Four Times Blessed (2 page)

At this point, the onions are a glassy, mushy ooze about one thumb deep in the bottom of the pot. And we still haven’t added the magic.

Sweet Lord.

“Zizi, when do you add the broth?” I say in a voice that at any other time with any other people I’m sure would have them rolling their eyes.

“You add in the broth now, my sweet girl. Here, you watch me and then I let you pour in the next one.”

She takes a jar and sloshes the cloudy broth with a cglug-cglug-cglug into her big pot. It hits and right away there’s steam and hissing. It covers my face and, great grandmothers, if it doesn’t smell absolutely wonderful.

“Here, you smell this first. This is the magic. I make it myself, you see me when I do. I bet you could even make it.” She stuffs the rim of the jar under my nose and then Milo’s while she stirring up the onions ever so gently. Someone makes a face when it’s his turn to smell the magic.

I, meanwhile, am focusing intently on the onions. Now swimming in little wisps in the cloudy stew. I cough a little. Straight out of the jar, magic is very…clammy.

“So, there it is. Now you just have to let it all come together. That’s the other secret. You let it come to bubbling, and then you can toss in the potatoes and carrots.”

I’m sitting on the counter, conducting the solution to the problem set I’ve been listening to into my slate, when my zizi’s dripping ladle swings under my nose. I pull out my earphones and set the chalk down flat to pause. Somewhat shyly, I meet my zizi’s waiting eyes.

“Thank you. You put the celery in with the onions, correct, dear?”

“Yes, Zizi,” I say, scooting away from the stove as my brother plops a handful of potato chunks into the now-gurgling chowder, not even pretending to hide his glee.

“Would you stop that?” I say.

“Stop what?”

“Trying to scald me with clam juice.”

“You don’t like how I’m putting them in, next time you can chop them all up and do it yourself.”

“I will. And you can shuck all the clams.”

He makes a face. I make one back.

“Kids. Crusa, add the carrots, Camillo, why are not all the potat’s cut up?! These are too big. I ask my boy to do it because it is such hard work, but I should never ask a boy for this.”

“What?”

“Milo. Who wants to eat a whole potat’ in one bite, huh? That’s not nice to eat. You want to do that? Nobody wants to do that. What are you thinking?”

“I like it chunky,” I offer.

“Crusa. Babies and old people will eat this. Do you think they can swallow an entire potat’ whole?”

“No.”

“Ok then.”

“Give me the knife, Zizi. I’ll finish them.”

“No, I don’t want you to do it. It’s your brother’s to do. You did enough. Let Camillo fix it.”

“Really, Zizi, it’s fine, I don’t mind-”

“Crusa. No.”

I bite the side of my tongue. “Milo needs to go bring the peels to the barn and throw out the clam shells for me. I don’t want to, they’re heavy. And kind of gross.”

My aunt sighs, “Fine. Do you hear your sister? She is very generous to you. You are lucky to have a twin sister. A normal sister would not be so good to you. Now go, my boy. You clean up the shells and the peels and give your zizi a kiss and then you are done.”

“Alright,” Milo grumbles, picking up the sack with the shells. With his free hand, he swings the other sack, full of potato peels, over his shoulder, and, being out of hands, kicks open the back door and clanks out into the yard.

Shaking her head, my zizi says, “Now, let that cook until the carrots and potat’s get soft, not like you did with the onions, though. They don’t work like onions. Onions are weird that they work like that. Later, remind me. Then we throw in the clams, right at the end or they get tough, with maybe some more herbs or salt or pepper, I don’t know, you have to taste it once it all comes together. And then you’re done.”

She gives me a big smile, spreading out her arms with a potato in one hand and the meat cleaver in the other. I burst out laughing, and her eyes crinkle. This is why I love being in her kitchen. Why I’m glad to be the one of us that lasts the longest here. I think it’s my favorite place, actually.

You just have to watch your mouth.

And your fingers. And your toes. All body parts, really.

And my poor brother, it’s just too much for him.

              “Crusa, honey, close up the shutters in your room before you go to sleep. There’s a big storm brewing. I can feel it in my bones. Do you feel it? Well, you will when you’re as old as me, but I bet you don’t feel it now, my beautiful girl. You’ve grown so lovely lately.”

             
She reaches out for my fingers and kisses them.

“I never liked that school of yours, making you kids wear those ugly outfits. They make you cut your hair like a boy and wear boy clothes, and then of course they can’t tell any of you children apart. Then they make me sew nametags on all those terrible outfits so they know which ones are yours. But really it doesn’t matter, does it? Because all the clothes are the same!

“I don’t know why they did that. Are they crazy? Why do they want everyone to look ugly. But I like that they fixed you all up so nicely before sending you on. Not that they had to do much to you, pretty girl. Just growing your hair out made such a big difference. I can’t even see that mole on your scalp anymore. Come. Give me a kiss.”

             
I go to her and put my lips on her forehead and she smiles.

             
“Good night, baby. Sweet dreams.”

             
“Good night, Zizi. Love you.”

             
“I love you too, honey.”

             
Halfway up the stairs she yells to me, “Crusa. Don’t forget about the shutters.”

             
I mumble and wave at her.

              Sometime in the middle of the night, I realize I forgot about the shutters as one swings around and swats the side of the house, and wakes me. I jump out of bed and get my nightgown all soaked by hanging half out the window, trying to drag the stupid things closed. 

There. We’re all good. Nothing to worry about.

I see no reason to tell my zizi about this, but I’m afraid she’ll find out. She always does. I bet she heard the shutter when it slammed. I listen through the wall to see if I can hear her snoring.

             
Kind of hard to tell what with the storm and all. I shrug, throw a different nightgown on, and settle back.

             
There’s no moon tonight. The wind wheezes in and out of my room through the cracks, sucking air like an old deckhand. With each breath, the door smacks its bolts against the hollows of its own locks. I groan. I can’t sleep with all this noise.

             
I look over at my cousin Eleni in the bed next to mine. It’s from when I used to share this room with Camillo, before he moved into the old vestibule downstairs. He loves it down there. It’s dark and smells like old sweat, because before him it’s where my uncles stored their old fishing gear. Back then, we didn’t go in if we could help it, and since it still smells the same, me and most people have kept up that practice, no offense to my brother.

Still contemplating the form of my cousin, lost to her dreams, I frown. I’m bored.

And I have a wicked desire for her to be woken by the storm.

             
I throw a pillow behind my back, careful not to add a misplaced note to the night, and slump against it. Then there’s a flash and a crash right on top of each other.

I start counting down the number of Mississippi’s in between the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls. I allow each passing moment of time in seconds (t sec) = (n + (1)Mississippi) = 1 mile that the actual crash of hot and cold is from my position=(0,0,0), where n= consecutive positive integers. Assume 1 mile=1.609 km.

I should probably be using calculus for this, but I left my slate at the lab today.

There’s another rumble and I tense. I also forget to count. Oh, forefathers, I missed it. Now I’ll have to wait for the next one.

              The lightning flashes again. Good. Eleni jerks under the covers and pops her head up, dark hair strewn all over her face.

             
“It’s ok, Eleni, it’s just lightning.”

             
The thunder comes again, and she plops her face into her pillow and groans. We listen to the rain and wind until the next flash tackles the next crash. They wrestle each other outside our window, then fall out of sight.

             
“Why does this always happen to me on the one night of the week I don’t have to get up before the butt crack of dawn to carry a bunch of dead fish up a mountain?”

             
“It’s just the island, Leni, not a mountain. If it weren’t so steep we’d be underwater tonight. Plus, the fish aren’t always dead. The clams you brought home to Zizi yesterday were almost all still alive. I know, I cleaned them and stuck them in the pot.”

             
“Shellfish don’t count as fish.”

             
“Neither do whales, and you just called them ‘monster fish’ at supper.”

             
“That’s because that’s what they are. Really big fish. They have tails and flippers, they swim in the ocean, and you can eat them.”

She contorts her arm so she can hold up her hand and count off these reasons on her fingers. All while keeping her face in the pillow.

              “They don’t have gills,” I say.

             
“So? Neither does a clam. And according to you, you can count that as a fish.”

             
I think about that.

             
“I think our problem is that we’re thinking of fish the animal and fish the food as different, but we’re using the same word. Also, I would say a clam is a mollusk. Molluska bivalvia something.”

             
“Huh? Don’t try to be smart with me. It’s three o’clock in the morning!”

             
“Sorry. Hey, Leni. What about a jellyfish. Would you count that as a fish? It doesn’t really have fins, but it does swim and you can eat it.”

             
“A jellyfish?” She lifts her head up and turns it to me. “It’s a half-fish.”

             
“Half fish and half what?”