Tony Giordano and his father Sammy have had a strained relationship ever since Tony's childhood, and it has grown worse over the years. The only time Tony ever recalls his father seeming happy was when he was strumming his beloved cittern, an instrument whose origins are unknown to the family. Sammy was born in Naples, Italy, where he once dreamed of owning a barbershop. But when he is convinced to give up his long-held dream and move to America to marry a woman he does not love, resentment and bitterness begin overtake his life-emotions that are soon transferred to his family in the form of abuse that lasts a lifetime. When Sammy becomes ill, he is placed in a nursing home where he soon transforms from a bullying ogre to a pathetic old man. As Tony and his sister witness years of pent-up frustration and stubbornness rise to the surface and contribute to Sammy's failing health, they have no idea that their father has been hiding a secret from them. Protecting the Cittern explores eighty years of family history leading to a discovery from the past that will change how everyone in the Giordano family views the future.
PROTECTING the Cittern
By JOHN CAMMALLERIiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 John Cammalleri
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-4220-2Chapter One
December 2003
GLANCING UP AT the sky, I wiped the dirt from my hands and then stepped back to stand with the rest of my family as we waited for the funeral service to end. The forecast had called for snow, and it felt like it would start any minute. The clouds looked heavy, and I folded my arms to ward off the chill.
Throwing a handful of soil on top of the casket seemed like a meaningless gesture, just like anything else based on superstition. The act meant nothing to me, nor did the rest of the proceedings-I was simply going through the motions. As I glanced at my watch every few minutes, my mind wandered from one random thought to the next: the work that was waiting on my desk; how the Giants would do on Sunday; if I'd be able to fix my slice when golf season started up. Everything was more important than what was happening in front of me.
I remained completely detached as the service ended and we all walked away from the gravesite. Despite everything that had happened between us over the years, I thought I should feel a deeper sense of loss; but I didn't, and I couldn't force myself to feel any differently. I wondered how many other sons were completely apathetic after putting their fathers in the ground.
If anyone noticed how unmoved I was, they may have believed I was being strong for the family-behaving like a man. It didn't matter to me what they thought. I glanced back at the grave where my father now lay. It was in a relatively new section of Holy Cross Cemetery, with only a few other graves nearby. Perfect for my father, I thought. Fewer people to annoy him.
I climbed into the limousine with my wife, our daughter, and my newly widowed mother. Kathy and I had been through a lot since we met nearly thirty years earlier, and I was always amazed that she married me after getting to know my father. Perhaps she didn't see much of him in me. At fifty, Kathy was still as radiant as the day we'd met. Her soft brown hair and blue eyes stirred me as much as ever. We'd faced many challenges and difficulties over the years, but our marriage had gotten stronger as we worked through them.
Twenty-three years old and a graduate student at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, Lisa was one semester away from earning her master's degree in public affairs. She was as smart as she was beautiful, with, thankfully, most of Kathy's features rather than mine.
My mother, Clara, short, thin, and slightly stooped over, showed every one of her eighty-one years in her silver hair and wizened face.
The driver started the engine, preparing to take us back to DeAngelo's Funeral Home. From there we transferred to our four-year-old Ford Taurus and drove to Ernesto's Restaurant, where lunch would be served. My mother didn't want people coming to the house, bringing endless casseroles that would eventually be thrown out, so she and I agreed to host something simple. I wasn't expecting too many people to join us; attendance at the church service was low, and fewer people were at the cemetery. The people who showed up came to support my mother rather than to mourn for my father, although in actuality she was holding up very well.
* * *
A week earlier I was alone with my father in his room at Tranquil Meadows, the long-term care facility where he spent his last few months, when he finally passed on. Kathy and I had just left him after a brief visit; when we got home, she realized she had forgotten her purse in his room. I returned alone to get it and ended up watching him die. I then brought my mother to the nursing home to see him and make the necessary arrangements.
My mother looked at my father for a few minutes, lying lifeless in his bed. She cried very briefly and then just stared at him, sighing. I suppose there was a touch of genuine sadness-they'd been married for over fifty years-but I'm sure she mostly felt relief that a load had finally been lifted from her shoulders. She had endured many years of verbal, mental, and physical abuse at his hands, and watching his steady decline since he was first hospitalized thoroughly wore her out.
Standing at the foot of his bed, she spoke to his corpse, as if he could really hear her. "I hope you find happiness now, Sammy. Nothing ever made you happy. Now you'll be with Anna in heaven." My sister died much too young many years before after a battle with leukemia, and my mother was grieving more for her after twenty-five years than for my father after less than an hour.
Under different circumstances, I would have challenged her belief in heaven and other fantasies, but I held back my comments. I don't believe in an afterlife, although if there were one, I always felt he would be going in the other direction; and if people were able to reunite in death, Anna would have chosen to avoid him altogether. She had as many issues with him as I did. Regardless of what really happens after death, I knew we were all going to be happier without him.
* * *
We pulled into the parking lot at Ernesto's, a typical family-style Italian restaurant with two rooms in the back for private affairs. The cold wind of the gray, mid-December day gusted up, and light snow fell as I helped my mother out of the front seat; Kathy and Lisa emerged from the back. I took my wife's hand and Lisa took her grandmother by the arm as we approached the entrance. We made our way to one of the rooms in the back, passing the collection of faux-marble statues that lined the hallway. A few people were already waiting inside, and the rest would arrive shortly. Aunt Luisa saw us entering and immediately walked over to greet us, leaving a friend of the family in mid-sentence, her mouth agape.
Aunt Luisa was the widow of my father's oldest brother, Paulie. At eighty-six, she was as energetic, bombastic, and overdramatic as ever. She put her arms around my mother and squeezed. "Oh, Clara, you're going to be okay," she said, kissing the air on both sides of her cheeks. "It took me a while after I lost Paulie, but you learn to adjust."
Paulie and my father were cut from the same mold. They were very pleasant when they had to be, mostly to people outside their immediate families, either because it made them look good or it suited them for business purposes. But to their wives, children, or people they didn't have any use for, they were demanding, abusive, and impossible to please. The middle brother, Frank, was the same. From what I could piece together from some vague family stories, they had either inherited or learned this behavior from their father, my grandfather Enzo.
Aunt Luisa was left pretty well off when she sold Uncle Paulie's Italian provisions business soon after he died, and her life was never better. For my father's funeral, she dressed as if she were going to opening night at the Metropolitan Opera. She wore a stylish black beaded dress, beautifully contrasted by a large string of pearls around her neck. A three-carat diamond ring graced the finger where her wedding band had been, and a tennis bracelet on her right wrist begged to be noticed. Her rouge and lipstick were red and thick, and her hair was done up and sprayed until it was as stiff as a medieval helmet. But then, Aunt Luisa had always been conscious of her appearance, even before Uncle Paulie died.
My aunt stood in stark contrast to my mother, who dressed as simply as possible. Mom never...
