Worn Masks Read Online Free

screened-in porch with “mia
bella bambina , with a head full of biondi curls, and eyes like the
changing sea.”
    “The only grandchild.” And Uncle Paul would tap the dimples in
each of her cheeks and smile at Mary Grace. “ La bella bambina .”
    Uncle Paul asked, “Has your momma read the
pret ty
letters from Italy?” But when Aunt Maggie or others came onto the porch the
conversation changed. “How many lightning bugs you catch in the jar?” Mary
Grace somehow knew that some conversations were only for her and Uncle Paul.
Mary Grace also knew that he watched her, but that didn’t frighten her, for she
was curious about him and so it felt right that he would be curious about her.
She heard her father tell Uncle Paul he needed to have more friends, but she
knew that he liked to stay alone, like she did. She was, as her father called
Uncle Paul, piu differente .
    Uncle Paul caught her sometimes when she hid in the space above
the stairs and other times in the backyard on the side of the garage away from
the house. He knew but didn’t tell on Mary Grace when they were calling her.
She sensed he knew she sought calmness for her mind, the stillness of a hot
summer day, which she couldn’t express in words. As the heat stagnated the air
so did Mary Grace languish in the stillness of the heat, watching the shadows
that grew out from the house as the sun circled it with heat and sent a gloomy
light into their closed windows.
    Sometimes her father sat on the porch with her when it was too hot
to sit upstairs, and her mother was resting. He told Mary Grace when she was
complaining about the heat that her Uncle Paul never minded the heat. “Uncle
Paul goes away in his mind to the Mediterranean, where there is always a sea
breeze, unlike here, and ponders the days in his life that were warm and
soothing.”
    “Your Uncle Paul appreciates the warm days after that frigid
January day along the East River where he saved a man’s life. He noticed a coat
bouncing on the water like a balloon losing air. The thought of a man drowning,
his air being taken away, lungs filling with water, it made your Uncle Paul
think of the war and seeing men’s lungs fill with blood, and choking out their
air.” Mary Grace remained quiet, so her father would continue the story. He
seemed to be talking more aloud to himself than to her.
    “Uncle Paul tossed his coat to the side and jumped into that
January ice water. He grabbed the man’s collar and somehow managed to flip him
over and drag him to the shore. He pushed the water out, letting the air in.
The cold must have stung like a thousand knives and it took weeks for him to
feel warm again, but the man, Rocco, lived.”
    Later Mary Grace would learn that most nights Uncle Paul picked up
a meal at the bar from Rocco. After all, Rocco owed him his life, and they had
become friends.
    It seemed now that at home Uncle Paul only
con nected
with Mary Grace, and although she wasn’t sure what he had to offer her, she
liked when he was around even if they didn’t interact.
    When he came home in the evening, after eight p.m., after Mary
Grace had used the bathroom to prepare for bed, he didn’t stop at their
apartment, and seemed to walk on his tiptoes to quietly go past their door and
up the attic stairs, but Mary Grace always heard him. And she was sure he heard
her below him turning the Castro-convertible couch into a bed.

 
    Uncle Paul -2
    Chapter 5
     
    ONE OF MARY GRACE’S earliest memories was of her father carrying
her up the stairs after she fell on the sidewalk outside the house. The blood
from her cut knee was staining the side of his shirt, while her sobbing puddled
on his shoulder.
    Uncle Paul was descending the stairs when they met, about halfway,
“ O, la mia bella bambina ,” he looked into her teary eyes,
then dipped his head and kissed her palm, scraped and stippled with tiny
pebbles, “ Ragazza triste ,” sad girl. She didn’t understand his words,
but his hoarse voice