Love Me From the Kitchen

Walking up the white, paved parking pad at 5026 Exeter Road, my left hand rests in my mother’s right, and the tips of a few tall pine trees touch a sky the color of murky water. We are losing daylight. I look up at Mom, and she looks down at her boots, or maybe the ground between them. Beneath me, two small feet are buckled into a pair of black, burnished “dressy shoes,” the same kind I wear whether I am dressed up or not. These are new, a full size up, and their stiffness makes them foreign. Through thick, bleached socks I can feel blisters forming on my tender pinky toes. By the end of second grade the shoes will be familiar, but today my feet are sore.

We never enter through the front door, which is always colored with a wreath to fit the season. Today it is a wide circle of leaves and twigs, perforated by a random scattering of red berries and pinecones. The dark-railed porch features a collection of pink and red petunias. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve walked in that way, and all five times I was trick-or-treating.

As we near the side door of my mother’s childhood home—a place where I, too, will grow up, but in a different way—I tread through a small pool of shiny spigot water. A few thin rivers cross the width of the drive, and I trace them back to their source: twelve inches of faded, green hose connected to a waxy, red faucet handle. Pops must have been watering the plants or rinsing his hands of motor oil. We round the corner toward the gray-trimmed glass door. Mom opens it and metal scrapes metal as the old hinges do the same work they’ve been doing for forty-five years. She lets the screen rest on her backside as she works on the thick, powder blue door just beyond it; eyes trained on the lock, jaws clenched, serious. She pushes the second door open and I sneak up one concrete step, past my grandmother’s white orthopedics into a small, sand-colored breezeway.

My toes heave a sigh of relief as I leave the dressy shoes behind, beside the plastic cabinet that hides bottles of red wine and 7-Up. I climb up one more step into the dining room and shuffle my white socks across the slippery linoleum floor. Mom follows. The house smells sweet and familiar, a mixture of fried oil and powdered sugar, fresh flowers and fake ones. Alex Trebec’s muffled voice cuts through the dimness, I’m sorry, Susan. The correct answer was, ‘What is Iceland?’

The kitchen is dim, but I can see the glow of living room lamps just through the doorway. There, Nunnie and Pops—“Zig and Zag” as my mom will sometimes call them—sit on opposite sides of the couch. They are quietly awaiting the clue for Final Jeopardy, though my grandfather can barely hear and my grandmother only ever made it through second grade back in Italy.

From the far side of the room, Nunnie’s sleepy eyes turn and recognize us.

“Hi, Ma,” Mom says.

She does not answer until she sees me emerge from behind the lamp that illuminates them.

“Hey,” Nun says, with the same expression she assumes for all photographs and visitors: parted lips baring teeth, some fake, and wrinkled cheeks trying to smile but not succeeding. She will only ever truly smile when she’s holding a baby, any baby. In those moments, she is melted, a tender caretaker and a soothing cradle. She holds them with dreamlike gentleness, the same way she held my mother and me when we were young. We have both, in times we will never remember, been calmed by her touch, pacified by some deep maternal genius. In unequal measure, we have both grown to know a different Aldesia Fioretti, this version with white hair and a worried stare.

“Annie!” Pops yells, louder than he has to. He’s lost his hearing from years of working in a paper mill and refusing to wear earplugs.

“Hi, Pops,” I say. But he can barely register my high-pitched hello, even with hearing aids. Eventually, I will learn to address him in lower tones, to speak from deep in my gut. He reaches out to me from his place on the couch, and I don’t have to bend over to embrace him. I extend my arms as far as they will go, and they barely reach halfway around his wide belly. He kisses my head with an exaggerated, “muah!” sound. As sad as Nunnie is, he is happy.

I turn around to look at Mom and she gives me a half-hearted smile.

“Bye, Boo,” she says, both of us back in the dimly lit dining room. She and Dad are going far away to talk to young, engaged couples about what to expect from marriage, leaving me with the two who will strain their marriage to the point of breaking. My brother Paul will spend the night at his best friend Brent’s house—I am only eight, still too young for real sleepovers.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “You get to sleep in the big comfy bed and eat french toast in the morning. We’ll be back tomorrow night.”

I feel my bottom lip quiver, and she opens her arms.

Her hug is warm, but her cheek is cold with sweat and September air as she presses it against mine and kisses the breeze beside my ear.

The heavy door closes behind her and I turn back toward the kitchen. I run a hand along the green countertop and stop at the rippled, glass cutting board next to the sink. It is always out and ready for use. A pile of white crumbs sits on top, evidence of my grandfather’s post-dinner snack. Ricotta cheese and jelly on a slice of “Bill’s” bread. Bill’s son, Jerry, runs the bakery now.

My stomach rumbles and I re-enter the living room to watch Final Jeopardy. Nunnie is wearing her green, floral nightgown and thick grey socks, her head resting on her hand at the end of the couch. On the TV, two women and one man each hunch over a wooden podium, the classic Jeopardy “doo doo doo doo” playing over their furious scribbling.

“You eat?” she says in her thick accent, one eye opening as she hears me enter. As poor as Pops’ ears are, hers are twice as keen.

“Yes,” I say.

“You want me make some?” she asks.

I have learned to fill in the words she leaves out, and to decode the words she has altered to her own liking. Chocolate becomes “chockle.” Broccoli becomes “brockle.” Now, she is really asking, “Do you want me to make you something?”

Complete refusal would be betrayal.

“No thanks, I’m full, but my belly kinda hurts,” I say.

“Mmm,” she sounds, with eyes and mouth closed. “You want me make a little milk?”

One eye opens as she says, “milk.” It sounds more like, “mill” with the “k” implied.

“Yes, please,” I say.

“Okay.”

She takes her head off of her hand, and uses two fists to slowly push herself up, though her joints and bones groan in protest. She stares at the ground, hunched with hands on thighs, and shuffles around Pops’ feet, between the couch and the coffee table. I follow as she moves to love me from the kitchen.

She’s memorized where the light switch is and doesn’t need to look up to flick it as she enters. The brightness makes the window over the sink like a mirror. The second-hand ticks of an old analog overhead mix with the sounds of our socks on linoleum. We do this during most of our sleepovers, though many times my stomach doesn’t hurt at all.

She turns the back gas burner on as she passes the stove and blue-orange flames curve up to touch the bottom of a small pot that was already waiting there. There is a series of ceramic jars, speckled with brown dots and orange flowers along the far wall, one filled with white flour, one with sugar, and another with dark coffee grounds. She opens the middle jar, fills a green scoop with sugar and carries it across to the stove. Somehow she moves swiftly; if she drops a grain, I don’t see it. She covers the bottom of the pot with sugar and, holding herself up by the handle of the oven door, begins to stir. I stand on tiptoes watching her work, hands clutching the edge of the countertop next to her.

Within seconds the sugar starts to clump together, stick to the bottom of the pot. Nunnie is scraping, swirling, breaking the clumps apart, completely familiar with the process. Soon the sugar is a clear liquid, an almost invisible base layer, and then it is browning at the edges, caramelizing. She turns off the burner as small bubbles form around the perimeter, careful not to burn the sugar. She takes a half-gallon of milk from the fridge, and unscrews the small blue lid as she walks back to the stove. A puff of steam rises with a soft “pfff” sound as the cold, white liquid solidifies the browned sugar and settles in pools around tiny caramel mountains.

She turns the heat back on and scrapes her teaspoon over the candied pot bottom. Her stirring gets smoother as the peaks and valleys level, and the warm milk turns a light shade of brown. Her hands are thick and cracked, almost purple from lack of circulation. They will be cold to the touch even though a warm haze surrounds them. When the ritual is over, she pours the steamy milk straight from the pot into my favorite cup, a thick, clear plastic one with measurements up the side. The red lid has a large round drinking hole with a cap of its own that pivots to open and close. So many moving pieces.

Nunnie hands me the full cup and I check the measurements along the side, 7oz. I flip the small red cap back and feel the warmth on my lips before I sip, careful not to burn myself. The milk is perfect, like it is perfect every time—sweet and creamy and soothing. I make an “mmm” sound to let her know that this is good. Sometimes my mom lets my brother, Paul, drink coffee, even though he’s only in fourth grade. I’m not allowed to yet, but I would rather drink this anyways.

Nunnie turns to the sink to clean the small pot, and though she is still serious and silent, I think she is content.

The Forty-Third Annual Erie Days kicks off with a record-breaking opening night. Local venders, musicians, and eateries claimed their posts in Perry Square…

The local news plays as we return to the couch, Pops asleep and snoring, Jeopardy long over—Who won? I wonder.

The light from the television reflects off of Nunnie’s glasses and shines through her thinning, white hair.

“What you want for breakfast tomorrow?” she asks.

I am in the middle of a long sip.

“Can we have french toast?” I say.

“Okay.”

Cloudy with a chance of rain, Warren expected to see a slight drizzle…

We sit on the couch together for a while, listening to the sad stories of the day and letting Pops dream.

Tonight a young Erie man who shot and killed his girlfriend, then turned the gun on himself…

“Ttt, ttt, ttt.” Nunnie shakes her head. “Crazy people.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Annie?” Pops says, having snored himself awake. “Would you do me a favor and pull these socks off?”

They are already half hanging off the edges of his toes; loose old sacks no longer forming to the contours of his swollen feet. I slip down to his end of the couch and pull them off one at a time. There are deep imprints left where the elastic at the top of the socks has strangled his mid calves.

“Thank you,” he says. And then, after a brief pause, “Ahh well.” He says that any time he is about to make a move, or at the end of a long conversation. With a great heave he pushes himself up off the couch. Once he’s standing he adjusts his belt—it’s leather and reads, “Born to Ride” in dark, pressed letters. I stand to hug him goodnight, and he kisses my cheek. With his socks in hand he hobbles on thick, tanned legs to the hallway that leads to his back bedroom door.

When I’ve finished the milk, I get up to put my cup in the kitchen and brush my teeth. Nunnie follows me and says, “I do, I do,” as she gestures through the doorway with her puffy, purple hands. I am capable of washing dishes, but being in this place makes me feel like I’m not. I leave her behind at the sink and walk back to my mother’s old bedroom.

The rest of Nunnie’s nightgowns hang behind the bedroom door and the hook keeps it from closing all the way. A tall mirror extends from the long white dresser, wallet-sized pictures of Paul and I stuck in the space where the mirror meets the frame. A photo album from my parents’ wedding stands up in the corner next to a box of tissues; beside the dresser, a small baby carriage that my mother used to push around when she was younger than I am.

I didn’t bring an overnight bag, because I already have all that I need here. In one of the dresser drawers, a few tee shirts are folded neatly next to a basket of old pill bottles filled with pennies, nickels, and quarters. I choose a large gray shirt one that reads “Jillian Abbott SIDS Stomp” in purple letters, and I pull it over my head. Instant PJs.

My toothbrush is always waiting in the porcelain holder attached to the wall above the sink in the bathroom. The overhead light is too bright, so I switch it off and turn on the vanity lights that glow on either side of the mirror. I look a little older now. As my mouth fills with tangy foam, I see Nunnie shuffle by the open door. She is mostly bent over, and her arms swing at her sides. She makes little grunting noises as she goes, as if it is hard to breathe. I’m crook! she sometimes says to describe her crooked frame.

When I am finished brushing my teeth, I join her in the back room. It is the color of cream, mostly filled by the queen-sized bed in the middle. Blue and pink throw pillows cover the off-white comforter. The yellowish, oak headboard doubles as a shelf, and a small replica of the Pieta sits in a center cubbyhole. Nunnie is busy tossing the small pillows aside and readying the bed for me. She strains across the width of the mattress with a grimace similar to her smile, but more out of pain than anything.

She is tired, and now I am tired. I walk around the side of the bed opposite her and pull down the rest of the comforter. The sheets underneath are pale yellow and clean. With the hem of my shirt hanging well over my knees, and socks pulled tight over my feet, I slide under the covers and spread out like a starfish. This bed is far bigger than my twin at home, so I stretch as much as I can, feel the cool sheets on my bare legs and rub my cheek along a shammed pillow. This is my favorite bed.

Nunnie pulls the covers over me—“Okay,” she sighs—and turns out the light. At first I can’t see anything, but it’s not long before the glow from a streetlamp leaks through the thin curtains and my eyes begin to adjust. I hear a faint “flick” from down the hall. A sliver of extra light brightens the room and is gone as Nunnie closes the bathroom door behind her. She’ll be brushing her real teeth and removing her false ones.

I turn to face the wall with the creamy curtains and listen to the fan whiz above my head. Cool air prickles my face and makes me pull the covers even closer. The distant light returns and is gone again. Nunnie re-enters and clicks the fan down a notch.

“Too high,” she whispers to herself. She pulls down the sheets on her side and sits slumped for a moment, her head in her hands. Usually she sleeps in my mom’s old room— I don’t know when she last slept in the big back room with Pops—but today she will sleep next to me. She shakes her head ever so slightly, and I wonder what she is so worried about. I hear all of her creaks as she lies down beside me.

“You comfort?” she asks through the dark, her voice close and somehow amplified by the pillows between us.

I’ve settled into the same position I always sleep in—on my side, knees bent and stacked on top of each other, arms clutching pillows close to my chest, everything tightly packed. My belly is full of warm milk, and I will wake to the smell of cinnamon French toast frying in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I say.

She lets out a series of deep exhales. For once, her breathing isn’t labored.

“That’s good.”

And I am comforted by her closeness. In the minutes before sleep, I listen to the whiz of the fan overhead, soothed by the familiar strangeness of this bed and the one that I share it with.