by Angelica Bihary

Nona's House: After

What I remember is a small house with a large front and back yard. I remember playing with my brother in the backyard, where an old, light blue, rusting Cadillac sat. We would occasionally open the unlocked doors to pick at the peeling cartoon stickers that, for whatever reason, were stuck onto the dashboard. I remember the neighbor’s two little white dogs, yappy, matted-haired, smelly, and dirty, but fun to play with through the metal gate that divided the properties. I remember a small green plastic shed and a large garage with its four walls literally covered by various tools and odd parts of cars. But the front yard was different. I remember rose bushes and other flowers growing abundantly. I remember the signpost along a stone-covered path that spelled out our last name with the silhouette of a dog on top. I remember Chester, the dog my dad rescued but that he kept there because my parents did not want a dog at our house.

A few years later, Chester had already died and my Nona had a stroke and was bedridden. My brother and I had grown to the age where the weekly visits to the Bronx were something to complain about, which I regret now. We would not want to stay in the house because it was boring. My Nona stayed in her bed, my great Aunt Effie would usually be in the main room seated at a table, and often there would be a visiting nurse. My brother and I were restless, and thus the property surrounding the house was ours to explore. I remember feeling sad that my Nona was not able see her garden anymore. Weather permitting, my brother and I would pick the prettiest flowers and make a bouquet. That way, since she could not go outside to see her flowers, we could bring a piece of her garden in for her. She would get very emotional when we did this, probably because in our own way we were showing her how much we loved her, despite our absence in the house. My Nona spoke more fluently in Italian than English and it was hard for me to understand her well, especially after the stroke. Yet the one phrase that I can still hear echoing in my head is when she would say, very clearly, “I love you.”

My Nona died in 2002, and my great Aunt lived in the house until she died in 2005. After, the house remained empty. Throughout the years I have overheard my father and mother talking behind closed doors about how the house could not be sold due to the poor market, and how we were still paying utility bills there. Up until even today, the house seems to be a burden to my parents, which I find sad because of all the memories that we had there. A couple of years ago, my father was notified that the house was being vandalized. Not too long after, in October 2008, the house was set on fire. I know my father goes there sometimes to clean up the property, sometimes asking my brother for help. I have not been there since around the time my aunt died, six years ago.

Though I was fortunate enough to spend many years with my Nona when I was younger, the house in the Bronx is an embodiment of my relationship with my paternal family. My grandmother and grandfather, or Nona and Nono, were refugees after World War II, and were transported to various places. Originally from Italy, they lived in Brazil until my father was 12, when they immigrated to the United States. The rest of his family was dispersed, most staying in varying South American countries. His sister, brother, and aunt immigrated to the United States to join my father and grandparents at varying times. These few family members are the only ones that I would come to know. After living in Brooklyn for a few years, my father’s family bought their house in the Bronx in 1969. It is there that all of my memories of my paternal family are centered. This house remains to be my only connection to them, despite the ruin of it now.

Aside from my grandparents and great aunt Effie, my father’s sister also passed away. My father’s brother is still living in New York, though we very rarely have contact with him. From my father’s stories, the two were not very close early in life, as his brother stayed in Brazil for a while after my father came to America. Yet once he joined my father and his family here, the two became closer. I am not sure why they do not keep in contact, as he is the last relative that I know of in my dad’s family. The two only talk when necessary, currently the reason being if there is an issue with the Bronx house.

The last time I went to the house was when my aunt died. Coincidentally, she died six years ago in April, the same month I am writing this. My father and mother have warned me of the condition of the house. To even visit the property is not as easy as I thought – the city had my father erect a gate around the property, fitted with padlocks to keep it secure. My father has keys to enter, and therefore I have to go with him. His reaction to my asking to go there was rather negative. I wonder if it upsets him to see the house in this condition, and if going there brings back too many memories. My father is not outwardly emotional, and rarely do we talk about his family. To go back to see for myself what the place looks like is a way for me to remember my Nona, to allow memories to flood back upon seeing once-familiar things. I want to see if the yards still look anything like they used to, if the shed is still there, if flowers still grow, however unkempt.

Visiting

Six years later I find myself, though more grown up now, again in the passenger’s seat with my father driving, going to visit my Nona’s house. The twenty-minute or so drive used to seem so much longer when I was younger. The highways and bridge, once unfamiliar to me aside from being the route to the house, are commonplace, roads I drive on daily during my commute to school. It had been so long – perhaps not that many years literally, but in my mind – that I had forgotten how close the house was. Just after getting off the Throgs Neck Bridge, my dad took the exit for Lafayette Avenue. Before I knew it, he was pulling over to park and it took me a minute to get my bearings. We parked across the street from the house, and as I stepped out of the car and saw the property, memories started flooding back to me. Things that I had never appreciated suddenly were so clear, even before we entered the yard. The front yard of the house is so different from its surroundings. Between its neighbors, whose front yards reveal just the houses, my Nona’s property has a large front yard, with surprisingly lush, green grass. I was not expecting to see the garden look so full of life. The large magnolia tree, planted many years ago, is in full bloom, the light pink petals raining down and carpeting the grass and path below it.

My dad opens the padlocked chain link fence and I immediately notice how beautiful the garden is. To my left, the limbs of the magnolia hang down creating an incomplete arch of sorts over the path. To my right, a leafy oak tree completes the arch. All around the sides of the grass, flowers bloom. There is a circle of dirt formed by the remains of once whole bricks, where greenery and hyacinths are growing. Along the perimeter of the yard, red and yellow tulips grow in patches. As I take in the yard, I am reminded of when I used to pick flowers to bring inside for my Nona. Half with that in mind, half just wanting to bring a little piece of the house back home with me, I make a bouquet. I make my way up the stairs to the stone-paved patio. The house’s structure is intact, but the windows are boarded up and the white siding is mostly gone. Interestingly, the empty patches of the burned siding reveals dark red brick in good condition. I never realized how big the house actually was until I look at it now, forced to take it at face value, outside only.

My final stop on the property is the garage in the backyard, which is also padlocked. My father opens the door, and I begin to look around. As I remember from when I was younger, the rather spacious garage is home to tools, car parts, and machinery, most of which I would never be able to name. There are a row of tires perched up on a shelf on the wall, an air compressor, old stereos and phones. A few things my father points out to me, such as a car lift hook strung up on the ceiling, a large metal locker bearing his name on it that was once his from work. He tells me how he used to fix cars in here when he was younger, including racecars. I ask him why he does not take anything in here home with him, but he replies that “it’s just stuff.” He remarks, “the person who buys the house will get a garage full of tools.”

As we begin to walk back to the car, I replay that phrase in my head: “the person who buys the house…” After years of not thinking much of the house, aside from hearing my parents complain about it, the visit again instills in me the sense of sentimentality. This is my Nona’s house, a secret garden in its mostly urban Bronx neighborhood. It was my “second home” where I spent my so many days of my childhood until my teenage years. Those are my Nona’s flowers, that she spent years and years planting and tending. Unlike my father’s view of the material as “just stuff,” maybe I just get too attached to the tangible. Of course I would always have my memories if not the house, but I hate to think that one day this is going to be taken away from us.

As my dad pulls away from the house, he says that he wants to stop by the cemetery, which is just a few minutes away. We pull up to Saint Raymond’s Cemetery, and we read the sign that says “Gates Close at 4:30.” It is 4:27. Paying no mind, my dad speeds through the gates and we park near where he thinks the grave is located. We walk through rows and rows of stones and have no luck finding it. The cemetery is right on the water, the Throgs Neck Bridge clear in the distance, and the wind is intense. I carry with me a red tulip from the bouquet of flowers I took with me, in hopes of putting it on the grave that we cannot find. Disappointed, we go back to the car. However, on a whim, my dad decides to take one last look. We separate, pacing up and down different rows searching for a black stone amidst many white ones. It must have been fate because, to my surprise, I find it, just a few feet away from where we were originally looking. Buried there are my Nono, my Nona, and my great aunt. There is a small primrose bush planted, which my dad remarks must have been put there by his brother.

It has been nine years since my Nona died, nine years since I picked a bouquet of her own flowers for her to see. Before we leave, I place the bright red flower in front of the stone. Though she is no longer here I feel close to her once again, and my emotional ties to the house in the Bronx feel restored and strengthened.

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Angelica Bihary is a recent graduate of Queens College with a Bachelors degree in English and Sociology. She enjoys writing, literary analysis, and photography, and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in Journalism or further her studies in English.