Page 9 of The Vow

“It was before I met your father. Mangia. Eat. Before it gets cold.”

“What about you?”

“I had a big lunch. Oh... I forgot the bread.”

“I don’t need bread, ma.”

“You don’t need bread? Of course you need bread! To sop up the sauce.”

Ever since I can remember, there has been bread at every single meal. Not the stack of Wonder Bread that I’ve seen in American movies, but homemade, and without an option of butter. Butter is for baking; bread is for sopping up sauce. One day, I’ll have that embroidered on a pillow.

“Why aren’t you eating?” ma asked while joining me at the Formica.

Growing up, every kid in our neighborhood knew that if you didn’t eat, you weren’t allowed to go outside and play. It wasn’t surprising that during a game of Hide-and-Seek, you could hear retching sounds coming from various darkened street corners. I remember the time that Bambina Pucci emerged with half-chewed gnocchi in her long locks. She had vomited in her hair and from that day forward, the kids teased her relentlessly and nicknamed her “Miss Potato Head” after the famous toy.

“I am eating.”

“You eat like a girl.”

“You know that I’m training. I can’t train when I feel sluggish. Besides, I have to keep my weight below one-hundred-and-sixty if I want to retain middleweight status.”

“Kilograms?”

“Pounds, ma.”

“Oh. Chiseler was a... what do you call it? Heavyweight.”

“Chiseler? What was his real name?”

“Charlie. Charlie the Chiseler. They called him that because he could mess up a guy’s face in the first round. Chisel it into something else.”

I tried to find a look of nostalgia or regret in my mother’s eyes, but there was only fatigue, and something resembling loneliness.

“Can I ask you something, ma?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“What happened with Charlie?”

“Dick was too small.”

It began with a smirk, and then a chuckle. When my mother’s merriment morphed into a full-blown laugh, I knew she was teasing me. Ma rarely drinks and when she does, it’s red wine, but I’ve only ever heard her tell bawdy jokes when she’s had too much vino. It was comforting to know she was at peace with her life. When laughter dies in a person’s throat, the heart is next.

“He moved to Spain,” she said, turning serious. “But we had different goals in life, so it didn’t hurt too much. Besides, it wasn’t written in the stars.”

I pierced a potato wedge and ate it in one bite. The crispy outside gave way to a fluffy middle and I could hear Cable screaming at me from across town.

“What do you mean?”

“When you know,” she said, standing, and clearing my half-eaten dishes, “you know. And something inside of you tells you that someone up there already mapped out your love life. I was meant to be with your father.”

I was waiting for a sign from pop. I thought the lights might flicker, or that I’d get a whiff of his aftershave, Aqua Velva, but there was nothing. “Do you really believe that?”

“What? That I was meant to be with your father? Yes, I do.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we’re only meant to be with one person? What if you never meet them? What if you never cross paths?”

“Faith,” ma said. To illustrate her point, she grasped the gold Virgin Mary medallion that she’s always worn. Even at the beach, that religious relic has graced my mother’s neck. One night while we were watching a rerun of “Bewitched”, she told me that she wanted to be buried with it so that no one else could get their “greedy little hands” on it. She even made me clutch the Madonna and swear to God.