He Built It For Me

from Over the River and Through the Woods

by Joe DiPietro

Aida is a recently widowed Italian immigrant in her 70s, who has lived in Hoboken, NJ for the past fifty years or so.  She has a fairly slow, deliberate manner of speaking with a suggestion of an accent.  Here, she explains to her adult grandson why she can’t move away from the family home.

AIDA:  I was the middle sister of seven girls, and Frank was the first man… no, the first person, to ever notice me.  He was making a dollar a day as a carpenter’s apprentice, and I thought that was a fortune.  He promised that if I married him, he would become a fine carpenter and he’d build for me… for me...!  an entire house. (nods, looking around the room) And he did.  He became a wonderful carpenter and he built, for me, this beautiful home.

Do you know where I have always wanted to go for years and years?  Atlantic City! But your grandfather, he would have no part of such a fancy place.  But one day, I left him a plate in the icebox and I went.  And you know what?  I didn’t like it.  No, the whole time I was there, I was wishing I was back home, taking care of your grandfather. I had to take care of him.  He needed me to… so much. How many people can get to be my age and can say that—that there was someone in the world who needed them that much.  I can say that. 

I can’t go… not from here...