Advice for Italian Boys by Anne Giardini Page B

love you? ” Nicolo asked. He wasn’t sure where the question had come from, but, after all, wasn’t love supposed to go with marriage? He turned to look at Enzo. This conversation wasn’t one he had expected or planned for.
    “She says she does,” said Enzo, who was staring at his cup. “But she doesn’t, not really. I am the kind of person she wanted for a husband. That’s all. She wanted to get married young, like her mother did, and her sisters. Eat what you kill. That’s the Bonfiglio motto. The girls all figure it worked for their mother and it’ll work for them too. Mima wants to have lots of children. She wants a big house. She wants to cook. She doesn’t want to have to get a job or work. I fit into this picture she has of how things are supposed to be, and I’m going to be the one who supports it. Do you think I really wanted to quit university and sell car phones for a living?”
    “Are you going to be okay?” Nicolo asked again. He felt an intense need for the story of his brother to make sense, forhis brother to love Mima, for Mima to love his brother, for their child not to be born because of random grapplings and guile but because he or she was destined to be born, of these two parents, at this time, in this place.
    “What would you do if I said no?” Enzo asked. Obstinacy had been one of his traits since early childhood.
    Nicolo considered. “I guess I wouldn’t know what to say,” he answered honestly. “I don’t know what choices you have, not now. A baby. It’s a big deal, you know. A big deal.” As he said this, it came to him for the first time that he would be an uncle. To a pink infant with eyes shut tight and its crooked thumb in its mouth. A fat toddler swaying on unready feet. A boy in striped shorts and yellow and black striped socks and scuffed shin pads kicking a soccer ball around a muddy field on a cold Saturday morning, or a girl with long dark curls and tiny gold earrings and a hand reaching up to his. Uncle Nicolo. Zio Nicolo. What wouldn’t he do for this child?
    Enzo turned suddenly so that he was looking directly at Nicolo. He spoke in an urgent, appealing tone. “Ma could raise it. Did you ever think of that? Mima wouldn’t have to if she didn’t want to. It might be a girl. It’s probably a girl. All her sisters have girls. Ma always wanted a daughter; you know that. She’s got a name picked out and everything. Pa told me once. It’s not impossible. It could be the right thing. For everyone.”
    Enzo gripped his hands into fists as if they might be of use, as if he could use his hands to keep hold of his independence, and his plans to finish a degree, and then, and then—he wasn’t sure, couldn’t be certain, but his mind’s focusshifted to a semi-transparent manifestation of his aspirations, a vision of his life to come as he had only half-imagined it so far. His goals and desires and acknowledged limitations spun and twisted inside his head and his heart like a cloud before the arrival of a storm, and then they coalesced and were transformed, this vision, the one he had never quite been able to bring into focus, of his autonomous future. It took on a more concrete, but still not quite solid form, of a well-lit tunnel with encouraging markers and road signs, a tunnel that broadened generously at the far end where it was drenched in a warm and hope-inspiring light. He tried to describe it to Nicolo: he wanted…he wanted a job at a local business, light manufacturing or distribution, one that he did well at and that would lead over time to a solid position in middle management and then a business of his own. A successful business. And volunteer work. Membership in, and then an executive position on one of those semisecret clubs run by men much like him who once a year ran an appeal, some sort of “athon,” that raised money for an urgent cause—a wing for the children’s hospital, a cure for one of the more compelling diseases, support for a