​The scattered papers lie haphazardly before her. You might fool yourself into believing, by squinting and tilting your head, that they’ve fallen into shape already. Not clearly, but like an elusive creature gliding beneath the ripples. She judges them all carefully. Free of the heap, each scrap of paper makes sense. Each valuable and elegant in its own way. But she can’t gaze at them forever; there’s work to do. The blank card is waiting.

With the attitude of an artist finally putting brush to canvas, she places the strictly square and navy piece of her education in the center. Uninspired, perhaps. But it’s a traditional foundation to work from. The trouble is the bright and glittering circle of her creativity clashes, no matter where she puts it. The top, the middle left, the bottom right. Nothing seems to work. Well, they say the early years are the hardest. Keep going.

The overlarge piece of a parent’s expectation. The twisted slip of rebellious teenage years. Another clash. Courage in her individuality, but the need to fit in. Honesty, though in certain angles, it looks more like callousness. Wanderlust. Responsibility alone takes up half of her precious space. How’s she going to fit anything else in? She pushes aside dark years of depression, but there, it appears again, peeking out from under the rest. You can’t hide it, not anymore. But shadows define, don’t they?

Harmony must be possible, even in this collage of clashes. She rearranges again and again. How can anyone make a person from this muddle? Leaning back, she stares forlornly at what now resembles a tragic explosion. The edges of her collage curl away in shame. She lifts the card, the unstuck person falls away, back into potential. Let’s try again.

The town, itself, was built on soil filled with secrets. Secrets spun for centuries, disguised as tall tales Nona only remembered on Sunday’s, right before dinner, when she required the help of those with small hands and big ears.

We’d set the table for eight. Hold up, nine. Thank the lord, Uncle Vinny was attending. The devil hadn’t banned him from seeing his real family yet, but just you wait till those claws of hers dig up a ring.

Nona, our enigmatic storyteller, wielded Fairfield’s folklore like a scorned lover with a vendetta. Divulging the specifics sparingly, and the truth, well, what is a good story but a sin and a name?

And their sins, they were countless. Men wearing chains of gold chased dirty green bills and ran from bars constructed of silver and steel. Women donned diamonds and owned red lips rogue with rumors and noses held permanently high in deceit. Nona called them old acquaintances. I called them classmates. And you. You call them The Sopranos.

If Sunday nights were Nona’s, Monday mornings were mine. The new girl with chestnut ringlets dusting her neck and glasses sitting at the bridge of her nose didn’t know of Nona’s tales. She didn’t know of any at all. I intended to spill them. Never the wiser, that she would one day repeat my folklores in the flesh.