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bicycle tire or shuffle a deck of cards faster than my father could. Until that night outside Papa John’s Diner, of course. He wasn’t a real uncle, I reminded myself. Only a married-in uncle. Because of Aunt Floria.

    Black curls pulled back in a shiny bun, she opened the door of their first-floor apartment on Boston Road, looking as if she were in mourning with her black stockings and her black dress buttoned high on her neck. “Please, wipe your feet, darling,” she said and took my cheeks between her palms. Her face hung above me, large and pale and beautiful. On one side of her mouth was a freckle, and as she kissed me on the lips, her folds of skirt released the memory of mothballs and lavender.
    I kissed her right back, glad her face was all of one color. No sticky lipstick or creme. No raccoon eyeshadow like my Ossining Grandma’s. I loved how Aunt Floria’s scent changed with the seasons and also kept bugs away at the same time. Moths never dared live near her. And come summer, she would once again give off the sweet-sour scent of the citronella oil that she dabbed on handkerchiefs and bedsheets to discourage mosquitoes.
    Beneath the gold-framed paintings of Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Spellman stood my cousins, round-faced and sturdy like their mother, wearing their patent-leather slippers and brown school uniforms. Still, I could tell them apart, because Belinda had gluey nostrils, while Bianca wore her Superman cape.
    Aunt Floria lifted the towel from the eggplant rissoles. “You are an artist with food, Victor. I’ll warm everything up right now.”
    In the kitchen, the dressmaker’s dummy was wearing a half-finished wedding gown, so stiff it could have danced by itself. Cartons—some full, some empty—covered all surfaces that were not taken up by Aunt Floria’s sewing business.
    â€œYou’re moving?” My mother sounded alarmed, and I figured it was because Aunt Floria moved so often that my mother wrote each address in pencil, since she’d only have to erase it.
    â€œThe girls and I can’t stay here. Not with Malcolm Elsewhere. Please, blow your nose, Belinda.” Aunt Floria folded a piece of red velvet and two red velvet dresses with plaid collars and cuffs pinned to them. She sewed all the twins’ clothes, dressed them alike. “We’re five weeks late on the rent,” she said.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?” my father asked.
    â€œYou know I don’t like to burden you, Victor.”
    My mother rolled her eyes and walked to the window. Her back to Aunt Floria, she stared into the air shaft, arms crossed in front of her coat, elbows jagged beneath her sleeves. Rain smeared the glass, turning the living room mop-water gray.
    I poked at my aunt’s bolts of lace. She had customers from Manhattan and Brooklyn, even Staten Island, who came to the Bronx for their wedding and bridesmaids gowns.
    â€œBetter not touch that lace, Anthony,” she said. “I have something better for you.”
    â€œLemon wafers?”
    â€œToo much sugar.” My mother turned toward us. “It’ll only make him skutchier.”
    â€œNice corduroy pants, Anthony,” my aunt said. “Where’d you get them?”
    â€œMacy’s.”
    â€œTurn around. Who did the hemming?”
    â€œThe old man with the sewing machine in the window of Koss’.”
    My father touched his lips where they disappeared into his beard, signaling me to stay quiet— whatever the Amedeo family talks about …—but that made me think even more of the old man who kept his long face bent over his sewing machine. My mother took our dry cleaning to Koss. Also clothes to be taken in, let out, or shortened, and the owner who stood behind the counter passed them to the old man who never talked.
    â€œI would have hemmed them for free, Leonora,” my aunt said.
    â€œI didn’t want to inconvenience