frank hovered at the gravesite until everyone else had walked off. He stared down at the carving of the angel on his Nonna’s headstone. He placed a kiss upon the yellow rose, they were her favorite after all,  and then he laid it on her marker. Then he did the same with a second one for the boy that she had lost, that no one would ever know about.

The End.