Household Saints by Francine Prose Page B

hadn’t seen her cry since his father’s death.
    “Mama,” he said.
    “This is what Saint Anna has done for the Santangelos,” she said. “And this is what Saint Anna deserves.”
    “Catherine?”
    “Catherine’s fine. The baby didn’t have a chance. It lived three seconds, just long enough for me to splash some water on it and pray for God to accept it as a proper baptism. Go in now, go in and see your wife.” Then her eyes narrowed and she said, “Go in and see what you won in that pinochle game.”
    Catherine was lying in bed beneath a clean sheet. She was staring at the far wall and did not turn when Joseph entered. On the bed near the footboard was a pile of sheets, and in the center, a parcel wrapped in a white pillowcase. Slowly Joseph unfolded it, and saw the tiny corpse—shrunken and discarded-looking, like something meant to be thrown out with the garbage or into the laundry with the bloodstained sheets.
    He reached for Catherine’s hand, but she pulled back. He gazed at the child for as long as he could stand it. Crying, he turned away, but not before the thought had crossed his mind that the infant resembled nothing so much as a plucked and freshly slaughtered baby chicken.

3

Miracles
    T HERE WAS A FUNERAL which Catherine was discouraged from attending, and a tiny white coffin like a toy boat. As the priest intoned the rites, Joseph imagined limbo as an endless Central Park Lake, with the souls of unbaptized infants skimming over the water in their miniature caskets, white sails rigged to catch the breeze.
    When Joseph and his mother got home, the first thing Mrs. Santangelo did was slide the statuette of San Gennaro back to the center of the altar.
    “That’s the last time I move you,” she promised the saint. “I swear to God.”
    Three days after the delivery, Catherine could hardly walk, but Mrs. Santangelo herded her and Joseph in front of the mantel and suggested that they pray:
    “If he can catch a volcano in his bare hands, he can help us get over this.”
    “If I kneel down,” said Catherine, “I’ll never get up.”
    So Mrs. Santangelo prayed for them all. Still wearing her bulky coat, she knelt with the slow clumsy dignity of a circus elephant: “Holy Saint, help us accept God’s will. And while you’re at it, help us remember: Life goes on.
    “Speaking of life goes on …” She stood up. “Catherine, that plant you used to have up here, we put it in the kitchen? Anyhow, it looks a little dry, maybe you could water it, we’ll put it back up….”
    “I don’t know why you bother.” Catherine nodded at the altar. “I don’t know why the hell you bother.” And she shuffled back to bed.
    “She’s going to be okay,” Mrs. Santangelo reassured Joseph. “It takes time, but you’ll see. There’ll be another baby, everything will be fine. I know, I’ve been seeing signs everywhere. And you, Joseph? You and the boys going to play a little pinochle?”
    “What’s it to you?” Joseph was still bitter about the way his mother had acted on the night of the baby’s death, bringing up how he’d won Catherine at pinochle, as if it were all his fault. “Since when do you care?”
    “Since now.” Mrs. Santangelo held her ground. “You could use to step out, enjoy yourself, get your mind off your troubles. It would be good for you and Catherine.”
    “Sorry,” said Joseph. “I don’t have the heart.” But what could be more disheartening than the prospect of spending another evening with a wife who wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t get out of bed?
    That night, Joseph and Frank Manzone called on Lino Falconetti.
    “Three-handed pinochle?” said Lino. “I never heard of such a thing.”
    “Where’s Nicky?” said Frank.
    “Flew the coop.” After two bottles of wine, Lino wasn’t upset, simply stating a fact. “Bright and early this morning. Go look in his room.”
    The perfect neatness and anonymity of Nicky’s room heightened the