And the questions start coming—did she call?

The sun moving through the garden at the end of day cast shadows of leaves against the laundry room door, the painting of the ballerinas above the entrance commode, on the drooling Great Dane’s face, and the sunflower painting in the living room.

In the winter, bare yet green, the citruses at their peak, what a paradise to come back to. A garden outside the glass framing it as if it were the true masterpiece. It was the end of an era for me, bells ringing. Christmas lights pulsed around the tree. You think you know what the story is, but it can travel so far from its origins that you don’t even know what it is anymore or what it was ever.

Legend goes that Parthenope, the siren that tried to lure Odysseus, washed ashore. The commune named after her led by GIGGINO, somehow, as he has been present for all of Neapolitan history, vowed to rise a city of music, which they did, they became Naples. This is their origin story, so old it’s mythological. She’s a university, not a killer here. These people gave gifts to this creature for her song, in no imminent danger. She also invented a ricotta cake. You can get the story wrong. There are so many stories here, it’s funny. But they are the siren people, you understand, at the same time— as in — to them, this is just music maybe at times experimental. To Odysseus, he has to tie himself to a mast for she can break a man with just her voice. Also. Once you dig into it, it’s an interesting story. So many angles. Which one do you take? I had this problem. Some Neapolitans still call themselves Parthenopeans. The siren people.

Formula One on TV, a race car headed too fast around the curve, I had just flown through space making sharp turns around reactions, projections, expectations, and even normalcy without the ability to see, not wanting to hurt anyone, wanting to trust them but not being able to, understandably, to come to a complete halt. A race car crashing into a wall. Nervous. Adrenaline. I don’t know that. I’m charged. I don’t know that. The idea that they affected me, blank. I was in the “I said too much” space now, and I hardly even began, but I also opened up invisible cages and channeled La Brasiliane to be believed. A race car catching flame. Some people care, some people don’t. That’s what family was from day one. Up in smoke.

The front door opened. People were coming back. Time to switch back to normal life. A party. The Brazilian family understood. No matter what was happening, when the beat dropped, it was time to dance. I clapped like she did. What’s another story to Naples? When you’re from a volcano and you’ve been conquered since the time of Odysseus? That’s why they acted like that, right? They’ve been through many traumatic experiences as a people? Were those wires even sensical? Was there sense? People said that I didn’t always make sense. But was there sense? Let me go back to a party now. But then, the Brazilian house was like a dance party 24/7. Joy was the note. Thinking about it.

I “did this,” looking at myself ten years later, saying “haha” to them, pointing to the garden, you cannot loiter here, what a paradise. I turned to them with a smile, my mother’s — Joy. She had a real dazzler. I’m just admiring the garden, to them, needing conversation. “I did this to figure out why my story never ended…” staring out the window. Giggino had found me on Facebook. “Come for Christmas.” I had to think about it. I knew the questions were coming as to what happened to me. I hadn’t seen them in fifteen years.

Giggino is Diodora’s husband, her sister is Assunta. The two sisters from Sant’Anastasia are my second cousins on my father’s side. Vico is Assunta’s husband also named Giggino, so I call him Vico due to where he lives and his personality. Already, the thing that made my story confusing? Lots of people. We’ll start with the parents. I happen to be the same age as their children — fit right in the line-up as I first came to Naples when I was nine, ten years old after these four years — but my father was their parents’ generation, I think, he was born in 1926. I was born in 1985. He was sixty when I was born. Joy, my mother, in 1944, she was forty-two.

I had a lot to work out, in taking my “noble” pursuit to face “this story” in this way. That included the comments of others, some strange logic and takes that others had, and even some bad therapy, even the therapy I did not ask for? I would “go through the story one more time…” I decided with a group of people who aren’t going to get it, but they are going to act like they do. I couldn’t admit that I felt that way, none of that, because “I don’t know” was my basic approach. I did not want to project onto anybody. This was, in a sense, more or less my experience though. I also didn’t make sense in English, the difference between a stranger and a familiar also skewed. This was a goddamn mess. And no, it was not “funny.” Had to correct that one. Sometimes, you just gotta state it for what it is. Joy, my mother, that woman was a challenge, a true challenge, unfortunately. I can say that lineage and family are a real thing, Joy most definitely came from a family, she’s, uh, a bit too off the wall and she said a bit too much about her family beating her when she was two, etc., to not look over at them, “excuse me is there a child molester in your home, was my mother raped?” She accused my father of being a child molester, let’s just get it out of the way, which is why I lived in this house for four years. With a bat, I’m going into her family’s house, “where’s the child molester?” I’ll break something, you see, I’m going straight for the child molester. NAPLES is behind me, throwing me the bat, you see, maybe two, giving me “performance props” when I twirl them around, looking crazy. Applause. In the middle of a revolt or a crowd attack. These are not a people who aren’t not getting involved. Everybody hates a child molester, this is the lowest of the low. As La Brasiliane said, “who gives a shit about a child molester?” So we talked about this situation for years. The IDEA that this didn’t HAPPEN, if someone were to say that to me today, I would blow them to the next county. That took another ten years. So, next step, “Maria, can you talk to these people about this?” In a language I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m such a different person now. I finally worked this out though that was a tough road. But there I was—a bright bulb — positive — I just happened to come from this background, and they pushed every button. I don’t know that, I don’t know that you can hurt me, get to me, offend me. That you can cross a LINE. “How did that make you feel?” That was a journey. The easiest response is— just get angry. But I couldn’t do that.

A feast is long. We were nowhere near the end of the meal, dessert boxes popping open, plastic crinkling to Diodora’s “ah ah, hm hm.” Giggino bumbled about around like a fairy godfather. I could see him in Sleeping Beauty fixing up her dress. He is the GATOR as in an alligator is his spirit animal, so he can look at you from his eye on the side, chomp off all endings of Italian words, smile, surly, tight, real tight too. He’s maternal as a creature, funny enough, as alligators symbolize. He would be the one to come after me about all this. He’s the “normal man” in the “magical universe,” he exists there, but he’s crossing his arms as “the chief” or the “captain” while his middle son, Carmine, attends Hogwarts as the Neapolitan exchange student. Everyone at Hogwarts knows who the Neapolitans are, “the siren people.” It’s funny because Naples is an enchanted land, so it absolutely exists in these sorts of worlds. Cristina’s fun assistant arrived with a diamond earring—boom. Just a thrilling cast of characters. That was my family story as well. He brought a panettone from iMargliano with chestnuts and chocolates. “What are you a princess or something?” “Who can kick your ass,” I said. I had to laugh because I was so tiny, but I had issues with it. I was pretty fit at the time. Joy had that kind of look: fairytale. HEY HEY Maria! Celebration. Yeah. Life goes on. Pasquale posed upon entry with liquor and cakes. “Marrria?” The way they roll their r’s can take the feet out from under you. So I tended to hop.

Their family portrait was on the wall—it pleased me to see it again. That, and the sculpture of the drooling black and white Great Dane. I had to laugh at Vico, his eyes sparkling unbelievably bright with pride, a siren coming forward from his heart in a state of suspension as he’s, funny enough, the family siren. Only their children are looking into the camera. The oldest, Gennaro, I had recognized as a Hades, to be frank with you when I was nine. “Huh.” His green eyes cracking through the muted filter. I saw it in his spaced-out look: a twinkle. Cristina, the sole brunette in flannel, came over her father’s shoulder born on the very same day as baby Rosa eleven years apart. She reminded me of a Demeter, earthy. Rosa was tucked into Assunta’s soft cheek, sleepy. Rosa is a mythic name in Naples, you understand, so she was just Rosa. Eternal. She inherited her father’s sharp features and her mother’s sensual curves, her LIPS the stance. Green eyes like Gennaro. You know that picture of Sophia Loren, as Rosa has a bit of that type of face, judging that unbelievably plunging cleavage? Rosa has a little of that potential within her. Cristina is the mascot, the coach, crying CAFE! Always cafe with their grandmother’s — an heirloom — silver tray. There are pieces of her in both the sister’s houses though it’s discrete. I take in my surroundings. We’re not quite at cafe yet, as a feast in Naples has rounds, but as people were coming back on this day, for whatever reason, the cafe is being made — stat. She’s clapping us along, keeping the energy UP, singing too, she can become the choral leader. Boisterous. She reminded me a bit of the fourth child in the Brazilian household as if I came from the goddamn Sound of Music, this Brazilian woman had SIX children on top of it. Kind. The sole brunette.

Shit, I thought, I didn’t — I forgot myself, headed to the kitchen. I’m not helping. To stop, change thought. Vico even said it: “brutal and beautiful,” that’s how Naples is described, so there was nothing to hold back about, he said. But what did they know, in their house, really? Nothing to hold back about? But I have no time to think here — boom — Naples — GIGGINO SEES MY HESITATION — what’s happening? He’s not happy with my story. I don’t totally get it. EH MARIA EH — look here, there, CAKES. BABA. LOOK MARIA LOOK. EAT. Giggino shook his head at me as I passed, Vico getting set up at the dinner table as the family dealer. YOU SEE? She doesn’t EAT. DAMMIT. EAT. You’re SKINNY, you see? Giggino is the Mama, in this case. The GATOR. His concern over to Diodora, something must be done. She’s just…whatever. I’m making boxing gloves at him, we have an audience, by default, “I do sport.” He judged me. ME, bright, cute, “strong, rapid,” slapping my muscles with an air of “sparkles” around me. Giggino could literally speaking see SPARKLES around me as if I walked out of a fairytale. “You see the sparkles?” Diodora, adjusting her glasses, intellect, she chimed, "si si,” the most superb nasal cavity you have ever heard. Her “si si” can sear cutlets, “un po magical,” she said, no inflection, flat tone, she sees the sparkles too. “Marrria?” She rings a clear strong tone that splits the seas of voices easily — receiving it, knocked off my feet, to the side, you got the message. Where are you going? And they are clocking my physical persona at the same time. They like that. I must, big gestures, as I am in a theater, get to the kitchen. As a character I would put Diodora in an Italian Jetsons, the cartoon, because she’s fit, dry, that’s her quality, her element is wood. So she’s got a gaiety to her, a trickster also. This is how I see people. In a spaceship, hovering above me, almost an The Invisibles character, “Maria?” It shakes the town. I would also insert her character in a mafia flick because she’s conservative, reserved, withheld, not emotional like her husband the GATOR is. So at the head of a mafia family, her character would be quite good in the kitchen, also cruel. She holds her fists as if they were turtledoves, she collects glass menagerie. Adjusting her glasses, she’s “Justice,” that’s what I dubbed her, in the tarot deck, since they like that sort of thing here. That’s her archetype. A woman who sits on a throne.

Stream wafting from the dishwasher, desserts splayed across every surface, pots and pans too, Cristina and Rosa were cleaning up with Assunta, their mother. Now, when I stepped foot onto her property, Vico the siren launching the first line of my name song — SENTO, FEEL — I felt her. “An empath?” It was so specific. She drew out a very particular thread, a deep one, as she’s fair, her temperament in humid, not dry. But she didn’t run to hug me like Diodora did, she kept her distance. Things just happen for her, so she generally doesn’t have to look at you, or she might not even know where you are, you’ll just appear there when she calls you. Aloof. She’s High Priestess, that’s her archetype in the tarot deck. Also she sits on a throne. A queen does not. Vico, the story goes, was on his way out of high school as Assunta was on her way in. They passed each other in the hallway. He took one look with his sparkling blues at her dark dark eyes as the deep sea innocent to their pressure and it was over. It was love at first sight. He protested against her whole family, many times, revolted. They insisted that they wait until she was older. She took off with the budding general practitioner once she graduated. Watching Vico shuffling at the dining table from the kitchen table covered in trays of cookies, liquor bottles going down. THREE, he flashed me THREE fingers, for THREE babies. And we could erupt, bravo. Into song too. YAH! THREE. Her pout is unstoppable, she’s utterly adorable with her cute haircut that she tucks behind her ears. A bit proper, a receiver. Rugged, though, she can diffuse in the chaos as if she becomes little beads, her energy, she’s a feeler. She feels her way through the world. The way she puts down “just a another plate of fruit,” turning it, cutely, her pout, is hilarious. It was the first thing that my father told me about, her cooking. The smells unfold like a story luring you in to find her. Joy, my mother, was a beauty, wondering why I was thinking about it, but it pained me to say it. Why was I thinking this? You see. I would evaluate ‘the empath” apparition as it just came to my head, and I don’t use this word, but I was stirred somewhere that I just did not know.

Rosa disagreed in full, bullish shades taking bottles of chilled liquor out of the refrigerator. Opinionated, Rosa. Studying to be a nutritionist. Shadowing her father. At the time, she was trying to introduce “healthier options” that her mother didn’t know what to do with, and the way she said, “almond milk,” Assunta, so funny, cute, blinking at me, “si,” the nuts in glass jars are along the back wall. Rosa is telling you, exactly, as a hero, what she thinks, what she knows in generous, sort of Jersey or Statin Island, in her color, as she’s a colorful person, big, someone who wears chunky jewelry, but she is from, I believe, a “good family,” type of deal, fashionable. She is. I would put her in Venice, she would bring more personality to that sidewalk — in her white t and levis, since she does that too. She could have her own reality show. Rosa— that’s it. In her fiat. Plays tennis. Her innocent gaze is truly funny especially when she speaks English badly almost as badly as I speak Italian, which I pump up, I’m doing that purposefully, because, quite frankly, I do not give a shit, I do not have that pride. I got inebriated by not speaking the language, this made me BOLDER. In my universe, this is comedic gold in her case. An actor would agree. In a sense, a model would play her with LIPS. She’s gotta be curvy, sensual in her figure, but she’s — the one — if you tell ROSA that a baby is being raped, as my mother did, NOH, she’s taking the BABY — to the doctor immediately. NOH. In the FIAT. NOH. And she’s making you laugh, somehow, along the way, snapping at someone. Has psychology books on her shelf. A nerdy laugh. She’s “my hero,” she’s rising a hero this Christmas, I say it every year. No one can survive Christmas, Carmine wagged his finger, seriously, “this is not the point.” But ROSA — she’s never gone down, everyone has, does, not ROSA. She’s UP. She inherited the cooking gift, so she’s also in pearls and an apron of roses, helping her mother. Dutiful. She calls me “tresoro,” as in treasure. Her girlie sides are fun, scrunching her nose. Her bullish sides are better. Her sassy sides are screen-worthy, drinking her wine at a wedding with slicked back hair. NOH, NOH, the way she says NOH. “Not possible.” Lips the stance. This side, the Sorrento Coast, are the partiers, in a sense, they live in a garden, Vico is always with glass bottles of WINE.

Cristina has a frown line to end your fatigue as a wedding planner on the Amalfi Coast. They are close, as sisters. Her phone was ready— always calling Gennaro. “The BABIES, Maria,” Cristina melted. Very warm, attractive, though she might not totally get that. With her cool rings on her fingers. I’ll give her her space. Big faces. I did the obligatory, babies are cute, in French, adorable, I cracked up. Vico said “OBI LAN.” Stepping forward, so enthused to hear ancient language, “yes!” I needed this. “NOH,” Rosa held two bottles of liquor in her hands, “no ancient language,” whining, “please.” So I became — with a fist — even brighter, I’m Vico’s backup. GIGGINO flashed me a suspicious look. I practiced the phrase, acting normal even impressed because the feast continued; it didn’t wind down. They didn’t exactly respond well to American politeness.

“Can I help?”

They didn’t want my help. It destabilized me. Could I trust what people told me? I was in this space now. Would I find out later that I did something wrong? Great, just be civil, warm, cheery. I tended to freeze, I think. I had to laugh.

Dessert and liquor hour came with storytelling and gambling games for children. The dining table got freshened up with clementines. Little fingers peeling. A neat beside him, Vico was low, his eyes twinkling, telling mythological tales. A crowd had gathered round, somehow, smiling and provoking him as people came over to watch Vico be Vico, a true performer. Showtime. He showed the children a bill. Made sure it appeared real to them. He tossed it in a pile of euros. He shuffled the cards with skill—the family dealer. Of course. A siren. I studied Vico, I really did. I could write a dissertation about sirens based on this person with his mesmerizing blue eyes. They are a magic trick, the sparkles. He’s a retired doctor, a farmer, first, a man who’s already bursting into song at the table, looking at me. “Down from the mountain,” shuffling. He only called me by song, you see, not by name, as a child.

Mythology comes from the soil, music does, too, as his character embodies. The siren. There he is. He can seize you, most definitely, with his voice and body. Carmine, in the crowd, with his longer fingernails on his playing hand would say, “it comes from nature,” cooly. Music. This is their nature. This is a food, to them. If you suggest otherwise, they will not understand you, the whole crowd will back someone up, throw you out, music is really a food to them. We’re singing, we’re always singing, especially when we gather in groups, they become a true Greek chorus, instinctually. It’s even astounding because they ACT and behave as one as well as one body. They speak all at once as if they were the only ones speaking yet they are supporting one another as a theatrical ensemble. It’s genius.

Carmine is the funniest, adjusting his glasses, because he usually hangs there, he’s not going to become an opera for you. He is matter-of-fact and poetic, the master of the “not acting” technique. A guitarist. Long fingernails on his playing hand, which he keeps discrete. He looks the most like Diodora with his dark olive skin and dark eyes. Assunta is fair. He has owl eyes, hilariously, that shift from side to side. That’s his spirit animal. He’s from the Harry Potter universe. As a boy, he attended, with his round glasses and cheeks, looking at the food they serve with his owl eyes in the mess hall, trying to get Harry on board. “If we cannot,” eyes shifting but only his eyes, “say his name, then we should prepare and then say his name so he shows up when we want him to.” He would stand there, looking at “V,” and Carmine knows, with cheeks, that all he has to do is channel the siren, and “V” will be in the throes. That’s the best way to describe him. With his magical guitar. His fingernails long already. “Peter Park,” as in Parker, is what his father barks at him. “Spiderman,” Diodora would drone, flat tone. Carmine has the same flat voice, no inflection. He’s a wizard of some kind, even to his family, standing there like he’s really a superhero with owl eyes, but he can’t say that. He always magically understood what I was saying to the bafflement of his family. We were a “tweet tweet” pair, his father always says, “TWEET TWEET” at us, “this is TWEET TWEET,” pinching his fingers together at US and making like two little birds sweetly chirping with fat fingers, as an GATOR, because we speak a language no one else understands. Twisting his torso, Giggino, suddenly authoritarian, a man of many personalities. He doesn’t like feeling left out, that’s really what this is about. They sent Carmine, adjusting his glasses, to pick me up at the airport, which made me remember that. We’re a duo.

GIGGINO— back in fairy Godfather mode— smiled at babes with their cards and cash. We were back on the subject, rubbing his fingers diagnostically, of ME, at the same time. So he was playing two things at once, which he can do. He’s a urologist. I had to…not laugh. I picked up on his head nod not looking at me. Naples is like that. We can switch back to a line of conversation.

“What?”

What did I do?

Giggino definitely had my number but not like that, not looking at me, rubbing his fingers diagnostically, which he does, when he’s assessing something. “Nervous,” I was nervous to him. “No.” He could see my nerves. Well, after all that, what would he expect? But they didn’t catch that, which confused me, though I wasn’t totally aware of it myself, so did I have a right to be? Wouldn’t I be nervous? I just flew through space. I got accused of lying. That took ten years.

The tricky part for me, is that, I’m programmed to anticipate the questions and comments as if a knee-jerk reaction. I hear them in my mind as I think and type. Would they say, as they didn’t know the details, to offer that up in their defense, as I’m built that way, “we didn’t…….” mean that? That’s what you said. Day one. I lied. Now, in normal relational contexts, that’s an argument, you did this, no, I didn’t, WELL, when YOU SAY, and we hopefully meet, understand one another. I had to learn that. Did they even understand that they accused me of lying about diseases and being given away to a Brazilian family? And that’s not even the topic sentence, the topic sentence is: she wrapped up a Brazilian mother in a protection scheme against my father when I was four because she accused him of child molestation, on the light end. That’s a mouthful. I saw Joy in everyone and everything. Do people mean what they say? Do they know, always, what they are saying? But of course, I’m diplomatic, conceding that disbelief is understandable, but I got it the second I opened my mouth before anyone really knew any details.

I suppose he was right, also, I was, he picked up on my nerves right away, but Naples is also charged, too, remember Odysseus, he had to tie himself to a mast. Lots of energy. Me — I love it. They are from a volcano. I don’t know what to say at this point because I would have left. They would have come after me, maybe, and this would have changed the course of the future. But that was the goal.

Jacopo, Rosa’s new boyfriend, walked into the house in a Christmas sweater.

“Merwee.” 

He drew his thumb across his cheek to ask me if everything went well. I understood that. I liked him immediately. I had met Jacopo back at “My Way” as we sang Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” upon my arrival, a Christmas institution, I learned. The siren people. They were a good match. I guess I was “cute,” Merwee. Jovial, youthful, just thinking about Joy.

Back to GIGGINO — rubbing his fingers together down low in half fairy godfather and half doctor mode, a gifted man, Giggino, can also become a toad. He handles sensitive content. It cracks me up, it does. Babies were learning economics through gambling, excuse me, I gestured. I had never seen this before. It was beautiful. Everything was “wow,” to me, he gave me a little twinkle of his alligator head at me, as I were cute, bright, but like, what’s up with that? Your WOW thing.

“This is bello..” I pointed to the gambling babes. Like I’m okay. I’m happy now. Vico gestured to a world behind him, showed them a card, came forward on his elbows to tell them the story of the card with his eyes in a thousand misty sparkles, now. Taking them back in time. Vico, though he is brute, a farmer, he has a childlike twinkle, wonder, too, which is fun, but he can act like that, but I can’t, but I guess I had to resolve the Joy problem. My cousins call me “Meri,” that’s my nickname that I had totally forgotten, it floored me, because they spoke to me as if they remembered me as a child, and fondly, so that shocked me.

My story wasn’t appropriate for children, and he would dismiss that. I was probably younger than these kids. I had no idea what he was assessing. What was his issue? The confusion I felt. Vico tossed some lines at me since I asked for them upfront. I flicked some ancient French in his direction. “Qu’est-ce-que tu baragouines.” Everyone wanted my attention — baba, cake, try shit. Vico looked at me.

I could feel Diodora coming behind my back…with Assunta. Here we go. I could predict the questions that were coming at this point though I tried to hold the perspective that I didn’t know — a problem — and there it was: “she didn’t call?”

“No,” I laughed. That question. Always. Not their fault. Before I said anything.

Why was I laughing?

Because I heard it so many times! I can’t say that though. “No,” I cracked up, sincerely, through their insistence that was like a knife that I had to refuse because they were basically rubbing it in, and then, I froze —was that anger? I didn’t know. Every time. EVERY time. “Why?” I dangled my head innocently, provocatively except you can’t see it, “why would she do that?” A dumbbell. “Why would she do that?” I don’t come from your world. But I had to take a step forward, had to. Maybe in defense. Maybe not wanting to be. I hadn’t gone here in a long time.

“La Brasiliane, si,”

Oh, their faces bewildered. Confused. I cracked up just remembering the ol’ doctor.  “Every day,” I turned my hand and continued to.

“She didn’t ask for you…”

I laughed, that question, always that question, I understand, a knee-jerk reaction, even. Innocently, once again, I asked, “why?” Looking at them. “Why?”Hard not to laugh. Making a lost face, “why?” Moving my hands around my ears. Why would she do that? Cracking up. We’re in the “unbelievable” space… this “unbelievable space.” Picking her up at the police station, you see, “night after night,” in my father’s words, was normal, not phone calls at women’s houses she disposed me in. How was I supposed to explain this? At a party. Not wanting to refuse them.

Giggino shook his head, and I got light.

“It was just like that.”

He looked at me. I smiled. That’s what I mean. How was I supposed to act?

“Where was your father?”

“Here, probablemente,” I said like Diodora.

“She was crazy…pathologia.”

I might have said, brightly, she was a genius, too. Cracking up, between an old and new framework of understanding, like why am I talking about her stupid genius? That’s ten years later, present time. The allure. A default response, her goddamn genius, oooohh, a woman genius, even, it’s unbelievable, hearing all this for the first time, cracking up. How many shades of laughter there were. I had to take a walk. Oh, the food, that’s why. Of course. Digestion. Ah. Social customs. Excuse me. Giggino eyed my “formal” presentation.

The glass reflected the scene in a blurry Caravaggio. The crowd was peppy in tight, dynamic poses twisting in space. The table turned inside out: children moved out, adults moved in. Suddenly, you’re older. And I was. I didn’t know them though they were family… people who thought that “family” meant safety. Strangers became family, family became stranger. Carmine’s head poked up like a submarine lens in my mind though he did not move. In his words, “don’t you see pictures in your head when people talk to you sometimes?” That’s a Carmine question. “Well, what else do you use your imagination for?” Also a response.

Rosa and Cristina walked by with trays of cookies in the shape of hearts. Mini-white chocolate cakes, in my FACE, ASSUNTA. The Great Dane drooling with its tongue sticking out over there, stationed in the corner, when she said something was good, to try it, I did. It was a smooth white chocolate grenache in between layers of white chocolate cake, the essence of, in perfect harmony. I couldn’t breathe. Surrounded by the whitest, sweetest cakes — Joy. La Brasiliane called her the “whitest woman she had ever seen,” and she meant it, literally, even complimented the tone, “unusual,” she practically glowed. A Grimm’s Fairytale. “Sickening sweet, yuck,” she gagged, stuck her finger in her mouth at me before I had all my teeth, but this was my mother, so. “Touching you,” she cringed, “spreading her sweetness,” she shivered, “all over you.” I had to laugh. I can hear the question, “seriously?” Yes. That’s my mother—Joy, couldn’t be real, that played a factor in all this because there was no way that this Brazilian woman could have seen this coming. She doesn’t fit into this scenario, an automatic, “wait what?” She was sweet. An underworld creature. The brightest thing in the universe. A genius. Whose real nickname is Dr. J. Which is what I call her. Dr. J.

Out the door, I fell over and laughed. Nettuno as in Neptune the puppy barked —HELLO! HELLO HELLO! I’m HERE! He broke the leash. Came flying for my face. The cutest shaggy black puppy with ears — that I’d ever seen. My story was just beginning to dawn on me, that it happened. That’s it. That’s all I had. Nettuno desperate to love me, unaware of himself, claws, FACE, he’s going for your face. I was supposedly a wild puppy, cute too, so when they yelled at him it stunned me a little. Rosa ran to hold Nettuno back. Barking, barking, barking, Nettuno needing her, unable to contain himself, he was the most enthusiastic puppy, a true star, Nettuno. And here came the women. “NE-TTU-NO NETTUNO!” Firing from inside. Women shuffling out from their corners in the warm glow of the house— a chorus, once again. A triplet. Somehow staged. Assunta’s pout, still cute. She was not pleased with Neptune, coming forward at the glass full of dramatic truth, as this little pink and grey house is practically made of glass to gaze upon the garden nestled in the cliffs on the Sorrento Coast. I loved this puppy and these people already. I don’t know, thinking about it, if that would make sense to everyone.

That first scene was so comedic, though, their responses were so funny, GIGGINO giving a baby to a person as if it were common, it was stupid, was hysterical. Joy was, La Brasiliane was, the situation I was in, even, had this quality to it. I didn’t want to disturb the peace suddenly self-conscious as I could switch states as fast as they could. Hesitating, foot. Rosa whined, NOH, bending in her knees, with the God of the SEA in a puppy totally unaware of what a leash is, that’s just some resistance, so I gotta push HARDER, so NETTUNO is pushing harder, excited, too excited. They had to get him a special leash. She needed me to be who I was, free, walk. “Meri please.”

GO, GO, she gave me the signal. So — I went, obviously, not running, to excite him further. There, WHERE? NETTUNO— where are you going?!! BARK BARK. I NEED TO COME TOO! PLEASE! “NETTUNO!” Now the women are outside. I’m wanting to apologize. They don’t care. Assunta is taking over, speaking to him as if he were a person with side conversations. They cheered inside. Bravo! Brav! And they took off in song, again.