spin fables to my boy now. If I am going to die, I want him to know that I thought enough of him to share everything.”
Enza wept. “Everything?”
“Everything,” Ciro reiterated.
They heard the snap of the key in the lock of the front door opening downstairs. Enza looked at Ciro with desperation.
“Are you sure?”
Ciro didn’t answer.
Antonio bounded into the living room, recounting the day’s events as he dropped his gear. “Ma, I scored twelve points, and had four assists in practice. Coach says I’m first team JV. Isn’t that great?” Antonio entered the kitchen. “Papa, you’re home!” he said when he saw his parents sitting side by side at the small table.
Ciro extended his arms out to his son. They embraced.
“How did it go in Rochester?” Antonio went to the counter, took a heel of bread, slathered it with butter, and bit into it. Ciro smiled, remembering doing the same in the convent kitchen of San Nicola. It occurred to him that this is what he would miss when he died. His son as he ate bread.
“Want some?” He extended the bread to his father.
“No, Tony, I don’t.”
“So, what’s the skinny?” Antonio looked at his mother, whose eyes filled with tears. The news had just taken root in her heart, and the pain overwhelmed her, more for her son than for her own broken heart.
“Mama. Papa. What is it?”
“Remember when I told you about the Great War?”
“You were in France, and you said the girls were pretty, but not as pretty as Mama.” Antonio poured himself a tall glass of cold milk from the icebox.
“Yes, but I also told you about the weapons.”
Enza took the glass of milk from Antonio and pulled out a chair. She indicated that he should sit.
“Listen to your father.”
“I am. He just asked me about the weapons in the Great War. There were tanks, machine guns, barbed wire, and mustard gas.”
“Well, I got hit with the mustard gas. So I have a little backache that comes and goes,” Ciro explained.
“You look fine, Papa. Doc Graham can help you. He helps everybody. And when he can’t, he sends you to Dr. McFarland.”
“It’s worse than that, son. I’m very sick. I know I look fine today, but as the days go by, I’m going to get worse. The mustard gas went through to my bones, and now I have the kind of cancer that it gives you. In a matter of time, I will die from it.”
Antonio took in the words, but shook his head as though what he was hearing could not possibly be true. It was when he looked at his mother that he knew. Slowly, Antonio stood up and put his arms around his father. Ciro was shaking, but so was Antonio, who couldn’t believe the terrible news. Enza got up from the table and put her arms around both of them. She wanted to say something to comfort Ciro, and something more to galvanize Antonio, but there were no words. They held one another and wept, and that night, there was no further conversation, or music on the phonograph, or even supper. The house was as quiet as it could be with a family living in it.
Later that night, Antonio buried his face in his pillow and wept. He had looked at a stack of his father’s papers in the living room and seen the diagnosis. He had seen a sketch of his father’s spine, and the strange circles with the words tumor and metastasize written next to them in ink.
Antonio had studied the Great War in school. He remembered a question on the quiz about mustard gas, and when he asked Ciro about it, he said it had the scent of ammonia and garlic. At the time, it hadn’t registered with Antonio that if his father could identify the scent, he too had been hit with it. But now he knew it was true.
He rolled over and dried his eyes on his pajama sleeve and stared at the ceiling. His greatest fear had come true. He and his mother would be alone; how would they go on without his father?
Antonio had never argued with Ciro. Some said it was because Antonio was an only child, with little cause for conflict. Others said it was because Antonio was unusually serene, with no need to defy authority. But it was deeper than that. Antonio had visited the cemetery on every feast day and prayed near his grandfather’s gravestone. He had stood beside his father as