Full of Life by John Fante

my grandchildren, understand? You leave them alone. Let them come. They got as much right here as you.”
    I took his fist away.
    “It has nothing to do with rights, Papa. It’s a question of economics.”
    “Cut out reading them books.”
    “Books—what books? I can’t support too many.”
    “We couldn’t afford none either, me and Mama. Not one. But we had four. We did it without money, a few dollars, but never enough money. You want we should use something from the drugstore, and you not even born today, without your sister and brothers, and me and Mama alone in the world? For what?”
    Stated that way, it was unanswerable.
    “I guess you’re basically a religious man, Papa. You really believe.”
    “Grandchildren. That’s what I believe in. And leave them books alone.”
    Yes, she was in deadly earnest, with the passion of a convert. She liked walking up and down before the statue of Saint Elizabeth, saying the rosary. Through the half-open door I saw her moving back and forth, she and the child, her lips reciting the beads, her eyes catching a view of herself in the mirror as she tried to pull her tummy in and up.
    One morning she walked with me out to the garage.
    “You know of course that we must get married as soon as possible.”
    “We’re already married. The justice of the peace married us in Reno.”
    “It was a civil ceremony. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t count.”
    “It counts with me.”
    “I want my marriage sanctified.”
    “You mean—we’ve been living in adultery all these years?”
    “We’ll be married after my baptism. It’s a lovely ceremony. We’ll be married to the end of our lives.” She smiled. “You won’t be able to divorce me, ever.”
    You do not argue with the mother of your coming child. You do the very best you can, and try to keep her happy. You have lost caste in her eyes, you are barely tolerated, the part you have played is little enough, she becomes the star of the show, and you are expected to knuckle under, for that is the way the script is written. Otherwise you might upset her, bringing anguish, and in turn upset the child.
    “What do you want me to do, darling? In your own words, tell me exactly what you want me to do.”
    “Father Gondalfo is coming to see you. He’s my instructor. I want you to talk to him.”
    Two days later Father John Gondalfo came to our house. That afternoon I found him sitting in the living room with Papa and Joyce. Father Gondalfo was the hard-boiled type. He had been a Marine chaplain in the South Pacific. For over an hour he had been waiting for me. Because of the heat, he had removed his coat, and he sat in a whiteT shirt, the black hair of his beefy chest seeping through the weave of the shirt. He had the arms of a wrestler and kept himself in condition by playing handball against the wall of the parish garage. He was a young priest, no more than forty-two, with a dark Sicilian face, a broken nose, and a crew haircut. He looked like a guard or tackle from Santa Clara. The moment I saw him I realized he was, like me, of Italian descent, and the consanguinity quickly established a violent familiarity. He crushed my knuckles in a handshake.
    “It’s five-thirty, Fante. Where you been?”
    I told him, working.
    “What time you knock off?”
    I told him, a little past four.
    “Four? Where you been, the last hour and a half?”
    I told him, to Lucey’s for a highball.
    “Don’t you know your wife’s pregnant?”
    Joyce sat in a big chair, the great mound lolling indolently in her lap, her knees spread slightly to support it. She adored Father John. I sensed Papa’s admiration too, as well as a slight hostility toward me.
    “What’s wrong with drinking here in your own home?” Father John said. “With your wife and this great man who’s your father? Ever think of that?”
    I marveled at his shoulders, the black intensity of his eyes. “Sure, Father, I drink at home, lots.”
    “Time you got wise to