Marlene grabbed her father's hands and forced him to look into her eyes. "Pops, look at me…have you looked everywhere in the house?" Once they'd found her mother curled up in a ball in the linen closet; she said she'd just been looking for someplace safe from a mysterious "them" who were watching her.
Her father nodded. "I've looked everywhere…everywhere." But the pressure of Marlene's hands had the desired effect of helping him calm down. He brightened. "Except the basement," he said. "She hasn't gone down into the basement in years, but maybe…would you check the basement for me?"
Marlene gently guided her father to his favorite chair and told him to stay put. She then went to the doorway leading down into the basement. As a child she'd been afraid to go down into the musky, dark, damp basement, which was more of a root cellar. She was sure that if she walked down the wooden steps, something would reach through and grab her ankles…and that would be that, she'd disappear, never to be heard from again. The recollection sent a chill down her spine.
Get over it, Ciampi, she scolded herself. No monsters were down there, at least not the type that carried off little girls. A monster was carrying off her mother, but it was not dangerous to Marlene. She stood at the top of the stairs and, listening carefully, thought she heard some sort of furtive sounds coming from below. Putting aside childhood fears, she walked down the stairs.
A below-garden window allowed in a diffused light; there was no other illumination. But Marlene could see the back of a tiny, gray-haired woman facing a wooden workbench in the corner.
"Mom?"
The woman turned and when she saw Marlene, she smiled and asked in her slightly accented English, "Josephine? Is that you?"
Marlene moved closer, although she knew the misidentification had more to do with the Alzheimer's than the lighting. "No, Mom, it's Marlene, your youngest daughter. Josephine was your oldest."
The old woman's face took on a confused look. "Marlene? I don't have a daughter named Marlene…or do I?"
Marlene suddenly found herself struggling against tears. "Yes, Mom, me. Marlene. Your youngest. What are you doing down here? You had Dad worried. He thinks that you wandered off again."
"Nonsense," her mother said with a cheerful laugh. "I'm just down here canning peaches. Would you like to help?"
Marlene walked over to her mother and looked at the bench. In years gone by, she had happily assisted her mother in canning peaches and snap peas, as well as putting away jars of olives. All she saw now were dusty old mason jars and rusted lids, but no peaches or paraffin. Her mother's birdlike hands, however, fluttered away with invisible ingredients. "Remember when you were a little girl and we would can peaches, and you would sing to me the songs you'd learned in school?"
"Yes, Momma, I remember," Marlene said. She had seen a lot of cruelty in the world, but she had never known anything as cruel as Alzheimer's. Bit by bit it took the human being-the wife, the lover, the mother, and friend-who had occupied the body and left some replacement, like one of those body-snatcher science fiction movies.
As a result, a marriage that had been as solid as the rock beneath Manhattan and remained warm and loving through sixty-five years was crumbling before Marlene's horrified eyes.
She would never have thought it possible. Her father, Mariano Ciampi, and mother, Concetta Scoglio, met in the main hall on Ellis Island in 1936, both just off the ships that brought them from an Italy that was plunging headlong into fascism and war. He was twenty, she was seventeen, and it was love at first sight. However, her parents had hustled her away from the barbarian who hailed from Sicily, "that land of gangsters and sheepherders," pointing out to the protesting girl that she came from Florence, a civilized city. Oil and water, her parents said, but the young couple managed to stay in touch, and six months later-under threat of elopement-her parents gave them permission to wed.
Mariano had found work at a fruit and vegetable store in Washington Heights, delivering orders and eventually running the store for the owner. His benefits included getting to take home all the bruised fruit he and Concetta could eat, as well as free rent in the tiny flat above the store. They'd scrimped and saved and eventually he bought the store from the owner. Over the years he had purchased other fruit and vegetable markets from Washington Heights to Little Italy and the Village.
The only interruption in their upward mobility was when Mariano volunteered for the army, feeling it was his duty to fight for his adopted country. He'd been wounded at Anzio and honorably discharged, returning home quietly with a Purple Heart and a piece of a German grenade still in his shoulder, ready to resume building his fruit and vegetable empire, which Concetta had proved adept at running in his absence.
In the first four years of marriage, before he shipped out, he and Concetta had produced three babies-one of whom, Frankie, had died at age three of a childhood illness. The war had briefly interrupted the production line, but by the time Marlene was born in 1948 (something of a surprise to all involved) she was the sixth (living) child.
When they moved to the house in Queens, Mariano and Concetta handled the prejudices of the predominantly Anglo population-the snide remarks about being "connected" to the Mafia, the wop jokes, and comments about "dirty Italians"-with grace and dignity that eventually won the respect of even their most acrimonious neighbors.
Naturalized as citizens, they'd emphasized the importance of good citizenship and education to all of their children. Instead of vacations, new cars, and a bigger house, they'd put their discretionary income toward sending their children to the best parochial schools and colleges.
Marlene thought her parents had the most perfect marriage of any she had ever encountered. Yes, Mariano and Concetta could fight like bantam roosters. Her mother was no wallflower or shy, mail-order bride from the old country. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, and if Mariano stepped out of line, he was bound to hear about it. But their love was just as passionate, and the rhythmic squeaking of their old bed echoing throughout the house at night was as reassuring to Marlene and her siblings as family dinners.
She'd even caught them making out in their bedroom at their sixtieth anniversary party, having escaped the well-wishers and family members. "Your father, he still turns me on." Her mother had shrugged at Marlene's teasing. Just a few years later, that woman was disappearing like a lost ship into fog banks, and for the first time in Marlene's life, her father spoke of her mother in words other than adoration.
It was especially tough on Marlene as she was the only child in easy commuting distance. Two other siblings had died-Lieutenant Angelo Ciampi in Vietnam during the Tet offensive of 1968, and Josephine, a chain-smoker, of lung cancer in 1986. The others were scattered about the country, none closer than a day's drive. So it had been left to Marlene, the baby of the family, to shepherd their aging parents through what were supposed to be their golden years.
Standing at the workbench, Marlene's mother leaned toward her and spoke in a conspirator's low voice. "You know, the man upstairs, he isn't really your father. Your father was never bossy like that one. That one keeps telling me what I can and can't do." She sighed. "I don't know what they did with dear Mario, but that's not him."
"Who is 'they,' Mom?" Marlene asked. When there was no answer, she continued, "Mom, that really is Pops. He's just tired, and you really should let him know where you are. He worries when he can't find you." It's you who's lost, Mom, she thought. Come back, Mom, please. "Let's go upstairs and make Pop some breakfast."