The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 2
NONNA’S HOUSE
They reached the Linden River Bridge leading into Payton Mills just in time, a testament to how seriously even Nino took Nonna’s rules. She was not the kind of grandmother you messed with. Nino and Sara had spent the day shopping and eating—and probably fooling around in one of the more wooded parks.
The tall smokestacks of the redbrick textile mill defined the unimpressive skyline of the Mills. Constructed in 1827, the mill had been set on the river to make use of the running water as the main energy source. Even her earliest memories of visiting her grandmother had provided barely a glimpse of a thriving town. One didn’t have to listen long to find disgruntled mill workers talking about losing textile production to countries overseas.
In her neighborhood on the other side of town, trees hovered like giants over the tiny homes that had been housing mill employees like her father’s family and other working-class Mainers for more than a century. Fishermen and lobstermen who couldn’t afford to be closer to the coast formed part of the population too. To Annalisa, Payton Mills was a town whose inhabitants dreamed of taller buildings they’d seen only in the movies. Heck, half the people in her church had never even been to Portland, that long hour-and-a-half drive too daunting a journey. Portland was full of trouble, anyway, many of them thought, no one more so than her grandmother.
Annalisa said goodbye to Nino and Sara and stepped out into the night. It was barely seven and eerily quiet. With the exception of Friday nights during football season, when Payton Mills played their home games, the town rolled up the sidewalks with the falling sun.
She crossed their tiny dooryard, which Annalisa dutifully mowed each Saturday morning per Nonna’s command. Up the three steps to the front porch was Annalisa’s outdoor studio, complete with a chair, easel, and her trunk of paints. A set of wind chimes that she and her mother had made with antique spoons and silver bells hung from the center of the ceiling. It was a windless night, and the chimes were silent. Still, Annalisa could feel their power as she thought back to those countless hours on their side porch in Bangor, when the tinkling of the chimes had been the soundtrack to her time with her mother.
Finding strength from her renewed commitment to her dream, she dashed through the door, calling for her grandmother. Nonna was where she always was: the kitchen. Though the floors in most of their tiny home were in good shape, the linoleum in the kitchen was worn down and showed the scuff marks of Nonna’s black orthopedic shoes. The salty and herbal smells of a simmering chicken soup on the stove reminded Annalisa that she hadn’t eaten dinner yet.
“How’d it go?” Nonna asked, standing in front of the sink, where hot water steamed up behind her. Her entire English lexicon was drenched in her native tongue’s bounce.
Annalisa stood right behind her, towering over her. “Jackie says I’m good—she loved the one of me at the funeral—but that I haven’t found my voice yet.”
Nonna shut off the water and turned, drying her hands on the apron wrapped around her little waist. “I see.” Her short white curly hair sometimes looked to be a pale shade of lavender in the right light, and a mole above her right eyebrow called attention to her receding hairline. She wore thick-framed black glasses that were decades out of fashion.
“But you’d be proud of me,” Annalisa said. “I’m not letting it get me down. She really was excited, says I’m very talented.” She hoped Nonna was in a good enough mood to hear what was coming next.
“Of course you’ll be a big deal,” Nonna agreed, always one of her biggest fans. Long before Annalisa had lost her parents and moved to the Mills, Nonna had started the single largest collection of Annalisa art in the world. Now nearly every wall was covered. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re good before you’ll believe me?”
Here goes nothing,Annalisa thought. “She said something else too.”
Nonna’s eyes narrowed. “What now?”
“She says I need to move to Portland. That’s the only way I can get any better.”
Nonna reached up and grabbed a handful of her own hair. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this again.”
“Yes, this again.” Her grandmother should have gone to Hollywood with her drama skills. To give her credit, though, she had a long list of reasons she’d always discouraged the idea, but it came down to the fact Annalisa’s father had picked up his drinking habit in Portland.
“Jackie’s right,” Annalisa pressed, hoping this time to convince Nonna. “How else am I going to get better?”
“It’s not your location that makes you a better painter. It’s hard work.”
“And enriching experiences,” Annalisa argued. “Great teachers. New scenery.”
Nonna brushed her hand through the air. “There are plenty of teachers here. You just don’t like any of them.”
“Oh, you’re right. Mr. O’Ryan is amazing.” She rolled her eyes at the thought of her high school art teacher, tapping into her own dramatic potential.
“If you want a new teacher,” Nonna said, “maybe we can find someone in Davenport. Nino can take you to lessons.”
Davenport was no doubt beautiful—and certainly ritzier—but just like the Mills, it was a long way from the real world. “So I can paint rocky cliffs and lobsters and lighthouses in between my bridge group and spa session? No thank you. I want to be in Portland, where the action is. I need some grit, some reality. I’m tired of living in a bubble.”
Nonna reached for a hand towel and began to dry the dishes on the side of the sink. “So you mean where the derelicts are? Is that it?”
Annalisa’s whole body drooped. “Oh my God. Says every Mainer north of Portland. You all think the rest of the world is crazy.” This is exactly what made her unglued about small-town Maine. It was always us versus them.
“It is,” Nonna assured her, stacking one dry plate atop another. “The world is a dangerous place. Believe me. And Payton Mills isn’t as bad as you make it out to be.”
“I’m not going to end up like my father, Nonna. I’m not going down there to party. And as far as Payton Mills . . . to me it’s hell on earth.” As quickly as she’d said it, she regretted her words.
Smacking down the wooden spoon she’d just dried, Nonna said through gritted teeth, “Watch your mouth. This place is your roots. Never forget that.”
“Trust me,” Annalisa said, trying not to react, “I won’t. And I’m sorry I said that. It’s just that everyone is in everyone’s business. I can’t sneeze without the whole family discussing it. The whole town, even. And no one wants to admit there’s a whole world out there with people that have different views . . . views that aren’t all wrong.”
Nonna’s forehead wrinkled as she set down the towel and turned. “One day you’ll realize that nothing is more important than family, and you’ll regret hating the Mills like you do.” Then she poked Annalisa’s head. “Sometimes it’s what’s in here that’s causing the problem.”
Annalisa sighed; Nonna was the only one on earth who could get away with poking her in such a way. “It always comes back to family, doesn’t it? Our family is great, but I need some space every once in a while. You might not understand it, but I have to go. I’m going to keep saving every dime I can, and I’m going to paint every darn minute, and when I graduate next year, I am moving to Portland.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nonna said.
“It won’t be your decision. I’ll be eighteen.” Annalisa softened. “But I can’t bear leaving without your blessing. Maybe I’ll come back, but I know I have to go.”
Nonna crossed her arms and glared at her. More than once Annalisa had joked that Nixon should send Nonna to Vietnam if he really wanted to rid the world of communism. This was exactly why. It was a good thing Annalisa never brought boys home, because they couldn’t have gotten through the door before scurrying away in fear.
With the glare frozen on her face, Nonna asked, “So you’re going to move to Portland with your ice-cream savings?”
For more than a year now, Annalisa had been working at Harry’s General Store, scooping ice cream and weighing candy. “And from selling everything I paint between now and then to anyone who will give me a couple of dollars. I’ll shack up in a deserted warehouse in the Old Port if I have to.”
“I forbid it!” Nonna snapped, coming alive like a soldier snapping to attention.
Annalisa stood her ground. “You can’t. I’m not letting anyone hold me back. That’s exactly what my father did to my mother.”
Nonna struck the counter. “Hold you back? You’re the one holding yourself back with all this . . .”
“With all this what?” Though the soup was at a simmer, she felt like the top of the pot if she’d turned the knob to boiling.
“With all this anger,” Nonna finished. “You have to start moving on. It’s been more than two years, Annalisa. I’m tired of putting up with your rebellion.”
Even Annalisa would admit her disagreeable nature had a lot to do with losing both parents, but she’d been a wild child long before she was parentless. Maybe it was the Taurean in her—the stars having something to do with it. Whatever it was, probably an amalgam of her Italian blood, her April birthday, and her jaded and often furious father, who’d essentially murdered her loving mother, she was not making it easy on her grandmother.
Perhaps she and Nonna butted heads because they were so similar. Annalisa stood a foot taller, but there was no denying their resemblance. Whenever a guest of the house saw the black-and-white photograph of Nonna in Naples, Italy, as a young teenager, they’d never fail to compare her to Annalisa, mentioning the same big brown eyes (Enough with the big eyes! Annalisa always thought) and that thick, wavy hair. More to the point, the two women were as stubborn as anyone in Maine.
Annalisa backed away from the counter, as if in retreat. “I’m trying to move on. By getting out of here.”
Nonna leaned back against the sink. “Moving on from your grief doesn’t mean driving away. You don’t need to move to Portland to find yourself. You just need to find peace.”
“Peace?” Annalisa let out a cackle from the center of the kitchen. “What kind of peace is there anywhere in this world? You mean in Vietnam?” She felt so frustrated and sad, thinking that she’d actually found some excitement today, only to be knocked down once again. “Peace doesn’t exist,” she continued. “Happiness doesn’t exist. Sometimes, I don’t even know if God exists.”
Nonna pounded the counter so hard the dirty dishes in the sink shook. “Don’t you ever say that.”
Annalisa snapped her hands to her waist. “It’s true.”
Mimicking her, Nonna said, “Then you need God more than ever.”
“He’s welcome to pop down for a visit,” Annalisa said. “He knows where I live.” She’d been going to church and praying to God all her life, but after losing her parents, God had a lot of making up to do as far as she was concerned.
Nonna took the wooden spoon she’d dried and stuck it into the pot of soup. “You’re not the only one who lost someone.”
“I’m the only one I know who lost both parents.”
“He was my son,” Nonna said, stirring the soup. “I lost him too. And then I lost my husband of forty-four years. Don’t pretend you’re the only one in this family who is suffering.”
“He was my father!” Annalisa yelled to her grandmother’s back.
“He was my son.” Nonna whipped around and slapped her hand against her own chest. “My son!”
Seeing and hearing Nonna’s pain cut to Annalisa’s core, and she got the point. Everyone in the family had lost her father. He was a father, a son, a brother, a cousin. They’d all lost him to alcoholism and then to that car wreck.
And they’d lost Annalisa’s mother, Celia, as well. From the first day her parents had met, the entire Mancuso clan had hoped that the talented, beautiful, and smart Celia Russo could rescue Tony Mancuso from continuing down his path of trouble. She’d done a pretty good job for a while, but eventually the whiskey had won.
Annalisa couldn’t take it anymore and turned away. With tears sliding down her cheeks, she stomped out of the kitchen. After slamming her bedroom door in frustration, Annalisa reached for her heavy Michelangelo book on the dresser and slung it across the room. The book crashed into her easel in the corner and knocked it, and her work in progress, to the floor. She collapsed onto the bed.
Through the thin walls, she could hear the crashes of her grandmother finishing the dishes, as if every collision further drove home her point.
Curling up, Annalisa lost herself in the lava lamp on the bedside table, letting the neon-green blobs absorb her anger. The drama of which her tiny grandmother was capable was extraordinary. She was the poster woman for fiery Italian nonne, and no woman could deliver a rant with such Oscar-worthy passion or issue a guilt trip with such sniper-like precision.
Even though they fought on occasion, she admired Nonna for being so strong and for being the cornerstone of the family. That being said, Annalisa certainly didn’t want to grow up to be like her grandmother. She didn’t want to be barefoot and pregnant, confined to the kitchen and shut out from the world. That life didn’t interest Annalisa at all. She could never stand for the way things were arranged, almost as if their lives were predetermined for the females in their family.
As much as Annalisa hated her father, she did like that he’d broken out of the Mills himself and actually chased his dreams. Even after hurting his back and discovering alcohol, he’d cleaned himself up and gone to college and landed a well-paying job at a bank in Bangor. By the time he’d met Annalisa’s mother, he was back on top. For a while, at least.
Like her father, Annalisa craved independence. She didn’t want to be told what to do, where to live, whom to marry, or what to believe. No wonder he’d gotten the hell out of this town. Nonna was probably drowning him.
She didn’t like spending much time comparing herself to him, though—or even thinking about him—but she could feel his presence here. She was living in his old bedroom, for God’s sake, where he and two of his brothers had been crammed in all the way through high school. Her indoor studio was in the very space where her art-hating father had slept! In addition, almost every face in the Mancuso family, with the exception of Nino and a couple of others, bore a strong resemblance to the man. Talk about holding her back. The bottom line was that she could never be the artist she wanted to be here, and nothing Nonna or anyone else said or did would change that fact.
When she finally calmed down twenty minutes later, Annalisa decided she’d better apologize. Though Nonna couldn’t care less, her mother had never let Annalisa go to bed angry, and it was a practice she’d held on to. Stepping into the hallway, she saw amber light shining through the crack in Nonna’s closed bedroom door. She walked down the hall decorated with family photos and some of Annalisa’s earlier works and stopped at the door.
She raised her hand to knock but stopped at the last second, putting her ear closer. Her grandmother always prayed for a long time before going to bed, and sometimes Annalisa had heard her talking to someone, probably her late husband or even Annalisa’s father.
Tonight, it sounded like she was crying.
Annalisa felt terrible. What kind of awful person had she become, being so nasty to the woman who had taken her in? Nonna was right anyway. Why did Annalisa always have to make it about her?
“Nonna?” she said, rapping lightly on the door. “Can I come in?”
After a moment, Nonna cracked open the door, dressed in her nightgown. “Yes, nipotina?”
Annalisa lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”
Nonna’s bottom lip jutted out as she pulled open the door and opened up her arms. “I know you are.”
Annalisa bent down and hugged Nonna’s shoulders. “I’m so confused.” She noticed fresh prints in the kneeling pillow by the bed.
Nonna patted her lower back. “It’s okay to be confused. I am too sometimes.” She let go of Annalisa and took her hands, looking up into her eyes. “You might not believe it, but I love having you here. It’s not easy being alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Annalisa assured her, pulling her grandmother back into one more hug.
After a long, loving embrace that Annalisa needed so badly, the two bid each other good night. Returning to her room, Annalisa knelt by her bed and prayed, asking God to forgive her for being such a mess and to give her some guidance, and maybe a little help. Leaving Nonna would be incredibly hard, but how could she deny herself the opportunity rolling out ahead of her? She wasn’t sure if He existed, but she thought she’d at least give Him a chance to prove Himself.