At Nonna’s funeral, Ambruzzo thought about flour, yeast, and warm water. He sat in the front pew between Martin Spordonza and members of his grandmother’s bocce team. She had collapsed midthrow, the heavy ball spinning from her fingers and landing inches from the marker in the grass. The Old Testament reading was from the Book of Wisdom: The souls of the just are in the hand of God.

Martin took care of everything. A mahogany casket, satin lining. An airtight, reinforced-steel casing for the burial. He kept his hand on Ambruzzo’s shoulder and realized, as the Mass progressed, that this gesture of comfort was for himself. He pulled out his handkerchief and wept.

Ambruzzo Spagnetti sat on the hard wooden bench and felt nothing. For days he had been listening to other people cry. At the wake, a long line of mourners had snaked from the casket kneeler through the funeral home, out the back door, past the parking lot, down the sidewalk, and shuffled beyond the rectory, where the church ladies patted shoulders and handed out small cups of coffee. Ambruzzo stood alone at the head of the casket, weathered embraces and words of comfort, and waited for his own grief to come.

He was still waiting. He had kissed Nonna good-bye before the coffin closed, and her cheek was waxy and resistant against his lips. Hours later at the funeral, Ambruzzo could still feel the hardness there and became concerned that it did not upset him. He ran the tips of his fingers back and forth across his mouth. Martin sobbed beside him, hiding his face in his hat, his tears staining the fine silk lining of his Borsalino.

Amy Stackenfrach arrived, pushing her two small children in a pram down the marble aisle. One of the children was asleep. The other sucked her toes. Their mother breezed by the altar and parked them in front of a confessional.

“I’m married,” she said later during the reception in the church basement. She tested a bottle on her wrist. “I’m happy too.”

Ambruzzo told her he was glad. He watched as the milk dripped from the rubber nipple, slid across the delicate veins at the base of her hand, and curled around the bone. He asked her husband’s name. He asked where he worked. He asked what time he usually got home. Amy answered him, then packed her children into the backseat of her minivan. She handed Ambruzzo a cardboard poster tube and told him she was sorry.

Later that evening Ambruzzo opened the tube. Inside was a charcoal drawing of a buffalo. The animal was grazing, its heavy woolen head bent to the grasses of the prairie.

He began to say his rosary at night.