Author's Note: as with the previous Chapters I continue to delve in detail into Marie and Patrick's past and hint of their future to put their Romance and deep feeling for each other into perspective. Some won't like the story for its lack of constant vicarious sex. While others will like it for the balance of both in keeping with the Romance that it is.
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MARIE:
IT'S A SMALL MIRACLE; despite the telephone call in the kitchen when Patrick had Dad banging his telephone on the table; my blue knight received from my father what my ex husband couldn't in our 16 years of marriage...Dad's respect.
Actually three small miracles occurred; two on the first day of our visit and the 3rd during lunch the next. My father hugged him and thanked him for bringing me home to them. Dad kissed Patrick's cheek catching Patrick completely by surprise. My love's eyes got big like when I kissed him in Macy's in front of the clerk and I stuck my tongue in his mouth. My blue knight glanced in my direction and I smiled and nodded to assure him it's my father's way so get used to it from now on.
Dad stepped back with his hands on Patrick's shoulders looking him directly in the eyes. This is Dad's way of apologizing, a rare occurrence under any circumstances and asked "Do you still demand an accounting from me, Son?"
"No, Sir, that field is plowed under," and he hugged Dad briefly slapping his back...minus kissing Dad on the cheek of course...that first happened on the day our twins were born and that was the first time I saw Patrick cry...and Dad was crying along with him as they hugged Sam who was standing between them twisting his ball cap in his hands "happier than a Blue Jay in a field of sunflowers" one of his many quaint expressions and just as thrilled, Sam barely managing not to cry now that he was a grandfather; the dear sweet man that he is.
I mentioned a third small miracle...an astonishing sharing of tradition with an outsider to the family; the men in the Bernardino family, especially my Dad's two brothers now living in Connecticut, cling tightly to the tradition of who receives a heel from the bread. It is a serious matter with them. At family gathering there are enough loaves of crusty Italian bread for each to have their accorded heel. Nonetheless, regardless of who is hosting the get together; the first heel from the first loaf cut always goes to Dad; it's our Tradition that goes way back in our family.
My Nonno Aldo, Dad's father took both heels from the bread when he was alive. Bread is sliced by the oldest male at the table and the basket is passed around after we say grace. Dad is the eldest son and after Nonno died, Dad sliced the bread and had his choice of heels.
He dropped out of school at 17 and worked two jobs to take care of his mother and his younger brothers; Vincent 13 and Rico 15. They found part-time jobs after school to help out. There was no way the Bernardino brothers will allow their mother to clean houses for other people to support the family. Dad wisely gave Uncle Rico a heel to keep peace and harmony among his brothers and in turn Rico gave Vincent half of his.
Dad and Patrick were sitting next to each other at the kitchen table. There was a large antipasto platter and fruit on the table. Mom and I were sitting beside our men. Dad sliced off the heels from the bread and put them on Patrick's plate...the first seed of the plowed field and Patrick gave one back to Dad, nodding in acknowledgement. My father's gesture of respect was solemnly accepted and returned and both Mom and I wiped a tear from our eyes.
I first shared the story of the tradition of bread with my Blue Knight while we were sitting at the farm on the porch swing wrapped in a quilt. It was a wonderful starlit night and we were listening to the crickets. Over our antipasto salad, Patrick told my parents how his father always received the liver, gizzard, heart and neck from the turkey or chicken served at a meal regardless of the bounty before them.
His Dad did it to remember the hard times. Patrick's father joked that he was so poor while growing up when the Great Depression came he thought it was an improvement. Patrick described how during the Depression his grandfather and father raised chickens to be canned for their own consumption and nothing went to waste; including the feet from which his mother made a flavorful broth for chicken soup and they were thankful to get it. He joked it took 24 chicken feet to make a cup of broth, however, that one cup kept him on his feet all day long.
Patrick described when he was growing up how they rarely purchased beef being Dairy Farmers. Eventually a cow aged to the point where it stopped producing enough milk to become a source of beef, however tough, to be canned by his mother or traded off for a spring lamb or a hog to be butchered.
Granted, both Patrick and his Dad had a roof over their heads and enough to eat while growing up. It is the little things and luxuries that I've always taken for granted while growing up such as a new this or that. At times Patrick had to settle for used or hand-me-downs. I went regularly to a beauty parlor with my Mom and my Dad to a barber.
Patrick's Mom cut his hair and his father's hair and she used her skills as a seamstress to put aside a small portion the money she earned to go to a beautician; her one luxury in life. I've seen photos of his mother and she was a strikingly beautiful woman. They had so much; and they had so little; and they had what money can't buy: it put into perspective the first time I brought him a cup of coffee, something that pleased him so much; and after, we sat on the front porch swing wrapped in a quilt listening to the crickets and watching the fireflies.
My Dad needled Patrick about not having indoor plumbing on the farm and they didn't until 1965. Electricity in the farm house came a mere 10 years earlier and only after they did the barns first.
Patrick's father was also a staunch optimist and great admirer of Will Rogers. He quoted him in part saying "We farmers have to be optimists or we wouldn't still be farmers." After lunch, Dad and Patrick went to Dad's social club to play Bocce.
DOMANIC BERNARDINO:
IF MARY HADN"T INTERCEEDED I would've cried uncle or received a sore or sprained hand for my stubbornness. While I was in the bathroom washing my face and changing my shirt, I was contemplating 'Here is a man who possibly might be good enough for my daughter despite the motorcycle. Patrick was holding back out of respect for an older man.' He has a sense of humor and apparently he can dish it out as well as take it but who ever heard of a Marine with a Purple Heart who doesn't curse or swear at all. Joe did some checking on him. He assured me Patrick is a good and decent man. He assured me Marie is in safe hands and given my daughter's temper and sometimes saucy mouth, Patrick will be a good match for her.
I can accept Patrick marrying her if that's what Marie wants. I've noticed the way he looks at my daughter and she him. I'll ride on a motorcycle to hell and back if they give me grandchildren and not care where they live.
It's six blocks to my Social Club and we decided to walk. We stopped at a small Market owned by a friend of mine. I wanted to get a fresh can of talcum powder to get a good grip on the ball. As we were leaving two young men entered who I will refer to as rabbits as you shall soon understand why. They were wearing ridiculously expensive sneakers, hoodies and baggy carpenter jeans and the fools underpants were showing.
One went to the back of the store and the other to the checkout counter. It is said New Yorkers are cold and unfriendly and never get involved and that is a load of crap; not this New Yorker; although crappers are an integral part of my livelihood...a little plumber humor here...I digress; this is my neighborhood and they have no business here causing trouble or worse.
I looked at Patrick and we were thinking the same thing; that confident half smile he returned was all I needed to know...game on...they cast the pallino and we went back into the store to finish their game.
The black rabbit at the counter pulled out a large Gurkha Kukri knife, almost a short sword that was hidden under his sweatshirt and began violently slashing and chopping the items on the counter near the cash register demanding all the money. I knew Patrick had a large bowie knife concealed under his jacket and wondered if there was going to be knife play. Joe told me Patrick was an amateur fencer.
I glanced to my future son-in-law and he was nowhere to be seen...mere seconds later a heavy metal display rack full of snack pastries came screeching across the floor like a speeding freight train full of Twinkies, Zingers and Ding-Dongs with Patrick as the caboose...talk about a sugar rush.
Not to be left out I jumped aboard too ride the rails and pushing together we slammed the "fruit of the loom" underpants showing against the counter and pushed the rack over the top of him as he slashed ineffectually with the Kukri knife before we pinned him to the floor.
So much for his big knife when I stomped on his hand to make him let go of it and I kicked it away. Sal came from around the counter and sat on the rack to weigh it down...good idea! Yes, he struggled to escape; cursing and threatening to kill us if we didn't let him up...easily solved...I banged the black rabbits head on the floor until he stopped squealing and lay still and behaved.
With him out of the game it was three good guys to one bad guy. Patrick went to the back to flush the other one out...how did he describe it to my friends at the St. Nicolas Social Club over drinks? Oh yes, "like a beagle flushing a coney out of a thorn patch". The mangy rabbit came running down the dry goods isle holding onto his baggy pants to keep from tripping on them with Patrick close behind snapping at his heels.
