“We’re almost there, Boran,” Anna-Maria said. There had been nothing but silence from the backseat during the drive, but she added observations every few kilometres to keep herself from being sucked into his muteness. When she ran out of things to say to herself, she turned on the radio, hummed along with the songs until she got tired of that too. The moment she swerved into her mother’s driveway, a sudden yelp from him startled her. She could never predict what he’d react to.
Her mother was outside, waiting for her, possibly having a smoke before the Thanksgiving invasion.
“Anna-Maria, so good to see you,” her mother said, kissing her on both cheeks before her gaze moved straight past Anna-Maria to the backseat.
“I thought I’d help you carry some of the stuff inside,” she said. “I still remember how overwhelming it is with just two arms, fifteen bags, and a baby.” Her mother had unbuckled Boran before Anna-Maria had time to answer.
“Look at you,” she cooed, “You have grown. You’ll get big in no time once you get the hang of it.”
Anna-Maria knew this to be a lie. Boran had barely started putting on weight after evicting the parasites he brought with him from Cambodia. In her mother’s arms, he could pass for a Canadian 9-month old, even if his papers pegged him as almost four.
Her mom disappeared into the house with Boran, forgetting all about the stuff inside the car. Anna-Maria unloaded it alone: the diaper bag, the food containers and the bag of clothes. The highchair she knew she schlepped downstairs to the garage this morning—noticeably absent.
Inside, her uncles occupied the same seats they occupied last year. They must have parked down the street to leave her room in the driveway. The armchairs were clunky and took up too much room. Her mother kept them for Rocco and Antonio to sit in twice a year.
“Ciao Bella,” Rocco said, huffing as if he were getting up to kiss her.
“Gotta get these to the kitchen,” she said, waving him off.
“Vai cuore, go to the kitchen,” Uncle Tony gesticulated. “You could use some meat on your bones.”
In the kitchen, stuffy with women and food, Boran was being passed around like a new toy. High-pitched “Aren’t you cute,” “Adorable,” and “Bello, bello, bello” peppered the room. Boran didn’t seem to mind the attention, not even the cheek-squeezing. “See, there’s your Mamma,” Aunt Rita said, “Mamma always comes back.”
Boran showed no sign he’d been worried, nor that he was pleased to see her. He looked equally at home in auntie’s arms as he did in her own.
“Where can I put the food?” she asked, pulling out the Tupperware.
“See what motherhood does?” Aunt Angela said, “Just a few months, and now you’re bringing food for Thanksgiving.”
Anna-Maria blushed. “It’s just some rice and vegetables, and fruit – for him mainly.”
“She’s got to be careful with his diet; there’s a lot he still needs to get used to,” her mom inserted.
Anna-Maria checked the oven. It was filled with aunt Rita’s lasagne, the one with “everything, just more,” and a ham her aunt Angela must have brought for Uncle Tony. She shoved her own food into the corner by the microwave.
Through the bouquet of cooking scents there was a hint of something suspicious from Boran’s diaper. She walked over to Aunt Angela, who must have smelled it too. She passed Boran back to Anna-Maria without a word. She took him to her old room. Her mother had taken down the posters and changed the bedspread, but otherwise everything was the way it had been for the past twenty-five years. The too-soft twin bed, the snow globes she had collected compulsively—then abandoned.
Boran lay still while she pulled off his pants. He had been potty-trained at the orphanage, or so they said, but the constant diarrhea had made diapers the only option on the flight back, and now both of them had gotten accustomed to the little ritual.
“So, let’s see what you have for me here,” she said. “Let’s see how nasty it is this time.”
She had abandoned the questions. Now she just made commentary while she did things with him. He had to get familiar with her language, but she couldn’t go on pretending it was a dialogue.
“Oh, you tricked me,” she said. “Nothing there, just foul smell and no poo.”
Boran blinked. She tickled his tummy. He didn’t laugh, but at least his facial expression changed to some kind of grin. That was something. She pulled his pull-up diaper and pants up and put him on the floor. The top of his head only reached halfway up her thigh. She gathered some cushions from her old bed and held out one for him.
“We need a few of these for you to sit on, otherwise your head will be under the table.”
He looked at her, then at the cushion, but didn’t stretch out his hands.
“OK,” she said, “I guess I’ll have to carry all of them if you won’t help me.”
He followed her, though, on his short legs.
Her mother had put the children’s place setting near the end of the table, next to her own hostess’ seat by the kitchen door. The plastic kid’s plate and glass looked lost among all the gold-and-white porcelain and the crystal glasses, the nicely folded fall-themed napkins. Anna-Maria put the three cushions on the chair next to it.
“See, you’ll sit next to Granma,” she said. “And I’ll sit on the other side. I won’t let you sit among the Huns, not this first time.”
He examined the pillows. Objects he understood, they communicated something to him where words and facial expressions were powerless. She watched him touch the cushions one at a time, feeling the texture of each one. Two of the cushions were pink corduroy and the last one a grey felt thing. The second time Boran touched the grey one, he let out a humming sound.
“Do you like that one?” she said to the back of his head. He didn’t turn around but kept putting his hand back on the cushion, and then pulled it back as if he had been burned.
“Don’t you like it? I can go get you another one?”
She squatted down to be at his eye level, and then she pulled the grey cushion away from the bottom of the pile. “You want me to take it away?” she said, hiding it behind her back. She was about to present him with the options once more when he attacked. She was usually ready for him, but she started at the sound of his shriek, giving him time to dig his teeth into her left forearm. There was a sharp, deep pain that made blood rush to her head and her mouth taste like iron. It awoke something primordial in her, and her first instinct was to bite back.
“What are you two doing over there?” one of the uncles said from the other end of the room. “Playing hide-and-seek?”
The male voice was enough for Boran to loosen his bite, and she yanked her arm away from him. The teeth marks were deep, but there was no blood.
“I get it,” she said, “You like this one,” placing the grey cushion on top. But now Boran was distracted, his head turning toward the uncles and his short legs moving in their direction. When he moved, she could still sense the smell of him, like something was fermenting in his body, even after the doctor had pronounced the pests inside him expelled. She would have to take him to the doctor again to have it checked out.
The clock on the mantle behind the uncles showed almost two o’clock, but nobody had told them to find their places yet.
“Piccirillu!” “O Bello-bello!” “Ora si mangia – we eat now.”
Boran took no notice of the hodgepodge of languages, but he was clearly drawn to the noise of the two men. When Uncle Rocco clapped, Boran moved his own hands as if he were considering whether to follow the older man’s lead.
Anna-Maria opened the kitchen door and was once again immersed in cooking smells. A palette of aromas that took you on a round trip from the village in Calabria to the heart of Ontario in a whiff.
The food seemed ready; her mom and aunts were chatting, half-leaning on the counters.
“Are we waiting for someone else? Is Luca coming after all?” Anna-Maria asked. “It isn’t like him to be late.”
“Not for lunch, he’s not,” her mom replied. “He may come by for coffee and desserts after they’re done over at Charles’ parents.”
Anna-Maria almost rolled her eyes. Everybody knew Luca wasn’t going to show.
“So what are we waiting for? It’s past two.”
“I’ll go watch Boran,” Aunt Rita said, exiting the kitchen so quickly Aunt Angela was sucked into the undertow, leaving Anna-Maria alone with her mom.
“Don’t tell me you invited him?” It came out too shrill and too loud.
“He is your father,” her mother said. “Technically, he’s even still my husband.”
“Neither has made any dent in his lifestyle for a dozen years. Is he coming alone?” Anna-Maria replied.
“I don’t think there is anyone right now,” her mom said.
“There you go, even his floozy is fed up with him. If it weren’t for Boran, I’d pick up my stuff and leave just about now.”
“If it weren’t for Boran, I wouldn’t have invited him,” her mother snapped back. “It is his first and maybe only grandchild. Luca won’t give up his lifestyle to have kids.”
“Just because he’s gay, doesn’t mean he can’t…” Anna-Maria started, but her mother cut her off.
“Your brother isn’t that kind of gay, and you know that.”
Anna-Maria had no good comeback to that, and in the brief silence between them, they heard the volume of the chatter in the next room triple.
“I guess that’s him,” Anna-Maria said. “Better get it over with.”
Her father was still standing by the door gesticulating and explaining, the bouquet of flowers in his left hand amplifying his movements. The uncles had sprung from their armchairs when he arrived and were already beguiled by his storytelling. They were egging him on: “Davvero?” “Mi prendi per il culo?” “You’re joking, right?” The aunts in the background, making disapproving hand gestures, but still smiling. Of course, they smiled. Her father, Giuseppe, was great entertainment as long as you could leave before things got out of control.
“With this global warming thing, they should just move Thanksgiving to November like the Americans,” her dad said, “It’s too darn hot out there.” Anna-Maria had heard the same joke twice that morning on the radio.
A screech from Boran, displeased to be stuck behind a wall of stocky men, interrupted her father’s show. Before Anna-Maria reached him, Boran had been picked up by Uncle Rocco and handed over to her father. She pressed through the barricade of people and stood face to face with her dad. Boran had stopped screaming. She stretched out her arms to invite him to come to her, but there was no sign he wanted to leave her father’s arms.
“I see you met Boran,” she said as he handed her the bouquet.
“And he already likes me. Smart kid,” her father replied, pinching Boran’s cheek.
They exchanged kisses on both cheeks, Boran’s hair brushing her neck on the second kiss. Her father’s aftershave had already rubbed off on him.
She retreated to the kitchen with the flowers, taking her time, rinsing her wrists with cold water before filling the vase. As she put the vase down, her mom and the aunts floated into the kitchen. The three women became one organism, her mom the head, the aunts the arms and legs. Wordlessly, they wove in and around countertops and appliances in the kitchen. Anna-Maria needed serving dishes and access to the oven, but there was no room for her. Only when they started carrying the trays and platters to the oven did she find an opening, but it was late, so she just microwaved the food in the Tupperware. Nobody would be tempted to try her dishes anyway.
She was the last person to sit down at the table, sandwiched between Boran on her left and her father on her right. The uncles had already opened the wine, and by the looks of it, her dad was on his second glass.
Boran showed no interest in the food she’d reheated for him, but the others were too busy serving themselves with lasagne and pasta al forno, and then complimenting Aunt Rita for her culinary talent, to notice. She was almost relieved. His table manners were those of a child who’d known hunger and had to fight to secure his share. He was fast with his hands, but not fast enough to deflect attention from his two-hands-no-cutlery method.
She served herself some brown rice and added vegetables with tiny slivers of chicken breast on top. “See, Boran, now we eat, you try some too,” she said close to his ear, but not close enough.
“What are you feeding him, cuore? He’ll never grow if you feed him that, that… what is it, bird feed?” Her father’s voice was already louder than it was when he arrived.
Before she had time to react, he had placed a blob of lasagne on Boran’s plate. She tried to estimate the damage if Boran ate all this dairy in one sitting.
“Dad, he’s been having lots of stomach trouble; I think it might be too much for him,” she said, enunciating every word.
“Oh, come on, let the boy eat; he needs to grow,” her dad said.
“Really, you’re telling me how to parent?” she said, a little too loudly, a lot too early in the meal.
The chatter around them immediately muffled, a fork scratching here and there, but otherwise it had turned as quiet as her meals at home. Even her own mom was avoiding her gaze. A quick look at Boran convinced her she had lost the battle. Boran’s quick right hand dove into the mountain of melted mozzarella and ragù and then back to his mouth dripping with sauces. He repeated this three times in quick succession, and by the end of the third time, everyone around the table was roaring with laughter.
“Eh, good boy, cosí si mangia!” Uncle Tony exclaimed!
“If lasagne doesn’t make you grow, nothing will,” Aunt Rita declared.
When everybody turned their attention to their own plates again, she opened the napkin and wiped Boran’s hand with it.
“Maybe we should try the spoon instead,” she said, holding it up before him. While the others removed the plate for the first course and moved on to ham, turkey, patate arrosto, grilled bell peppers and sautéed spinach, Boran grabbed a spoon for the first time since he’d been with her, and though some of the food landed on the floor and the tablecloth, he ate most of it all on his own. Only the brown rice was left on his plate.
Her mother had served her a piece of turkey, some potatoes and broccoli and cranberry from a recipe that must be new, while she’d been busy with Boran. The others had mowed through most of the dishes now and were sitting back in their chairs, adding a vegetable or tiny slice of meat once in a while, but done with the serious part of eating. They had outdone themselves, let go of every dietary advice from their doctors, and eaten to their heart’s content. There would still be leftovers, but nothing her mother couldn’t handle.
Someone had given Boran a new plate and a thin slice of turkey, but he was past eating now, slapping the piece of poultry around the plate.
“You don’t like turkey, Bimbo?” her father said, the volume of his voice up a further notch. “Let the boy have more of that lasagne – don’t force that mangiacake bird on him.” It was directed at everybody and nobody and was probably a joke. He lifted his glass, likely his third, into a kind of toast. Anna-Maria shut him down.
“Just don’t,” she said in her sharp, hard voice. “It’s enough now.”
For a moment, her father looked sullen, but then he lifted his glass again. “So, let’s have a toast for all the lovely ladies and their wonderful cooking,” he said. “You did even better than last time I was here.”
Anna-Maria lifted her glass of water, while the others did cin-cin with red wine. She tried to remember how many years they had done Thanksgiving without her dad. Four or five, she decided.
“It brings bad luck to toast with just water in the glass,” he said. “Dai Anna-Maria, let’s make another toast. Where’s your wine glass?”
Aunt Angela handed her a glass with half an inch of red wine from across the table.
“There,” she said, “Probably enough if you’re driving back.”
“Another toast,” her father said, “a real one.” He rose to his feet.
“To my first grandson—though I thought he’d look more similar to me,” he chuckled.
Everybody cheered again.
Her father lifted his glass once again, “And to finding him a nice Catholic name I can remember.”
Anna-Maria watched the others cheer. Boran was still in his seat. He was lifting his own glass, and then putting it down on the table so hard water spilled out every time.
“He already has a name—it isn’t that difficult.”
“But isn’t that the name of that funny guy in that film?” Uncle Rocco said. “It was something like Boran, for sure.”
“They will pick on him in school,” Aunt Rita joined in. “You should think about it.”
“You could name him after me, Giuseppe, or Joe,” her father said.
She listened to them throw around names. Bernardo, Mario, Fabio.
Anna-Maria stood up, picked up her own plate and Boran’s, and headed for the kitchen. Halfway there, she turned around.
“It was Borat, the guy in the film,” she said, mostly to herself.
She decided she’d stay in the kitchen until they were done. Luca was right to keep clear of this. He’d been the victim of their mockery for years—for his lack of manliness, his expensive shoes, how he couldn’t handle a joke. She opened the door to the backyard for a moment. It was still warm outside, but cooler than the kitchen. She stood there, by the door, looking out at the backyard, trying to remember what she used to play at back there as a kid, until her mother came looking for her.
“Don’t pay attention to your father,” her mom said. “You know what he’s like. He doesn’t mean to be like that.”
“You should stop making excuses for him, Mom,” she said. “He’s a grown man.”
“Some men never grow up,” her mom said.
She wanted to respond the usual, no shit, Sherlock, but the words didn’t roll off her tongue the way they should.
“I need a smoke,” she said. “Do you have any cigs left, Mom?”
They went to the back of the garden, behind the maple, the only place not visible from the house. The leaves had just started to turn and a few of them had dotted the ground underneath with yellow. She remembered sneaking out to smoke here when she was in high school.
“What was it like to be my mother?” she asked.
Her mother’s cigarette lit up. “It had its ups and downs,” she said. “You were an easy baby but an angry teenager.”
Anna-Maria inhaled the cigarette smoke, but it had been a long time since she last smoked, and she started coughing as if she were fifteen again.
“I don’t think I’m very good at being a mother,” she said when she caught her breath.
“Oh, you’ll do fine, it’s always hard in the beginning,” her mom said.
“There is no end to the beginning,” Anna-Maria replied, “I wake up every day to the same first day.”
Anna-Maria extinguished her cigarette. Her mom was still smoking. She put her hand against the maple tree to feel the rough pattern of the bark.
“Sometimes I can’t even stand his smell,” she said.
Her mother took out one cigarette for herself, then handed the pack to her. “Here,” she said, “Use this when you’re alone and things get to be too much. That way you’ll worry about your own smell, not his. Just don’t do it in front of him. Don’t be a bad role model.” She grinned.
They walked back toward the kitchen after Anna-Maria had hidden the secret pack in her back pocket. On the doorstep, her mother took out some mouth spray and handed it to her.
The menthol burned in her mouth. It was so strong that it made her eyes water.
Her mother laughed. “You’ll get used to that.”
There were dirty dishes piled up everywhere on the counter, so someone must have cleared the table. There was still chatter coming from the living room.
The uncles were back in their armchairs. The TV was on, but nobody was watching, and it looked like the uncles could nod off at any time. Aunt Rita and Aunt Angela were still sitting at the dining table, fully engaged in a whispered gossip session. Someone else was getting a divorce from what Anna-Maria could catch.
“Where is Boran?” she asked.
“Oh, he was here a moment ago, probably went somewhere with your dad,” Aunt Rita offered.
Anna-Maria checked all three bedrooms, then the bathroom, then the bedrooms again, as if playing hide-and-seek. She even checked under the beds. Her father wouldn’t have taken him for a ride without asking her, would he?
She tried to calculate how many glasses of wine he’d had. At least three while she was there, possibly another one after she left. Her heart had started thumping inside her ears.
“Did they go outside?” she asked when she returned to the living room.
Uncle Rocco let out a snore. Uncle Tony opened one eye and said ,“Possibile.”
She opened the door cautiously. It had started to cool down, the sun now at an angle where it was tired of emitting heat. For a moment, the low rays blinded her.
Her dad was there, and next to him was Boran. No car racing, jokes, or toasts, just an older man and a small boy resting. Anna-Maria held her breath. They were sitting on the heavy cement stairs her dad had scaffolded and poured, after the wooden ones had rotted away one rain-heavy spring. On the last step, there were still traces of a FUCK YOU she had written in anger before the cement dried. Her dad had helped her smooth it over before her mom came home.
She leaned into the silence—it was a friendly silence and there was nothing to ask about, nothing to explain. But as she relaxed, the quiet was broken by a farting sound, a loud “prrrrrr.” She recognized the smell. He needed changing.
Then her dad copied his grandson. She couldn’t tell if the sound came out of his mouth or further down. “Ahhhhh,” he said, “That was good.” He patted his tummy twice.
Boran laughed out loud, patting his own tummy.
