ahead of him. Once he was near them, he strolled sedately just behind.
The police car roared past the group and screeched to a halt in front of the church. At Columbus Avenue, Lenny quickened his steps no longer worried about detection. On such a chilly night, all pedestrians were hurrying, anxious to reach their destinations. He would just blend in. There was no reason for anyone to pay attention to the average-sized, sharp-faced man in his early thirties, who was wearing a cap and a plain, dark jacket and pushing a cheap, well-worn stroller.
The street phone Sondra had planned to call from was in use. Wildly anxious with impatience and already heartsick about the baby she had abandoned, she tried to decide whether to interrupt the caller, a man wearing the uniform of a security guard. She could explain that it was an emergency.
I can’t do that, she thought despairingly. Tomorrow, if there’s a story in the newspapers about the baby, he might remember me and talk to the police. Dismayed, she shoved her hands in her pockets, groping for the coins she needed and the paper on which she’d written the phone number of the rectory, unnecessary because she knew it by heart.
It was December 3rd, and already Christmas lights and decorations glittered from the windows of the shops and restaurants along Columbus Avenue. A couple walking hand in hand passed Sondra, their faces radiant as they smiled at each other. The girl appeared to he about eighteen, her own age, Sondra thought, although she felt infinitely older-and infinitely removed from the air of careless joy this couple displayed.
It was getting colder. Was the baby wrapped warmly enough she worried. For an instant she shut her eyes. Oh God, please make this man get off the phone, she prayed, I need to make this call now.
An instant later she heard the click of the receiver being replaced. Sondra waited until the caller was a few paces away before she grabbed the receiver, dropped in the coins and dialed.
“St. Clement’s rectory.” The voice was that of an elderly man. It had to be the old priest she had seen at Mass.
“Please, may I speak to Monsignor Ferris, right away.”
“I’m Father Dailey. Perhaps I can help you. Monsignor is outside with the police. We have an emergency.”
Quietly, Sondra broke the connection. They had found the baby already. She was safe now, and Monsignor Ferris would see that she was placed in a good home.
An hour later Sondra was on the bus to Birmingham, Alabama, where she was a student in the music department of the university, a violin student whose astonishing talent had already marked her for future stardom on the concert stage.
It was not until he was in the apartment of his elderly aunt that Lenny heard the faint mewling of the infant. Startled, he looked into the stroller. He saw the shopping bag begin to move and quickly tore it open; he stared in shock at the tiny occupant. Unbelieving, he unpinned the note from the blanket, read it and mouthed an expletive. From the bedroom at the end of the narrow hallway, his aunt called: “Is that you, Lenny?” There was no hint of a welcome in the greeting, spoken with a strong accent that betrayed her Italian roots.
“Yes, Aunt Lilly.” There was no way he could simply hide the baby. He had to figure out what to do. What should he tell her?
Lilly Maldonado walked down the hall to the living room. At seventy-four, she both looked and moved like someone ten years younger than her age. Her hair, pulled back in a tight bun, was still generously sprinkled with black strands; her brown eyes were large and lively, and her short, ample body moved in quick, sure steps.
Along with Lenny’s mother, her younger sister, she had emigrated to the United States from Italy shortly after World War II. A skilled seamstress, she had married a tailor from her native village in Tuscany and worked side by side with him in their tiny Upper West Side shop until his death five years ago. Now she worked out of her apartment, or went to the homes of her devoted clients, whom she charged far too little for dressmaking and alterations.
But as her customers joked among themselves, in exchange for Lilly’s low prices, they were forced to lend considerable sympathetic attention to her endless stories about her troublesome nephew Lenny.
On her knees, a heap of pins beside her, her alert eyes carefully measuring as she chalked hem lengths, Lilly would sigh, then launch into her litany of complaints. “My nephew. He’s always driving me crazy. Trouble from the day he was born. When he was in school: Don’t ask. Arrested. Went away to a prison for kids twice. Did that straighten him out? No. Never can hold a job. Why not? My sister, his mama, God rest her, always was too easy on him. I love him, of course-after all, he’s my flesh and blood-but he drives me crazy. How much can I put up with, him coming in at all hours? What’s he living on, I ask you?”
But now, after earnest prayer to her beloved St. Francis of Assisi, Lilly Maldonado had made a decision. She had tried everything, and none of it had made a difference. Clearly nothing was going to change Lenny, and so she was going to wash her hands of him once and for all.
The light in the foyer was dim, and she was so intent on delivering her speech that she did not immediately notice the stroller behind him.
Her arms folded, her voice firm, Lilly said, “Lenny, you asked if you could stay a few nights. Well, that was three weeks ago, and I don’t want you here anymore. Pack your bags and get out.”
Lilly’s loud, strident tone startled the already stirring infant, and the faint mewling broke into a wail.
“What?” Lilly exclaimed. Then she saw the stroller. In a quick move, she shoved her nephew aside and looked down into it. Shocked, she snapped, “What have you clone now? Where did you get that baby?”
Lenny thought fast. He didn’t want to leave this apartment. It was a perfect place to live, and staying with his aunt gave him the aura of respectability. He had read the note from the baby’s mother, so he quickly came up with a plan.
“She’s mine, Aunt Lilly. A girl I was crazy about is the mother. But she’s moving to California and wants to put the baby up for adoption. I don’t want to. I want to keep her.”
The wail was now a demanding screech. Tiny fists flailed the air.
Lilly opened the bundle at the infant’s feet. “The baby’s hungry,” she announced. “At least your girlfriend sent some formula.” She plucked out one of the bottles and thrust it at Lenny. “Here, warm this up.”
Her expression changed as she unwrapped the blankets from around the tiny infant, picked her up and cradled her in warm and comforting arms. “Beautiful, bella. How could your mama not want you?” She looked at Lenny. “What do you call her?”
Lenny thought of the star-shaped diamond in the chalice. “Her name is Star, Aunt Lilly.”
“Star,” Lilly Maldonado murmured as she soothed the sobbing baby. “In Italy we would call her Stellina. That means ‘little star.’ “
Through narrowed eyes, Lenny watched the bonding between the infant and the aging woman. No one would be looking for the baby, he thought. It wasn’t like he had kidnapped it, and anyhow, if anything ever did come up about the kid, he’d have the note to prove she had been abandoned. He knew the word for grandmother in Italian was nonna. As he turned and hurried into the kitchen to warm the bottle, Lenny told himself with satisfaction, “Star, my little girl, I’ve found me a home-and you’ve got yourself a nonna.”
2 Seven Years Later
Frowning, Willy Meehan sat at the piano his wife, Alvirah, had bought him for his sixty-second birthday. With intense concentration, he attempted to read the notes in the John Thompson’s Book for Mature Beginners. Maybe it will be easier if I sing along, he thought. “Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,” he began.
Willy has such a good voice, Alvirah thought, as she came into the room. “All Through the Night” is one of my favorite carols, she reflected, as she looked affectionately at her husband of more than forty years. In profile, his resemblance to the late Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the House of Representatives, was even more startling than when viewed full on, she decided. With his shock of white hair, his craggy features, his keen blue eyes and warm smile, Willy was often the recipient of startled glances of recognition, even though it was several years since O’Neill’s passing.
