Heather Pegas                                                                                                          

Family Lore: A Semi-History

War (c. 1952)

Maybe Connie made her special soup at the diner, maybe she saves one bowl to bring home.

Perhaps she intends it for her father, or maybe she was keeping it for herself after shopping, vacuuming, washing, drying and folding the family laundry. My beautiful aunt, the one they only half-jokingly call “the maid,” puts her soup in the icebox, I imagine, saving it for later.

It is not to be. Her brothers come home all at once, and they encounter the soup.

I want that, says George, the eldest. I’m going to eat it.

Not so fast, says Manny, the second son, muscling in. I want it too.

What if I want it? says Arthur, the youngest. Why should either of you have it?

The brothers stand and contemplate the soup. There isn’t enough to share.

Ptooey. George, the eldest, has spat into the soup. He congratulates himself for his cleverness, for marking the soup as his own.

But no! Manny, the middle son, grabs the bowl, and also spits into it.

And then, again, ptooey. It is the work of a moment for Arthur, the youngest, to bring up a wad of saliva, lean in and contribute to the now thoroughly nasty brew.

They stand a while longer, Manny in the middle holding the bowl, as they sadly regard the soup. Who can eat it now?

Probably they begin to shout and slap at one another, tossing the bowl in the sink, and raising Cain on their way out of kitchen.

Aren’t they horrid? Their mother says they ruin everything they touch.

And Connie, how she must seethe as she stands over the sink, the remains of her treat. How to explain it, this particular boisterous, baby-splitting version of jungle law?

Bellum omnium contra omnes.

What hope is there, she might think. What hope, when they are all grown men? But I’d bet she starts making more soup.

Law (c. 1959)

My grandmother, Yiayia, she is the law. Nothing, but nothing, happens but by her decree.

How the money will be spent, who will get it and for what. Who will leave the house, for what purposes. Who will cover which shifts, perform what chore, when, how and to what standard.

She writes the code.

When it is time, she steers Connie toward her husband. And though accounts are murky, it seems she plays an invisible hand in Manny’s match as well.

Of course feelings are considered: do her children even like these individuals? Certainly! They are attractive, clean and healthy. They are more than fine. They are Greek!

But is her power benevolent? Not always.

Now she wants a wife for George. Maybe this is harder because he’d spent the war years in the old country. He can butcher a pig or evade the Axis, but his English? It is not so hot. Even after Korea, after the Marines—and he was a sergeant! Even so, he is “village,” pretty much through and through.

A girl from a village then.

Yiayia sets about finding her, and when she is located and photos exchanged, she determines to bring the girl to town. If all goes well, George can be married within a month!

But where to get the money for the ticket from Kansas where the girl is, just happens to be, visiting family? Who has that much to spare?

There is only one.

Yiayia heads into the dim lair of her youngest, piled with old clothes, trash, books and papers. She rummages through his books, retrieves an envelope stuffed with savings. Arthur returns to find his money gone, and his mother poker-faced.

When the girl arrives, she is lovely, fresh and grateful. She is told that Arthur has generously funded her trip. So she showers Arthur with thanks, and he becomes a special favorite. Maybe, in time, he will benefit from her goodwill. But right now there are no bounds to his rage.

He bemoans the loss of that money. Never is it acknowledged that it has been stolen. Never does his mother repay him. Maybe he stops speaking to her and she barely notices. And then broods on ways to get her back, to make her care.

Sic semper tyrannis!

Just not today.

Love (c. 1962)

Yiayia sets about finding a wife for Arthur. The fact that he is out of the Army and at college should help. Over and over, she introduces him to girls from church. She arranges dates. So he stops coming to the Greek Orthodox Church, refuses to meet any curated matches. Once or twice, perhaps, he even doesn’t show up for a date she has arranged.

He is out of control.

But not disinterested. He already knows who he wants to marry, knew it from the first date, arranged not by his mother but by a friend, Ann Jones, from school. He has announced his intention to this half-Mexican girl, but she is not taking it quite seriously.

Not yet.

Time passes. Hours and days. He invites the girl home for dinner. It is such a chaotic little home. Yiayia and Papou, Arthur sharing his room with whatever Greek cousin is visiting at the time. Possibly Spiro? And ever since Connie’s husband was so shockingly killed in an automobile accident, she is at home now too, along with the little nieces.

Connie’s daughters love Arthur’s girl, and grab her hand to drag her to their uncle’s rathole. They show her the piles, the food wrappers, the tangle of the bedding. She needs to be warned, they snicker.

We also know that Arthur’s father, my Papou, takes to this girl right away, as does Connie—the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The girl is petite, intelligent, smiles and laughs readily. Maybe Yiayia is disarmed, having been prepared to intervene against her. Because being half-Mexican, being Catholic, will not do. But this girl is curious, wants to know everything, about all the food, the relatives, all the history, all those stories. She might even bear a slight resemblance to a young Liz Taylor, which is to say that she could just be the prettiest girl ever brought into the house.

She is good to her core.

Probably Yiayia sees all these things, yet knows this girl does not belong. For what is orthodox, if not generally or traditionally accepted as right or true, established and approved?

But possibly she knows she is going to lose this battle, because what is catholic, after all, but inclusive of a wide variety of things, all-embracing?

Nescit amor habere modum.

There are no limits, not with love. And perhaps Yiayia will re-write the story, so that in years to come she will say, Whatever do you mean, I didn’t want her? She was always one of ours.

 END

Heather Pegas lives in Los Angeles where she writes grant proposals, essays, stories and flash. Her work is featured in publications such as Heavy Feather Review, Does It Have Pockets, Weird Lit and Tiny Molecules. You can find her at www.heatherpegas.com