iv

In all the years since the extended Fiorello family had moved to Lindenhurst, building four houses in a cul-de-sac, they had lunch together, except in the high summer, at one o'clock on Sundays, a meal that lasted through the afternoon. When they were drawing up the plans, Tony's mother had asked for a very large dining room. Now, with her husband, four sons, three daughters-in-law and eleven grandchildren, she prepared a meal each Sunday and set with elaborate care the long table that her son Mauro had made for her. Each week, one of the daughters-in-law would help her in the kitchen and then assist her in serving the food and cleaning the dishes later.

‘I like it best when it's you,' Francesca said to Eilis. ‘You are always calm whereas that Lena could go off in a temper at any moment. And you don't know about Italian cooking so you don't criticise me unlike that Clara who is always sniffing around and disapproving.'

Eilis was on the point of asking if she should be flattered, but she liked her time with Francesca and appreciated her mother-in-law's way of keeping everyone as happy as she could.

The Sunday lunches, however, were a strain. Eilis found that the plate of pasta filled her up so that she seldom had any appetite for the lamb or the fish that came afterwards. And she was no good at taking part in the noisy banter and cross-talk at the table. Even into Monday, the irritating sound of all the competing voices was still with her.

Francesca made strict rules for the children once they were old enough to join the table. They must sit quietly and they must display good manners at all times. Francesca's effort to impose discipline was done with much humour and kindness, but she was not joined in this by Lena and Clara, or even by Enzo and Mauro, who would shout at their children and threaten them. Since Tony and Eilis never spoke harshly to their children, Rosella and Larry enjoyed a special status at meals in their grandmother's house.

As the adults had their coffee, the children were free to leave the table. This part for Eilis was the worst. None of the family ever managed to finish a sentence without being interrupted by one of the others. It was pure babble.

One day, Eilis brought her camera to the lunch so she could take photographs to send to her mother. Each time she stood up to take a picture, the adults raised their glasses and smiled, and the children, too, posed for the camera, looking happy. When she had them developed, the photos showed a table laden down with dishes and bottles and plates and glasses; the family appeared festive, delighted to be together as though it were Christmas rather than an ordinary Sunday. Her mother had no grandchildren in Enniscorthy. Martin had no children. Pat and Jack had stayed in the Birmingham area and seldom came home. Her mother had met their wives and children only on a few occasions. Thus, a gathering like the Fiorellis' on Sundays was something her mother had never known. Eilis decided not to send these photographs to her. They would make her too sad.

At the meals, her father-in-law presided at the head of the table. If there was lamb, he performed the carving as a sacred duty. He arranged on each Sunday for one of his sons to sit on his right-hand side. He would slowly turn the conversation towards what happened to his mother on Ellis Island when she came to America from Italy.

Eilis remembered Tony telling her the story soon after they married.

‘They sent his mother back. There was something wrong with her eyes. She was in quarantine first, but then they put her back on a ship to Naples. My father tells it like it happened yesterday. The same story.'

‘And how long did she go back for?'

‘She didn't make a second journey. She stayed in Italy.'

‘So he never saw her again.'

‘Every Christmas she would go into some town and have her photograph taken. She would send a photograph. Enzo says if he has to hear about it all one more time he will go into quarantine himself. It used to make Mauro cry, but now he says he doesn't listen, he just nods his head.'

‘What do you do?'

‘I listen. If I didn't, I'm sure he would notice.'

—

When, a few years earlier, the television had been showing news of student marches and sit-ins against the war in Vietnam, Eilis's father-in-law had denounced the protestors and said that the police had been too lenient with them.

‘But aren't they very brave, the protestors?' Eilis asked.

‘I would like to see them all in uniform,' her father-in-law said.

‘I would hate a son of mine having to go to war,' Eilis said, ‘so I think they are protesting for me.'

By this time, most of the children had gone out to play. Tony put his head down. Enzo made signs to Eilis that she should stop.

‘I can't think of anything that would make me more proud,' her father-in-law said.

‘To have a son or a grandson in the war?' she asked, looking at Frank whom she had heard denouncing the war many times.

‘Fighting for his country. That's what I said. It would make me proud.'

Eilis hoped that someone else would speak. For a second, she thought it best to say nothing more, but then she felt a flash of anger at Tony and Frank for not supporting her.

‘That is not an opinion many people would share,' she said.

‘Do you mean Irish people?' her father-in-law asked.

‘I mean Americans.'

‘What do you know about Americans?'

‘I am as American as you are. My children are Americans. And I would not want my son to be sent to fight in Vietnam.'

She looked directly at her father-in-law, forcing him to avert his eyes.

Enzo interrupted first by making a sound under his breath that rose into ‘Whoa' and then became louder. He pointed at Eilis.

‘Keep quiet, you!'

Everyone watched Eilis except Tony and Frank who kept their heads down.

Francesca, eventually, stood up.

‘I think it's a day for grappa,' she said. ‘We will all have a little something with our coffee. Now can someone help me get the glasses?'

Even though it was her turn to help, Eilis did not move. Both Lena and Clara seemed relieved to be able to stand up from the table.

‘Can you not control her?' Enzo asked Tony, as though she wasn't there.

‘Enzo, don't start,' Mauro said.

Frank stacked plates so they could be taken to the kitchen.

On the walk back to their house, with Rosella and Larry coming behind them, Eilis felt almost sorry for Tony. Clearly, he should have supported her at the table, or moved the conversation to some other topic. But he could not go against his father.

—

A few days after the argument, when she was alone in the house, her mother-in-law arrived with an apple pie. At first, they had discussed Rosella and Larry, Francesca praising both for their exemplary good manners. Then Francesca spoke about the Sunday lunches.

‘It was my dream that we would all do different things during the week and then we would come together on Sunday. And the children would be at the table and get used to sitting quietly and that nothing said at the table would be unfit for children's ears.'

Eilis wondered if she was going to be asked to apologise. She was preparing to use the same sweet tone as her mother-in-law and say that she had enjoyed the lunch immensely and did not regret a single word she or anyone else had said.

‘I often worry about you,' Francesca went on. ‘I often think you get homesick at our big gatherings with all the Italian food and all the Italians talking. It often strikes me that you might sometimes dread the lunches. I know how I would feel if everyone was Irish.'

Eilis was not sure where this was leading.

‘And you are so polite and you fit in so well that I often wonder what is really going on in your mind. I don't mean anything bad is going on in your mind! I mean that you have thoughts of your own in a way that Lena and Clara don't. I often believed that someone like you would marry Frank, he is so educated, but you married Tony and the children are a credit to you. All four of you are wonderful. Life is full of surprises.'

Eilis wished the phone would ring or someone would come to the door.

‘Do you know what I mean?' Francesca asked.

Eilis nodded and smiled.

‘It struck me that you would be much happier if you didn't have to suffer through those long Sunday lunches.'

Eilis pretended that she had not heard. She wanted Francesca to spell out what she meant.

‘It struck me that you would love a break from us. And, of course, Tony would still come, his brothers would miss him too much, and Rosella and Larry too.'

Eilis was ready to ask if Francesca thought that no one would miss her. Instead, she asked, ‘Have you spoken to Tony?'

‘No, but I will.'

‘And what will you say?'

‘I will say that I have been thinking about our Sunday lunches and wondering if it is not all too much for Eilis.'

‘Too much for me?'

‘Too boring, too loud, too many people talking at the same time.'

Francesca appeared to swallow hard as though saying all this had been an ordeal. If she accepted the suggestion that she no longer come to the lunch, Eilis wanted it to be clear to everyone, especially Tony, that the proposal had come from Francesca and not from her.

‘I would not like anyone to think that I did not enjoy their company,' she said.

‘But we see you all the time!'

‘Tony would be hurt if I didn't come with him.'

‘I will assure him that it was my idea.'

‘Well, it certainly wasn't mine.'

‘I would not like to have an argument with you,' Francesca said. ‘You would always win.'

‘I am not arguing with you.'

‘I know that. And, of course, if you really did want to come for lunch on Sundays, I could make sure that you enjoyed yourself as much as everyone else does.'

—

Eilis began by ordering the Sunday edition of the New York Times to be delivered. Up till then, she'd had to wait until Frank had finished with his copy and hope that he remembered to bring it.

All the family went to ten o'clock mass, often sitting in different parts of the church but waiting until Mr Fiorello and Francesca appeared in the line for communion before any other member of the family joined it.

Just as Tony's parents wore their best clothes and Lena and Clara treated the ceremony as a fashion show, Enzo and Mauro wore suits and ties and their good shoes. Eilis saw no need for Tony to wear a tie, and did not dress up herself, using a simple mantilla rather than a hat and not wearing high heels.

Eilis loved it when the time approached for the others to go to Sunday lunch and leave her to read the paper, listen to the radio and idle in the house. Once it was established that she no longer attended, no one questioned her about it except Rosella who believed she had been banished for arguing with her father-in-law and thought it unfair.

‘When you get to my age,' Eilis said to her, ‘you love time on your own.'

‘But I feel there's an empty chair at the table,' Rosella said. ‘And all you said was that you don't want Larry to have to fight in a war.'

‘I love my Sundays,' Eilis said, ‘so I am not complaining.'