The Virgin Mary turns on the spigot at Nanny’s house.

She wears a blue veil that flows onto the ground, fluid, like water.  Red roses crown her head.  A foot holds down a still garden snake, a serpent quieted by Mother Mary.  Blessed is she.

The spigot, at the front of the house, is attached to a green garden hose lettered with silvery words that say sisterly love.  The hose snakes its way across the front yard, past the porch, where Nanny sits on a lawn chair and eats an Italian sandwich of fried peppers and eggs made by Aunt LaLa.  Nanny is the queen of her world in Darien, the brick porch her throne, and she rules by the front door shielded with an American flag.  The hose snakily slides down the slate steps cut by Grandpa, to the driveway, and ends in my sister Barb’s hand, where its shiny, copper-threaded connector sprays magic water onto the asphalt driveway, which glistens wildly.

I stand in the driveway, next to Barb, watch the water spray onto the hill that slopes easily from the front porch to Maple Street, which was named after Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree, (now aged and regal), near the top of the steps.  Barb wears a yellow t-shirt and brown barrettes clip fly-away hair to keep it out of her sweet face.  A red rubber kickball waits for my red Keds sneakers to kick it, the mailbox holds an Italian newspaper for Grandpa’s eyes, the stone walls hug the driveway to another stairwell that leads to the back door to the kitchen.  Grandpa, warmed by a gray sweater, waves hello from where he sits at the kitchen window.  Across the driveway is his zinnia flowerbed that caps a stone wall.  Bees zip-zap through the zinnias, the hardest-working flowers in the summer garden; I know they expect me to pick them.  The ironed-down grass path alongside the zinnias is the way to the neighbor’s old gray cat that sleeps atop another stone wall, on a bed of coppery pine needles, fallen from the shadowy pines that shelter us from neighbors.  We are in our own world, where Uncle Pippi’s wheelbarrow, filled with just-picked sweet corn from his garden waits by the garage door, where big sister Donna, in a yellow dress and white knee socks, hands an Italian cookie to little sister Maria, and flick-flecks of snowy white sugar dust her pink-and-green flowered dress.

The magic water sprays the stone wall near the slate steps, hits the green grass of the sloped hill, to the sidewalk and quiet street, and droplets reach me.

“Did you ever want to fly?”  I ask Barb.

“I want to fly!  Fly, fly, fly!” yell I.

“It’s magic water!” whoops Barb.

Suddenly, my hands turn into two colorful parrots that wave their wings and lift me upward.  Off I go!  I fly up, up, up, as Barb sprinkles magic water from the hose onto me.

Suddenly, high above, I am in white clouds shaped like an airplane and a sailboat.  Translucent clouds puff along slowly in a faded polaroid dream.  A blue cape flows behind me, and my legs, with red Keds-sneakered feet, are out-stretched.  My arms extended, the parrots disconnect and soar away.  I am flying!

The driveway scene is below.

I call to my sister.

“Barb, I’m flying, I’m flying, I’m flying!”

And here I go, through the clouds, above Uncle Pippi’s garden, and then I wildly zoom down, low to the garden, to see the tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, whatever he’s planted, so low to just touch the top of the cornfield, where I see Uncle Pippi smiling at me.  The garden gate is open, the hoe waits for me.

Yet, up and up I go, fly away over Noroton Heights, until I see our Noroton Avenue house, where Donna, Jean, Barb, and Maria grew up, and then over to my aunts’ homes – Aunt Matheline on Relihan Road, to Aunt Joyce’s on West Avenue, to Aunt Mae’s on Park Lane, and even to Aunt Dee Dee’s on Sterling Place, the one sister of Mom’s that moved to a neighboring town.  I fly over Weed Beach on Long Island Sound, where I label everything mine and it is all my Darien.  It will always be my Darien, this joyous feeling in me.  The blue flowing cape falls off from around my neck and drifts slowly away.

I don’t need the cape to fly, and once again, I’m back at Nanny’s, where she lives with Grandpa, Uncle Pippi, and Aunt LaLa.  I’m over the driveway.  Now Mom is there with my sisters.  She smiles up at me.

With a birds-eye view of the house, the yard, the gardens, the clothesline in the back yard, where Aunt LaLa hangs pink, billowing sheets, where Grandpa’s cactus plant sits on the back porch and cucumbers grow in the garden, where everything is beautiful and safe, and where the Blessed Mother sends the magic water to Barb, I turn and call down to Mom.

“Mom, look at me!  I’m flying, flying, flying!”

And, off I go again, sprinkled with sisterly love, into the endless blue sky of my magic world.