'74 & Sunny by A. J. Benza Page B

the weeks to come, as the small peach buds matured and broke free from the branches and came to rest at the bottles’ bottoms, my father would remove the tape from the tree and take the bottles into his garage where his homemade wine operation was in full swing. Then he’d fill the bottles with the homemade stuff—be it white or red—and let it sit for a while so that the peach could fully ripen and offer itself, giving tremendous, bursting peach flavor with each pour.
    Uncle Larry’s green eyes got all weepy again. And that wouldn’t be the last time the levees behind his eyes wouldn’t hold on this trip. My father scooped up a couple of overripe peaches that had fallen onto the lawn, took his folding knife out of his pocket, and fed a few slices to him. My uncle’s eyes welled up and rolled back into his head.
    â€œ Dottore ,” my father said, kissing his brother hard on the cheek, “why you cry?” He gently shoved him off toward our pool. “Go lay on the raft with your son while we finish cooking.”
    A day on the bay always had a way of knocking a man down early. But with the emotional baggage Uncle Larry had carried with him from Jersey—and with the hooch the men had on the boat—it was only a matter of time before each of us would fall off to a nearby lawn chair, pool raft, or couch for a little shut-eye. My father, despite all his aches and pains, was always the last man standing.
    All the while he was cooking his chowder, the women crowded around him for clues as to how the boat trip went. They were asking questions that were out of their usual repertoire.
    â€œWhat did the fluke bite on, Daddy?”
    My father was terse with his answers while he taste tested the chow off a wooden spoon. “Squid and killie combo, Ro.”
    â€œWas it choppy out there?”
    â€œA little windy, Mary, but we managed.”
    â€œAny trouble with the outboard? Did the boat conk out at all?”
    â€œA couple times, NuNu. But your Frankie pull-started her right back up again.”
    My mother chimed in. “Is all the Scotch gone?”
    My father put down the spoon and shut off the range.
    â€œYeah, baby! And we didn’t spill a fuckin’ drop. How’s that?”
    No one dared a follow-up question, but my father knew what everyone in the room was looking for: a status report on Uncle Larry’s diagnosis of Gino.
    After a few last swirls of the chowder, and another taste test, he turned to the girls. “Okay. The answer to the question all of you are dying to ask is, yes .”
    And with that, the ladies got closer and more quiet, huddling around my father and forming a human shield from the father and son floating on a raft in the shallow end of our pool.
    My father began quietly. “That night on the phone, my brother Larry told me that ‘a father knows.’ He just knows, goddamn it. And now here’s your father telling you the same thing my brother told me, all right? We know our boys more than our wives can ever know.” When he spoke that adamantly, he’d point his finger in a way that was more threatening than a gun. And the thick, gold POPPA bracelet he wore on his wrist shook like thunder.
    With that, the women slinked off to finish their dinner tasks: setting the table, plating the food, and feeding the men and boys seated before them.
    â€œA father knows,” my father repeated in exasperation to an empty room. “A father knows when his boy is different. Call it brain damage, call it whatever the hell you want. A father just knows. He knows.” And then to put a period on it all, again in Sicilian. “Ido sape.”
    My mother gently scratched him on his back. “Okay, okay . . . we’ll figure it all out. It isn’t the end of the world.”
    â€œIt’s goddamn close,” my father said, before turning to the screen door and whistling for his brother and nephewto come