John Domini - Earthquake I.D.

Barbara got a decent breath, her circulation settling.

“The wrong kind of talking, okay, sometimes. Inappropriate, okay. But I never touched her, and you ask me, hey. It was talking to myself. I had to. I had to hear somebody say, out loud, how I could do this. Twins on the way, Cesare, I mean. Old Jay had to turn himself into something new. New man, new kind of husband and father.”

The priest changed his tone, probing.

“Well, I went to confession. Sure. That kind of thing. I, I had people. I had Barbara too. Barb and me, we’ve always talked. But I mean, two more kids, just like that. Girls at last, okay, that’s nice, but, hey, who’s the breadwinner? Who’s bringing home the bacon? First the baby food and then the bacon. It’s all part of the package, Father, Cesare. And in the back of mind, the whole time, I’m thinking, my Barbara, my wife — she lied to me. About her cycle. My wife lied to me. I had condoms, I mean.”

Barb suffered a spasm of embarrassment, so absurd under the circumstances that it had her checking up-corridor and down.

“No, no, no way,” her husband went on. “With the girls, that wasn’t an accident. Barb admitted it.”

Admitted it more or less. She’d fudged the truth about her ovulation, before the girls came along, but she’d also told him what she wanted. More or less.

“She told me, ‘Paul’s never home. It’s like he’s got his driver’s license.’”

A long marriage was another no-secrets-dot-com, everything came to light in time, but the code could be hard to decipher. Barbara missed Cesare’s next question.

“Yeah yeah,” Jay replied, “a house full of men, that must’ve been hard for her. The Owl, she wanted some girls around. Okay. That — I’ve got a handle on that. Hey, I’m kind of more-the-merrier, myself. You can probably tell the kind of Pop I am, can’t you, Cesare? Soccer with ten kids at once, you can see that. So, having a couple more, that’s not what’s so aggravating. That’s not what’s making me lie to Barb. What’s aggravating is, that Owl Girl, these days. The woman just doesn’t understand.”

She reached for her elbows. Here it came: the cost of everything and the sacrifices a man had to make. “She just — it’s like she can’t do the math. I mean, the extra bedroom we had to have, Father, five months they were working on that. Five months, and after the first month, forget about it. They throw the bid out the window.”

A confessor couldn’t tell a sinner to shut up, but the priest’s interruptions started to sound irritated. Once, the priest spoke with force enough for Barb to hear: “Well, cheating on a contract, in Naples too that kind of thing has been known to happen.” Still Jay poured out his woes. “But it’s not just the money, Cesare, can’t you see that? It’s about respect.” Then in the next breath he was back to money. “Single-salary household, you know? And there’s swimming lessons, there’s play shoes and there’s church shoes. Plus, hey. Can’t take ‘em to school unless the minivan’s still on warranty.”

The wife was backing away from the door, thinking she wouldn’t learn anything new here. When she looked down the sloping hallway, however, she faced a policeman at the next corner. He had a phone to his ear and his eyes on l’ Americana .

Cesare at last managed to shift the subject.

“Then, I mean. When Barb started to look into those abuse cases, from the Center. You have no idea. The worst.”

The priest spoke more sharply.

“No.” Jay’s tone softened. “I’m not, not sick of her. No, Father. Cesare. I’m still in love with Barbara. Pushing forty-five, going through the change now maybe — what do I care? That woman, I don’t want to lose her.”

Again the wife crept towards the makeshift confessional.

“No, it’s not just the family. Don’t give me that, the ‘investment.’ The family thing, sure, I love it. But, I mean. First it’s Barbara herself My Owl Girl.”

Down the corridor, the cop strode out of sight.

“Okay, that girl she brought home last winter. Okay, that was terrible. That was a nightmare. If we’re going to talk about that.”

Through the few inches of open door, Barb could make out the curve of her husband’s back. He must’ve been rubbing his face.

“I mean, I had to be the bad guy. I had to be the one, send Maria Elena back to Children’s Services. But, still. Hey. I’m the injured party, after that, but still, I didn’t want a divorce. No way.”

The Jaybird sounded as if he’d gotten his head out of his hands. He acknowledged that, after Maria Elena, he understood there needed to be some changes made. “I mean, the way things were going, forget about it. My Barbara, she needed meaning, you know? Meaning. But then I found it for her, didn’t I? The work I found in this city, hey. Brought Barb a lot farther than just across an ocean. Brought her some meaning, big time, and that proves, that fucking proves — excuse me. Forgive me, Father, but still. What I did coming to Naples, it proves divorce is not for me. Hey? It’s not for Jay, the end of the family. Jay, his family, he’ll go halfway around the world to save it. He’ll take risks. He’ll fight, he’ll lie and, and he’ll…”

Then a silence, surprising. Barb had thought that Jay was going to lapse once more into complaining, but now the priest had to prompt him, twice.

“Bless me, Father,” the husband said, “for I have sinned. I have lied to my wife. I love her, but. I have lied to her. I’ve lied about what I’m doing here in Naples, and she’s starting to figure it out, and still. I go on lying. I’m not telling her the truth, anyway. What I’m doing, it’s — I make reports to NATO, Father. To one man at NATO. An officer, you figure it out. He says he needs to know about the refugee underground. The big dark hairy-scary so-called underground.”

In the hallway the mother had drawn up straight, no lazy Franciscan T.

“I mean . Kind of people you’ve got downstairs, what’s so scary about them? But. I hear a name in a tent, I tell my guy. I keep my ears out, Papa the Spy. Because what I hear, it could be serious, according to my friend. My NATO contact. Serious, what ‘these people’ could do.

“And, hey. This guy, why shouldn’t I make him happy? I make him happy, that’s money. That’s money there, that’s benefits. The man can do things, Father. Cesare. For my family, he can do a lot. You figure it out.”

She’d been right to come. This was something she could offer even the starving creatures downstairs.

“But, I mean. This so-called radical underground, what is the big deal? The big hairy-scary…Father, we’re not talking Al-Qaeda out at the Center. Back in New York, for instance, that memorial at Ground Zero? Hey, that place has got nothing to worry about from Naples. I mean, Muslims in Italy, you know what? Muslims tend to go for the boom towns, up north. Milan, they go for. Follow the money, right? But down here, the clandestini I’ve got, forget about it. The one time they tried anything — what? They grabbed the cook. The cook, and he never even got his hat off. He never even left the kitchen. That’s the kind of hard core I’ve got out at the Center.”

Jay might’ve laughed. “NATO, I mean. Your tax dollars at work. Lately, now, you know who Kahlberg keeps asking about?”

Speaking of names. Barb pictured Lieutenant Major Kahlberg poring over a list, a schoolboy over a skin mag.

“That gypsy girl, Romy. The Lieutenant keeps asking if I’ve heard anything about Romy. I mean, what’s he want? We all know what Romy had to do, back before Paul. It wasn’t about national security, what she had to do. So what’s he want, the Lieutenant Major? Especially since the girl has changed. Since Paul, she’s changed. Nowadays, national security, anything like that, it’s a joke for Romy. Kahlberg — she tells me to say hi to Kahlberg. Just last night she told me. She’s still got friends out at the Center, people she used to run with, and last night she tells me to say hi to Kahlberg. ‘Mr. Kahlberg your NATO contact,’ she tells me. Forget about it, Cesare. For that girl, that whole thing’s a joke. She knows my arrangement’s supposed to be a secret.”