Chapter Eleven

I stood on the steps of the dorm around ten PM. It was cool, and damp, spring in the south. The blooming azaleas scented the air; I heard sounds of small creatures in the brush. Sounds of beginning, smells of earth and birthing. The sky tonight was very dark, cloudy; a storm muttered somewhere in the distance.

"I don't need rain tonight," I thought, as I climbed into my little car. Those back roads were bad enough in my VW bug without rain. I backed up and turned down the road to the highway, seeing no one. There were lights in the library, and in the top floor of the dorm. I didn't see whose window was bright against the dark. I thought I was alone in the damp dark night, and it felt good to be traveling in the quiet, no radio turned on for other people, no voices competing for attention. I had a couple of sandwiches in a sack, an apple, and a can of soda, and a legal pad with some sharpened pencils. I had my white coat on the seat beside me, looking professional and ready for work. And I had a plan.

My plan was simple, and didn't involve anything illegal or unethical or even against school rules. I was going to see the doctor who worked at night, since I got no where with Doctor Coker. He needed an attitude adjustment with a baseball bat, but I always smiled sweetly and walked around him as if I might step on something nasty if I got too close.

This other doctor worked at night; the one Wallace had compared Lucas to one day we were there. This Dr. Fried sounded weird and unconventional, just what I needed. I needed help, and he might be able to give it to me. Me and Leo. Lucas had told me about Dr. Fried; he had been in Vietnam doing surgery in the field while the war was getting worse and worse all the time. He did two tours, Lucas said he was nuts to go back the second time, that was what did him in.

"Once, OK. You can get rid of the shakes and start feeling real again. But twice," Lucas shook his head. "No way." When I had asked him how many tours he had done, he looked funny at me and said "Three."

So this was the doc I was going to see; I knew that he was on duty tonight, I sneaked a look at the schedule they hid behind the med room door. I also knew that if he wouldn't help, there went the plan. And there went Leo. This was about the last chance I had to help Leo, no one else was doing anything. Coker told me to be invisible, Wallace just hated the world, it was getting late in the semester and we were leaving in a month. Blind George was looking worse and worse, and Leo had to be helped so he could take care of Jesse. It seemed simple to me, but no one else seemed to take it seriously. I had checked a PDR for the medications, and found that Leo had been given the top dosage, the maximum amount of medication. Legal and maybe necessary at the time, but if it kept happening, Leo would burn up and burn out, real quick.

The road wound around, the pines were invisible but I could smell them, heavy with the coming rain. I went on down the Waycross highway towards Enigma, chewing on my sandwich and thinking. It started to rain, and sure enough, there came the big trucks, trying to wipe me off the road or wash me away with the spray from their big mean tires. Several times the windshield wipers just shuddered and stopped, overwhelmed by the backwash from those damn trucks. One time, there was a car right ahead of me that hit a small furry animal and left it in my headlights, flopping and hopping, and I shut my eyes as I hit it again. Couldn't help it, I was on top of the little animal before I knew it. But the sound and the feel of that little body hitting my wheel made me sick at my stomach and I put the sandwich down and concentrated on the road.

I felt small and wet and weary when I finally pulled into the parking lot, an hour and a half later, around midnight. It took a minute for me to get my hands to quit shaking, after the rain and the roadkill, and the trucks. My ears were still humming with the sound of the truck tires whining in the rain, but it had let up, and only big fat drops fell from tree limbs as I walked into the hospital. The empty parking lot was shiny in the reflected light from the windows, and I stood at the door in my white coat for a minute, wondering what the hell I was trying to do. Little Nancy Nurseperson, Cherry Innocenza Ames, Student Nurse, Goes to the Rescue. I nearly turned around but that would have been even more stupid, so I took a deep breath and walked in.

I had worked some on nights in other hospitals, doing an externship to earn some money last summer, and I loved it. I loved the quiet, the feeling that we on the staff were the only people awake in the world, looking after things. I loved the way the sky began to lighten, and the smells of breakfast came up from the kitchen. I always volunteered to run the night shift errands because I loved prowling from the Lab to Pharmacy to X-ray, making the hospital mine with muffled steps from my quiet shoes. I wondered if this hospital would be different at night than any other hospital in any other town.

It wasn't, really. Things looked different than they did in the daytime, the Nurses' station was neater and dimmed, lights down. A lone nurse sat at the desk, doing paperwork, yawning and drinking coffee. The janitors were cleaning, floor wax smelled like floor wax anywhere. The Dayroom was empty except for one person, asleep at a desk.

I went up to him, dozing in his chair, Ascot rumpled and askew.

"Elam, why aren't you in bed?"

He opened his eyes, startled, and grabbed my arm for a minute before he recognized me.

"Ah, sunshine person, why do you wander in the midnight air?” He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Elam, go to bed." I stood there looking around, and Elam's face came close to mine.

"You wait for the Alchemist?" He crossed his eyes and did a little dance.

"I'm looking for Dr. Fried. Is he in the lounge?"

Elam put his finger against his nose and nodded, looking wise.

"He never sleeps, that one. His nightmares live and are too loud for sleep."

I helped Elam to his bed in the dorm, and went back to the lounge. Dr. Fried was at the table, his head down on the pile of charts. His hair was dark and thinning at the crown and his neck looked thin and scrawny. There was a pot of coffee and some mugs behind him on a table, and I poured myself a cup and wondered how to wake him.

I coughed, and squeaked a chair, moving it to sit down. He woke up with a start, and looked around a little wildly for a minute before he realized where he was. He looked at me, blankly.

"Do I know you?"

"No, I'm a student nurse from the college up in Mystic doing my clinicals this semester. We work here for two days every other week, and we're nearly done. I've learned a lot, a whole lot."

We sat looking at each other for a minute while I tried to find the words to tell him why I was there. I had practiced it on the way, but sitting in the lounge, sitting in a worn chair at the scratched vinyl table, looking at the windows with the heavy screens on them, on the inside, all my little words went away.

The doctor stared at me and then he got up and poured himself more coffee. He turned and sat down again, waiting. We looked at each other over the scarred tabletop and then I just blurted it out.

"It's Leo, you see. Leo White. He needs help."

"Of course he does, they do, we all do." He sat back and lit a cigarette. "Why Leo, out of all of them?"

"Because George is going to give him Jesse to take care of, and Leo needs to take care of Jesse, and if he keeps getting rowdy and not taking his medicine, they'll give him more and he won't be able to take care of Jesse. It's the medication, you know, they gave him the maximum dose." I felt like I wasn't making much sense, but he squinted at me and was silent for a minute.

"One grams of Thorazine, 40 mg. Prolixin, right? That walloped him, I know. He basically slept for two days. But it's not out of line, exactly, just about the max. He wrecked the nurses' station, nearly took out Dr. Coker." He grinned, thinking back.

"Yes, but someone has to make sure he takes his meds regularly, especially now."

"He can't leave, he can't go home." Dr. Fried knew about the Army and what Leo's problems had been. Leo had told me that, there was a doctor he liked on nights who knew all about him.

"Blind George says it would steady him to look after Jesse, and Blind George knows everything."

Dr. Fried looked at me quietly. I'm sure he was wondering what Alice in Wonderland was doing sitting in the lounge at midnight interrupting his naps and telling him to go change the world.

"What is it you want me to do?" Cautious man.

"Keep an eye on Leo to let him talk about his anger, not in group, that doesn't work for him. He clams up and goes inside himself."

The doctor nodded, as if he had seen it.

"Give him a boost once in a while, some approval. I know it sounds silly, but he feels helpless and that makes him angrier."

The doctor looked away from me, out the meshed-in window. He said softly, to himself, "It does, that." He signed and looked back at me with a twinkle in his eyes. "So you drove for a hour and half to tell me that? All the way from Mystic?"

I nodded, feeling silly. “I thought coming here would help, I figured you...I thought you would know what to do.” I looked around the dusty room and anger started somewhere deep inside. “I figured you would at least try. At least give a damn. Somebody told me that you gave a damn, but why don’t you just stay here and hide from everyone forever. Then you won’t have to give a damn or help anybody out..." the tears pricked in my eyes and I felt the anger and the helplessness well up inside. Wasn’t anybody in this damn hospital going to help? I stood up and said through my teeth, “You’re just like all of them. Go ahead, hide. Coker won’t help, he won’t even listen. The nurses can’t do anything, my instructor hates everybody, just sit here and hide, don’t look to help anybody, just hide in the shadows and watch, don’t do anything.....” I felt myself losing it, more and more. I took a deep breath and told myself to stop. I threw my blank legal pad and my sharp pencils in the satchel. I was making a total fool of myself and not helping anybody and I needed to get out of here, away from him and all of it. I turned to go, when I heard him say,

"Are you the one Elam calls Portia, the merciful?"

I turned around and made the lump in my throat go down. It took me a minute to answer him, I was shaking but I wasn’t going to let him know it.

"Yes, that's me. Got any windmills you'd like tilted at? Dona Quixote, that's what the name should be, not Portia. She got things done. I just wander around and make things worse, talking to hermits who refuse to help."

I glared at him and turned around again to go and he was behind me, touching my arm.

"Come back here and sit down. You need some coffee for the trip back. And I need to know what Elam means, about Portia."

He poured me a cup of coffee while I stood there, debating. Was he just another guy who was going to tell me to keep my place, or play games with words? Or was he going to help, or at least listen? I had to take the chance that he was.

"Who knows what Elam means? You have to have a Ph.D. in Nonsense to figure him out, but he does nail it sometimes."

“You mean you actually listen to them? How original.” His eyes smiled at me but his mouth looked grim.

I drank the coffee and looked at Dr. Fried's face. He had brown eyes, a sallow complexion; he had that night working look that some people get, pasty. His hair was graying, sparse on top. He was thin, a little bent over. He couldn't have been too old, probably not much older than Lucas, around forty-two. He had left some young years in the jungles of Vietnam about twelve years ago. Had he left more than time, more than years? Whatever it was he had left, he wouldn't get it back fast, and it would take work. He didn't look like he wanted to spend any time working on that, it hurt too much.

"Why did you come back at night without your class? Isn't that against some rules? That school seems to have a lot of rules."

"What's against the rules to go to the hospital to talk to a doctor? I'm not taking care of patients, you have to have your instructor with you to do that, at least for another two months."

"Then what?"

"Then we're Registered Nurses, if we pass the boards, and then we can start really learning how to do it. Then we can do it for real, our own way."

"That appeals to you, does it?" Alice in Wonderland peering down the Rabbit hole, anxious to get sliding.

"Damn right. It'll be scary, but I'll still read my books and read charts and listen to the docs, some of them...."

He grinned. "Don't listen to all of them, right. Just some. I learned a lot of medicine from listening to my friends, we got together and played Syndrome games, guessing games, and pick each other's brains and try to trip each other up." He looked down at his coffee cup. "That was a long time ago."

For once I sat still and kept my mouth shut. The books would have called it "therapeutic silence."

The night nurse came into the lounge with some charts for him to sign, and I had another cup of coffee.

"So, you want me to help with Leo, right? How do you expect me to do that, Miss Portia?" He was smiling, now.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Something. Don't let Leo get too far away, don't let him get lost. More lost."

Dr. Fried nodded. He took my legal pad and wrote in big letters. "TOMORROW: SAVE LEO AND THE WORLD WHILE YOU'RE AT IT."

We laughed and I stood up and shook his hand.

"Not too big an order for an almost Real Nurse and a broken down vet, right?" he laughed.

"Nope. We'll do it. We have to. We haven't got a choice." I knew that, suddenly.

We stood there looking at each other for a minute, and then he nodded.

"I'll think. You think. Maybe Leo will think." He took a deep breath and looked at his watch.

"How long does it take to get from Enigma to Mystic?"

I laughed. "I'm from Chicago, and that still sounds awfully funny. Like Peter Pan, ‘turn right at Mars and go straight on until twilight’ or something. I'll be back in time for breakfast or trouble, like Lucas says."

Dr. Fried stiffened at the sound of Lucas' name.

"He was there, too, wasn't he, in the war? They tell me that he's good with the patients, sees a lot. Doesn't say much. I read his notes in the charts. He’s getting better, writing better, thinking better. The best ones are like that." He was quiet for a minute, looking out the window at the darkness. "But only the best ones." He looked at me defiantly. "Your instructor was nasty with him, once, to punish both of us for being vets. All it did was let us know we weren't alone. Your instructor needs a lesson or two in a great many things."

“Someone told me he had a long story that wasn’t very pretty. Do you know about it? About the child in California and the wife who died, supposedly?”

Fried looked through me into middle distance. “It’s common knowledge, but Wallace keeps a lid on it, ashamed of it. Shove the people away behind a heavy door, and lean on the door real hard, so it doesn’t pop open. Can’t have skeletons come spoil the party.” Dr. Fried’s eyes were no longer kind, as he added, “Wouldn’t do to talk much about that, leave him to his own demons.”

I nodded. It fit, all of it fit. The mean little digs at the “crazies”, the compulsive behavior with the van, the preening over the Italian shoes and the good seats at the University of Georgia football games. I certainly would leave it alone, all alone. It would be my pleasure to let Mr. Lester Wallace stew alone in his own mess. Dr. Fried picked up the charts and waved to me as he went to the nurses' station.

I walked back out the front door, and looked at my watch. Two thirty in the morning. The storm had begun again, and I ran to my car through fine misty sheets of rain, smelling the pine trees and the flowers. Once in the car, I sat there for a minute, collecting myself. I hadn't eaten for many hours, I hadn't slept all night, and I was full of strong black coffee. Who knew what kind of hassle I would get when I got back to the dorm, and I felt great. Maybe it was the coffee, all that caffeine and philosophy in the middle of the night, but I felt great. I felt like I had accomplished something. I felt like a nurse, damnit. A Real Nurse. Maybe I should go back there and get Leo's chart and write "Nursing Intervention" or something on it to show that I had been there. And watch Wallace have a stroke.

Back on the highway in the rain, more trucks were roaring, but no more little furry bodies. The rain murmured in the tossing trees. Back on the road home, back to lights and a warm bed, for a while. And when I pulled into the parking lot, I realized it was back to Nellie, too. She was in her pink quilted housecoat in the dark living room, pretending to study. Her hair was in little spiky curlers with a chiffon scarf wrapped around them. What she was doing was waiting for me, obviously. It must have been her light on that I saw when I left the campus.

"What are you DOING coming back at this hour?" She hissed at me.

"Didn't know somebody made you our little housemother, dear. Go back to bed, now all your little chickadees are safe in the nest." I left her standing there, her face all shiny from cold cream and her eyes full of emptiness.

I lay on the bed with my clothes on and laughed. The look on Nellie's face was wonderful. Angry, puzzled, jealous, curious, all twisted around in an indignant mess. Who cares? No rules were broken; bent, maybe, but not broken. I sighed, though, thinking about the row Wallace would stir up. Just another rock in the road to Real Nursing. Why Nellie? Practicing for being a Head Nurse, practicing for the tattle tale badge? I would have done it again, of course, even knowing she was waiting for me to come back. Only if I'd known I would have stayed out later and had a good breakfast, and kept her up longer.

The next day was Sunday, and I slept until noon and kept to myself. The debate in my head at that point was whether or not to put my conversation with Dr. Fried in the journal we kept for Mr. Wallace. This debate kept me talking to myself, back and forth.

"Do it, it would show him how independent you are." Evil Yankee side of me talking.

"Are you nuts? He knows you're independent, don't prove to him that you're crazy. Just use the other journal, for yourself, and give him that other one for his big important grade, and let it be." Reasonable cold eyed Sicilian side of me talking.

"How will he know how you helped Leo if you don't tell him?" Boastful Yankee!

"He doesn't need to know that, he's too focused on himself to think about it. He'll just think you were meddling, or worse. And it might hurt Leo in the long run." Right on, piasana.

So it went, all evening. Finally I made a decision, got my other notebook out and dusted it off and spent the entire evening writing about what happened at the hospital. None of it went into the Class Journal. Real Nurses don't need to check with the instructor every ten minutes, right? And besides, I needed that real journal to carry me past boards and into the hospital when I would be on my own. What I really wanted to do was tell Wallace to his face what I did, quietly and like a professional, and see what happened.

Monday morning lecture came, and we all assembled early as usual, most of us not quite awake, rustling books and papers, scrabbling for pens. Lucas gave me a wink and Nellie looked triumphant, so I knew the story of my weekend absence had been discussed. I could just hear it:

"She was out ALL night, came home at DAWN." Nellie would nod, cheeks and chins quivering with the news.

"All night? Good for her." Lucas would grind his cigarette out and grin.

"Where? With who? Does she have a boyfriend?"

The voices would whisper and soon the fog of scandal would reach the higher planes of the instructors, and I would be called in, probably. Mr. Wallace stood at the head of the class, tapping his pencil on the podium like a conductor to get us to quiet down. He looked down at me with a frown.

"Miss De Sando, I need to see you after class in my office."

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

There was a stirring in the class. Nellie could probably smell the wood burning at the foot of the stake she had tied me on.

He lectured today on Manic-Depression, and I could see Leo, foot jumping when he sat on the couch near Elam. I could see him walking fast down the hall, never stopping, moving even when he stood still, needing to be alone away from the stress and stimulation of people.

"You students need to observe these people, and make every encounter a worthwhile learning experience."

After class I gathered my things and headed down the hall. I kept telling myself that this whole mess was a big bore and I was over 21 and the dorm didn't have "lights out" or hours students had to be inside any more, anyway. I could have been studying at the library or visiting my grandmother in Florida. I kept telling myself that but my stomach still knotted up like it used to when Grandma gave me a look and I felt like a ten year old.

"Sit down, Miss De Sando." He made my name sound foreign and out of place, he always did when he said it like that. I sat, straight, in the uncomfortable chair he kept in front of his desk.

"What's this I hear about your being gone all night Saturday? Found a beau, eh?" Wallace leered at me; his forehead was shiny and his eyes glittered.

So that's what he thought. How easy, to simper and smile and murmur something about "boys will be boys" and escape, letting everyone think I had a "beau". What was this, 1922?

I sat up straighter. "No, sir. I don't have a 'beau’." I sat there, looking at him unblinking, thinking he was no shakes compared to Grandma. She was a cobra; he was a bullfrog.

"And? Are you going to tell me where you were all night? Spending the night outside the dorm deserves an explanation."

"Why?"

He blustered, and fiddled with things on his desk.

"You are going to be a person of responsibility, a person with duties, a role model for all young women in your profession.....:"

I mentally got a shovel and dug myself out of this pile of manure.

"Yes sir, I will be a role model for other student nurses, and that's why I went back to Enigma to the hospital. I needed to speak to Dr. Fried and find out more about my patient's problem."

I sat there watching him try to climb out of the trap he had fallen into. Grandma would have been proud of me. He took a sip of coffee and nearly choked.

"Back to ENIGMA?"

"Yes, sir. I needed to discuss Leo White's case with the doctor who is on duty at night, because his notes are on the chart and we can't meet with him during the day. He had some real insights into Leo's problem, and it was a very worthwhile learning experience." I nearly threw up using Wallace's own words but it seemed appropriate. I leaned forward in the chair, trying to look earnest.

"It's not against the rules to discuss a case with a doctor, is it? I didn't do any interventions with patients, naturally. You weren't there and I wasn't supervised." I didn't think putting Elam back to bed counted as a nursing intervention.

He shook his head and then he nodded. Since this had probably never happened in the entire history of the school, he couldn't react. Mr. Wallace liked precedent. That's why I needed a "beau" and a steamy sexual encounter. That Mr. Wallace could have understood. But this?

"Unconventional, distinctly unconventional. I need to talk to Miss Japp about this." Miss Japp was the Chair of the Nursing School, and a more together individual you couldn't find. I sighed inside with relief. Wallace was not taking responsibility for me, he couldn't. I was a form of life from outer space, an extraterrestrial in his class that he couldn't and wouldn't try to deal with. I sat there watching him make notes, thinking about the stories students were telling of some poor mad wife, and a child that Wallace never saw.

He stood up, and tried to look tall. I stood up and looked him evenly in the eye. He sat down, and motioned for me to leave. He waved his hand, playing the weary veteran, exhausted with dealing with student trivialities, and I left. It had been a very interesting learning experience.

Lucas was studying a report on the bulletin board when I walked out of Wallace's office, and he walked beside me as we went out into the cool cloudy spring day.

"You weren't with a boyfriend, were you."

It was more statement than question. Lucas looked straight ahead, and didn't smile.

"No, I wasn't. I put that white coat on and went back to the hospital and found Dr. Fried and we had a long talk about how to help Leo. Nellie was up waiting for me when I got back, hissing like a jealous snake."

Lucas laughed. "She told it all over the school in the cafeteria early this morning. She had you for breakfast, Missy. You're a Jezebel, a hussy, a slut." He chuckled. "Nobody believes her, they know you pretty well, but it was funny, sex and jealousy over grits and eggs."

"I'm not going to explain, they can just wonder where I was. I'm glad you know Dr. Fried, Lucas. Maybe you and I can go talk to him together some night."

Lucas took a drag on his cigarette.

"If we go I'll have to bring my wife. Nellie would have ten torments if you and I went visiting Enigma alone all night." He smiled, and patted me on the back. "You'll do fine, missy. Real fine. You'll be a supervisor someday." He gave me another grin and we walked to the library in comfortable silence. I hoped he was right.

Miss Japp's door was open as usual when I walked in. It was after lunch on Monday and Mr. Wallace hadn't wasted a minute telling her about my trip to Enigma. She had left a message in the mailbox for me to come and "visit" when I could. She had been a Dean in another school up north, before she came down here a retired southern lady with Yankee friends.

"I hear you did some extra curricular investigating the other night." She leaned back in her chair, wiry gray hair sticking out of the nurse's cap she wore, lab coat on the back of the chair. She chain smoked and the air was full. She motioned for me to sit down.

"Yes, Dean." I sat in the old easy chair she kept in front of her desk, and continued. "I needed to talk to Dr. Fried, he's on night duty and...."

"Yes, I understand. I've heard of this guy. Now tell me what he said.”

She leaned forward and listened while I told her about our meeting, and at the end, leaned back and lit another cigarette. She blew smoke rings at the ceiling, perfect fat rings that Duveen would have envied.

"Good. Sounds like he can do something. You lit a fire under him, Jennie. Good for you. He needs to help Leo just like Leo needs to help Jesse." She stood up, a grin creasing her face, and her wise eyes twinkled.

"Next time, let me know. I may go with you."

"Yes ma'am. You'd like Dr. Fried. He's wounded, but he's OK."

She nodded. I walked out, grinning. That had also been a very interesting learning experience.

Entry in the Nursing Journal

26 April

Only four more clinical days, and so much to do. I talked to Leo and Elam today, Leo is very upset about the administration taking Blind George's piano away after the parade around the grounds. I wish they hadn't done that, (1)what harm was done? Leo insists that "they" are taking away "the songs." Elam said "let us sing sad songs about the death of kings" and no one laughed.

(2) Checked the medications again for both Elam and Leo, and they are still on the medium dosage of Thorazine, 800 Mg.

(3)and Prolixin, 10 Mg. each every other day. It seems to settle them down, but it also makes Elam awfully sleepy on the first day he takes it. Maybe it's too much?

(4) I wonder if anyone draws any blood levels on these drugs on a regular basis? Leo doesn't seem any different with the drugs,

(5) but he moves around so much he probably metabolizes differently. He's always walking, walking, doing his "errands" all around the hospital. He was helping another resident in the plaster room, helping him make some plaster eagles and a deer. This guy had been a hunter, and loved birds.

It's getting dark here in the van,

(6) we're riding back home and I like to get my journalizing done right after clinicals are over, it's fresher in my mind. It'll be good to get home, but I still will think about Leo and Elam and even poor Auntie Bea.

(7) I hope she's at peace now.

Wallace’s Comments:

(1) Why are you always questioning administrative decisions?

(2) Please use full sentences, add "I" here where I have marked an "X"

(3) Always write this as "mg" a capital "M" is not acceptable in a medical chart

(4) Again, I wonder why you always question doctor's orders and protocol. This will result in much trouble for you later on in your career if you persist.

(5) Perhaps, but how do you know?

(6) You can't stay on the lines of the paper writing in the dark. Please wait until you have more light.

(7) Please use the last names of patients. You tend to get too familiar with them, and this is not therapeutic.

(8) We are not here to advance our own theories of the hereafter. "Your grade for the journal is a B minus. Please see my comments throughout."

Jennie's note:

"Nellie got a "A" and Lucas got a "C". Wallace said he didn't write enough. Lucas said he did enough, why write it down? And Nellie probably stayed on the lines and didn't question administrative orders or call her patients by their first names.)

Cara Jennie,

You bother me when you talk about driving so far just to see a doctor to talk about a crazy person. Don’t they have rules about staying in the dormitory at night? I thought this school looked after you. That bothered me a lot. But what bothered me more was the way you talk about “thinking like a Sicilian.”

You must remember that we are not Sicilians, never have been and would not tolerate those people in our family. We came from Calabria, from a town near Reggio called Catanzaro, and there were never any terrible Sicilians there. Here, in this country, excuse me, but they’re everywhere. When we moved from Chicago to Florida, there was one right across the street. Luckily he was old and he died. Now it’s the style to want to cook like them, make movies about them, write books about them. They’re nothing but trashy people, gangsters and thieves. Don’t ever tell anyone you’re Sicilian, that will mark you and you’ll never get a husband. Don’t even cook like them; Rosa makes potatoes and peppers with sausage but she always says, “it’s Siciliano style, but it’s pretty good” to let people know that she recognizes the difference between good Calabrese food and that Sicilian garbage.

I get a headache even thinking about them, so I’ll go lie down.

Your loving aunt,