Read Online The Black Madonna by Louisa Ermelino - Free Book Online Page B

forget,” she said. “I know where to find you.”
    Teresa took the El back downtown. She was on Spring Street before she knew it. Until she climbed the four flights to the apartment, she didn’t realize how much her feet hurt.
    T he morning after she had thrown away her treasures, Teresa lay in bed until noon. Nicky had been awake for hours but he lay there, waiting for her to move, to say something. He was frightened that she was dead and he was afraid to look at her, to touch her. He cried silently, his hand over his mouth. He was hungry. He had to pee. He was sure she was dead. He was almost hysterical when she turned to him in the bed and touched his face.
    â€œNicola,” she said. “What is it?” He didn’t answer and she pulled him against her. She kissed his face and his ears and his fingers. She lifted the covers and kissed his feet.
    He giggled when she did this, but then he was angry. “Why did you do that?” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œStay asleep so long. I thought you was dead. I have to pee.”
    â€œSo why didn’t you go pee?”
    â€œI was scared. Why’d you scare me?”
    â€œSo what?” she told him. “So I slept a long time, so you thought I was dead. What does it matter? I’m alive now, no? It’s a miracle. Why are you crying? You’re such a baby. I don’t have a son. I have a little girl.” She laughed at him, grabbed him between his legs. “Let me see,” she teased him. “Are you a little girl?”
    He lay in her arms and she stroked his hair. She sang him a Neapolitan song, a song about women.
You’re like a cup of coffee,
the lover sings,
bitter until I stir you and the sugar comes to the top.
    â€œIt’s going to be okay, Nicola,” she told him.
    â€œBut you took everything, the stuff my father sent. What’d you do with it?”
    â€œWe don’t need any of it,” she said. “Your father’s coming back. He’s coming back to see you, from halfway around the world, all the way back to Spring Street.”
    Nicky sat up and stared at her. She put pillows behind his head, ran her fingers along his arm. “He’s going to bring the money for your operation. He’s going to buy you toys and ice cream and say hello to all your friends.”
    â€œYou saw him? He’s coming here?”
    â€œHe’s coming, for sure.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œSoon.” She took his hands, kissed his open palms, and held them against her face. “I’ll make you breakfast,” she said, getting up, “coffee and milk, with an egg in it.”
    â€œAnd sugar.”
    â€œSpoonfuls of sugar . . . and you can sit by the window on Spring Street and call your friend Salvatore to come over. He’s a good boy, that one, just like you.”
    â€œAnd Jumbo . . .”
    â€œNo,” she said. “He’s bad luck, that one. He’s no good.”
    â€œMama . . .”
    â€œNo,” she said, helping him out of the bed. “Don’t bother me. I said ‘no.’”

    T eresa went down that evening to sit on the stoop. Jumbo’s mother Antoinette was sitting at the bottom, and when Teresa saw her there, she stopped and sat on the top step next to Magdalena. She told Magdalena that Nicky’s father was coming home. There was no keeping him at sea, she said, after he heard about what had happened to his boy.
    She said this loudly enough for all the women to hear. They stopped talking and looked up at her. This was news. They could talk about Loretta Pagliani’s fallen womb anytime.
    The women moved nearer to her, except for Antoinette, who stayed where she was, and even slid a little farther away and looked out into the street.
    â€œWhen he heard about the accident,” Teresa said, “he made plans to come right home.”
    Antoinette blew her nose into a dirty handkerchief and stuck it in a big black