*

*

Chapter 11: Mother

            After Junior died, my father was never the same.  He had Junior’s Purple Heart medal framed.  It hung above the living room mantle with a photograph of Junior in uniform.  I was still living at home, attending college.  I remember feeling such relief each morning when I shut the door on that sad house.  I’d stay in the library studying, hoping that my parents would be asleep or out when I got home.  Sometimes, I’d smell my father’s cigar when I was taking off my coat in the foyer.  He would be sitting in the living room, slumped in his recliner.  A half-smoked Cubana between his fingers, he’d swirl port in a glass and stare at Junior’s picture.  He appeared bulky and toad-like hunched in his chair, a bit reminiscent of Winston Churchill.  I tiptoed past the doorway, loathe to disturb him, even though I knew in truth he wouldn’t notice me if I stomped through like an elephant.

            About six months after Junior died in Vietnam, I discovered that my mother was having an affair with Cousin Alberto.  It happened like this.  I had stayed late at the library.  My friend, Larissa, and I took the subway downtown.  I got off at my stop and waved to Larissa through the closing train door.  I started up the long flight of stairs to the street.  In my mind I was still going over the points of the essay I was writing about The Brothers Karamazov.  I saw the couple at the top of the stairs, embracing shadows backlit by the neon lights of Mario’s Pizzeria.  Something about their posture tugged me out of my Russian musings.  Then I recognized my mother’s red burnt-out velvet scarf with the long fringe.  My heart halted, jumped, and pulsed in my throat.  I stood in the darkness of the stairway waiting, watching.  They kissed, drew apart, kissed again.  I saw the man’s face: Cousin Alberto.  My thoughts came in disjointed fragments.  Cousin Alberto!  He had to be at least a decade younger than my mother.   And what a creep, after all my father did for him, bringing him over from Italy, giving him a job at the company.  He even rented an apartment to Alberto, cheap. 

            Finally, the two went their separate ways.  Mother clicked off down the street in her four-inch heels.   Cousin Alberto turned and came slap-slap-slap down the subway steps.  I froze against the tiled wall.  It was cold on my back.  Our eyes met.  He recognized me, then cut his eyes away.  I waited until the sound of his footsteps receded into the echoing tunnel.  Then I followed my mother home.