Free The Black Madonna by Louisa Ermelino Page B

you?” she screamed at Teresa.
    â€œI told you. Angelo’s real wife.” Teresa’s tone was even, almost pleasant. “And I’m only sorry he had such an easy death.”
    Celestina Sabatini put her hands in her hair and pulled. She opened her mouth and wailed. She rocked in her chair until it fell over and she toppled to the floor. Damiano the undertaker, her father, knelt over her, fumbling for the smelling salts he kept in his pocket to revive grieving widows.
“Madonna,”
he cried out to heaven, then, “Celestina . . . Celestina . . . I told you from the beginning that sonofabitch was no good. What’d you ever get from him? He should rot in hell.”
    Damiano held his daughter’s head off the floor and stroked her face. She sobbed in his arms. The sleeve of his jacket was wet and slimy. He looked up at Teresa. “What’d you come here for?” he asked her. “Trouble? What do you want? You think he had something? He was a broken-down valise.”
    â€œI want the body,” Nicky’s mother told him.
    They stared at her.
    â€œNo,” Celestina shouted. “Never . . . the disgrace . . . what would people say?”
    â€œExactly why I want the body,” Teresa said.
    Damiano looked at her closely. “Why should we do that? Give you the body?”
    â€œBecause he was my husband, my legal husband, and I should bury him. And then . . .” She paused. “There’s the Social Security, the pension. It’s mine if I want it. Your daughter gets nothing.”
    â€œGet her out. Witch . . . devil . . . whore,” Celestina was shouting while her father held her up.
    Teresa looked her over. Scrawny, she thought, and no children. She turned to Damiano. “Give me the body,” she said. “Pay for the nice funeral I’m gonna give Angelo and I say nothing. Your daughter can have the Social Security. It’s a good country, America, no? She can even have the pension. We forget everything and everybody’s happy.”
    Teresa had been paying an insurance policy on Angelo for years. She would put aside money every week and when Mr. Schimel would come to collect it the first Friday of the month, she would make him a cup of tea. He would hold the sugar cube in his teeth while he drank it. He was a nice man, Mr. Schimel, rumored to be the father of certain neighborhood children, all boys. Teresa liked him. Because of Mr. Schimel, she could take care of herself.
    Teresa’s feet hurt. She sat down on one of the chairs against the wall meant for the mourners. She crossed her legs at the ankle and reached over and took a peppermint from a glass dish on Damiano’s desk. She dropped the cellophane wrapping in the ashtray near her chair.
    â€œNever . . . never,” Celestina cried over and over.
    â€œCelestina,” her father said. “Let’s think about this.”
    â€œBut what will they say? No wake . . . no funeral . . . no grave? No, I can’t. I don’t care what she says. Angie’s my husband.”
    â€œOf course he is,
cara.
”
    Teresa stood up. “Angelo’s dead. He’s nobody’s husband anymore.” She walked to the door. Damiano followed her. Celestina was close behind. He caught up with her outside.
    â€œWait,
signora,”
he said. “I’ll talk to her.”
    â€œI think I’m being fair,” Teresa said. “After all, what am I asking for? Do I want anything for myself?”
    â€œYou’re right,” he said. Damiano looked back at his daughter. Her makeup was smeared in lines down her cheeks. Her hair stuck out from her head in greasy knots where she had pulled at it. The perfect widow, Teresa thought, like in the old country, and she pushed a stray piece of hair back behind her ear.
    â€œWhere do you want the body sent?” Damiano whispered.

T eresa took a walk around the neighborhood before she got on the El and went back home.