Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

Aunt Feen is inside with the doctor. For whatever reason, when she came to she glommed on to Charlie, who carried her out of the restaurant in his arms and into the carriage, which brought us here. Aunt Feen, forgetting she’d rebuffed him earlier, or maybe guilty because she had, insisted Charlie go with her to be examined.

Tom took the baby and the kids back to the hotel. A quick call to Signora Guarasci, the proprietor at the inn, and she was on hand to help with my nieces and nephews. This is going to be a long night, and my sisters need the backup so they can be here for Aunt Feen.

Mom paces the floor. Her aqua chiffon cocktail dress looks like something the alto section might wear during a “Harvest Moon” number on The Lawrence Welk Show . A panel of fabric studded with pale blue seed pearls flows behind her as she paces the floor. Whenever my mother dresses formally, she resembles a bird, going for color, movement, and flight. Her upsweep, which stayed up at the restaurant, has begun its downward spiral.

My father sits between Jaclyn and me on a small bench under a framed movie poster in Italian of the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers .

“Feen went down like a brick.” Dad loosens his tie. “Ka-boom.”

“I hope there’s not permanent damage.” Jaclyn’s eyes fill with tears.

“Who knows? It’s a wait-and-see situation. When it comes to a head injury, I know it’s better if you see blood. Then you know she’s not bleeding on the interior. P.S. I didn’t see a drop of blood,” Dad says.

It’s times like these that I wish someone in my family had gone into the field of medicine. We could use an expert right now. “You can bleed inside and out,” I correct my father. “It’s not an either/or.”

“Okay. Then her fall could be a killer of the silent type caused by a stroke.” My father folds his arms across his chest. “A stroke and a sub-see-quent blow to the head…she’s finished.”

“Dad.” Jaclyn mops up her tears with a scrap of brown paper towel from the restroom.

When Aunt Feen toppled, the reception officially ended. She came to fairly quickly while lying on the floor, after the thud, but she was woozy. The cake went uneaten, the net bags of confetti remained on the tables, the cookie trays were untouched. We grabbed our purses and followed Aunt Feen to the hospital quickly. I’m worried about my great-aunt, but I’m sad for Gram that her wedding day has been ruined. I get up and go to Gram. “I’m sorry about all of this.” I put my arms around her.

“It’s okay. I just want Feen to be all right.”

The doctor pushes through the door. Dominic rushes over to him. They converse in Italian.

“Does Dr. Kildare over there speak English?” Dad says.

“I do.” The doctor looks at my father. He’s around forty, slim build, balding, and wears glasses.

“No wedding ring,” Tess whispers.

I glare at her.

“Is it serious?” I ask the doctor.

“We did a scan of her brain and neck-there appears to be no trauma to the head.”

We actually applaud the good news.

“I’d like to see that scan,” Dad says under his breath. “What did they do it with? Pliers and a mirror?”

“ Allora, dottore ,” my mother purrs, “ mi dica la prognosi per mia zia ?” My sisters and I look at one another. My mother flirts whenever a situation requires immediate service. This rule applies to mechanics and doctors as well as Pierre, who dyes Mom’s roots at the Jean Louis Hair Salon on Queens Boulevard.

“The scan showed nothing.” The doctor shrugs. “She is very lucky.”

“So what caused the fall?” Dad wants to know.

“Her blood alcohol level is extremely high,” the doctor says. “She’s inebriated.”

“Drunk?” My father throws his hands up. “Feen is drunk!” My father turns away in disgust.

“We gave her an espresso and two aspirins,” the doctor says. “She’s sobering up.”

“I don’t believe this,” Jaclyn says.

I’m beginning to miss the cake and the platter of cookies we left back at the restaurant. I could use a cannoli or two right about now.

“So, what do we do?” Mom asks the doctor.

“Take her home and let her sleep it off,” the doctor says.

My family goes from a grief-stricken pre-funeral-planning state to annoyance, then anger, in ten seconds flat. Only Gram breaks a smile. She’s relieved, and now her new life can begin. We gather our belongings to go.

“I knew no good would come of this trip. You can’t take senior citizens abroad and hope they survive out of their comfort zone. I don’t think anybody should venture into areas where they don’t speak the language,” Dad says.

“Really. They don’t speak English in Bayside, Dutch, and that’s a quarter of a mile from our house.”

“You know what I mean. Foreign countries. Aunt Feen is too old and too American to be cavorting around the world. She can’t handle the stress, so she hit the bottle.”

“What stress?” Tess wonders. “She had to get dressed up and sit in a church and then go to a restaurant to eat. How hard is that?”

“It’s not. But something is troubling her. Why would Aunt Feen get drunk?” My mother addresses our group. “She’s not a drinker.”

“She’s jealous,” I tell them.

“Of what?” Mom asks.

“Of whom. She’s jealous of Gram.”

“Oh come on. They’re eighty and seventy-eight-jealous of what?”

“They’ve been competitive all their lives. Feen has always felt second-class, the baby who could never surpass the older sister. And Feen remembers who got the roller skates for Christmas and who got the socks.”

“Valentine, that’s ridiculous.”

“Really? If you had caught Aunt Feen on her second cocktail, three before she hit cement, she would tell you all about how Gram was the favorite, and how her sister always got everything she wanted. And now, Gram even has a husband. Aunt Feen faked being sick this morning for attention. She fell asleep at the ceremony like it wasn’t important enough for her to stay awake at her own sister’s wedding, and then, when neither of those things worked to her advantage, when her mere disdain of the whole wedding didn’t get it canceled, she did what she had to do to refocus the limelight off Gram and onto herself by getting stewed at the reception.”

“Dear God.” My mother shakes her head in disbelief. “Is this who we are ?”

“And look. Aunt Feen won. We left the reception and came to the hospital and sat vigil for her. Now, instead of the bride being the center of attention on her wedding day, it’s Feen. Mission accomplished! And now, get ready. When she sobers up, expect complete contrition. She’ll be so sorry that she turned this day that belonged to her sister into one that she stole with an accidental fall. But don’t believe a word of it. This has been an act all along.”

“Charlie overheard her playing it up in there to the doctor. She pulled a full Meryl Streep, with tears and everything,” Tess says. “Told the doctor she had a nervous condition.”

“Aunt Feen ruined this wedding, and that was her intention from the moment she set foot on the flight,” I assure them.

“That’s sick,” Jaclyn says.

It’s hard for Jaclyn to imagine that one sister could ever turn on another. Tess, Jaclyn, and I have had our fights, but we get over our disagreements quickly. We root for one another’s happiness and do everything we can to support one another. We are not like Great-aunt Feen and Gram. Tess shakes her head sadly at the realization that what I am saying is true.

“It’s just awful. That’s all,” Mom says.

Gianluca and Lady Zing-Zang-Zoom push through the door. Carlotta’s perfume fills the air like a breeze after a sweet, summer shower. I hate her.