already tidy drawer. "Can't you dress like a civilized person?"
My grandmother would continue to buy nothing new, nothing American, nothing warm enough for winter, even though wearing more
than one dress and all those sweaters and that shawl around her shoulders when she went to Mass or did her shopping on frigid
winter mornings marked her as a peasant, disgraced my parents, and embarrassed me. Embarrassed me so much that I betrayed
her by laughing with my friends rather than silencing them when they called her the old witch, or the garlic eater, when they
held their noses and said "Pew, pew," when they claimed she ate babies for breakfast and people's brains for supper. (She
did eat brains, though not people's; but this, I never conceded my friends.)
My father rarely communicated with my grandmother directly. He resented her intrusion into their lives, thought she was the
reason why my mother was depressed, though he often ate her food, for he missed his mother's peasant fare. What could he do?
Turn the old woman out of his house, into the street? Her relatives didn't want her all year round; she had nowhere to go;
she couldn't afford to support herself. She was his cross to bear.
"Tell her to buy some new clothes, some warm clothes, goddamn it," he'd yell to my mother within earshot of my grandmother.
"Tell her she's a disgrace. Tell her people will think we don't take care of her. Tell her to take a bath. Tell her she stinks."
My grandmother would manipulate another complicated stitch on the white tablecloth that rested on her lap, and she would ignore
his yelling, ignore his words, and defeat him, as always. For this, if for nothing else, I loved her. I cannot count the times
she threw her needlework to the ground, stitches slipping off crochet hook, ball of cotton unwinding across the floor, to
put her body between his and mine. I cannot count the times she took a blow that was meant for me.
On rare occasions, my mother came home with a new dress for my grandmother (black, but with a pattern of tiny flowers), or
a heavy cardigan (black, of course), or an overcoat (black, again). My grandmother, knowing that it was better to yield than
to resist, and knowing that yielding was the most potent form of resistance, would take the item, hold it at arm's length,
inspect it, take it upstairs, and put it in her bureau drawer or closet, where it stayed, unused, until she died.
Once only, she wore something new. A black silk scarf I bought her for Christmas with butterflies embroidered in black. It
was expensive, but I bought it, because it was the only black scarf in the store.
When she unwrapped it, she wound it around her neck. "Seta," she said to me. Silk. I knew I had pleased her, and though she
was unused to silk, and resented finery, she did wear the scarf, and I was glad.
There, by the radiator, my grandmother sat, ignored and despised, through the years, in that darkened room, on the straight-backed
chair, in a space that was not Italy but that was not America either, crocheting tablecloths, knitting sweaters, making afghans.
There she sat, this woman at her needlework, through the late 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, into the early 1970s, until 1974.
In that year, she became ill, couldn't get out of bed, and was taken to a nursing home run by the state, because my mother
said she could afford no other. And there she died.
The sweaters are gone, and the afghans too. They were collected, thrown into giant plastic bags, and dropped into a Goodwill
box after she died, together with all that unused clothing my mother had bought her. The worn underwear, dresses, sweaters,
the old black shawl, tattered and motheaten, my mother threw into a garbage bag and put into the trash.
But the tablecloths I still have. They are now treasured heirlooms, which adorn our family's festive tables. I have many tablecloths
to give, presents for my sons and their wives; gifts for my
My grandmother would continue to buy nothing new, nothing American, nothing warm enough for winter, even though wearing more
than one dress and all those sweaters and that shawl around her shoulders when she went to Mass or did her shopping on frigid
winter mornings marked her as a peasant, disgraced my parents, and embarrassed me. Embarrassed me so much that I betrayed
her by laughing with my friends rather than silencing them when they called her the old witch, or the garlic eater, when they
held their noses and said "Pew, pew," when they claimed she ate babies for breakfast and people's brains for supper. (She
did eat brains, though not people's; but this, I never conceded my friends.)
My father rarely communicated with my grandmother directly. He resented her intrusion into their lives, thought she was the
reason why my mother was depressed, though he often ate her food, for he missed his mother's peasant fare. What could he do?
Turn the old woman out of his house, into the street? Her relatives didn't want her all year round; she had nowhere to go;
she couldn't afford to support herself. She was his cross to bear.
"Tell her to buy some new clothes, some warm clothes, goddamn it," he'd yell to my mother within earshot of my grandmother.
"Tell her she's a disgrace. Tell her people will think we don't take care of her. Tell her to take a bath. Tell her she stinks."
My grandmother would manipulate another complicated stitch on the white tablecloth that rested on her lap, and she would ignore
his yelling, ignore his words, and defeat him, as always. For this, if for nothing else, I loved her. I cannot count the times
she threw her needlework to the ground, stitches slipping off crochet hook, ball of cotton unwinding across the floor, to
put her body between his and mine. I cannot count the times she took a blow that was meant for me.
On rare occasions, my mother came home with a new dress for my grandmother (black, but with a pattern of tiny flowers), or
a heavy cardigan (black, of course), or an overcoat (black, again). My grandmother, knowing that it was better to yield than
to resist, and knowing that yielding was the most potent form of resistance, would take the item, hold it at arm's length,
inspect it, take it upstairs, and put it in her bureau drawer or closet, where it stayed, unused, until she died.
Once only, she wore something new. A black silk scarf I bought her for Christmas with butterflies embroidered in black. It
was expensive, but I bought it, because it was the only black scarf in the store.
When she unwrapped it, she wound it around her neck. "Seta," she said to me. Silk. I knew I had pleased her, and though she
was unused to silk, and resented finery, she did wear the scarf, and I was glad.
There, by the radiator, my grandmother sat, ignored and despised, through the years, in that darkened room, on the straight-backed
chair, in a space that was not Italy but that was not America either, crocheting tablecloths, knitting sweaters, making afghans.
There she sat, this woman at her needlework, through the late 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, into the early 1970s, until 1974.
In that year, she became ill, couldn't get out of bed, and was taken to a nursing home run by the state, because my mother
said she could afford no other. And there she died.
The sweaters are gone, and the afghans too. They were collected, thrown into giant plastic bags, and dropped into a Goodwill
box after she died, together with all that unused clothing my mother had bought her. The worn underwear, dresses, sweaters,
the old black shawl, tattered and motheaten, my mother threw into a garbage bag and put into the trash.
But the tablecloths I still have. They are now treasured heirlooms, which adorn our family's festive tables. I have many tablecloths
to give, presents for my sons and their wives; gifts for my
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