Maryellen, in her mink, was uncomfortable among the country poor, but she went with Devlin from the funeral home back to Alice’s place without argument. It must have been after ten o’clock when they settled in the kitchen, Alice, her fat guy second husband, Maryellen, Devlin, Alice’s neighbors, three or four women, cake on the table, coffee on the stove, beer in the refrigerator, some of the neighbors’ husbands in the living room in front of an old black-and-white television console. The air was layered blue with cigarette smoke. Alice looked like an old woman; there was nothing left of the teenager Devlin had known. What struck Devlin was how grateful Alice was for his presence.

The neighbors were impressed with him, a fancy-dressed, big-time New York City detective. When he told them, gently, that his cousin Alice remembered him when, he created an opportunity for her to let go a little, and she seized the moment, started talking, reminiscing.…

Remember young Ev and his girlfriend working away at him? What was her name? Alice started to laugh; Devlin had forgotten how earthy she could be. “That girl, when she gets old, she’s going to have bursitis of the elbow and not know why!”

The women shrieked with laughter. Alice wasn’t finished. She remembered Pamela’s behavior with other boys when Devlin wasn’t around. Devlin found himself ready to laugh at that, even in Maryellen’s reserved, almost stony presence. Alice wanted everybody laughing, and almost willfully, maybe even deliberately, Maryellen wouldn’t relax. The neighbors had tears coming down their cheeks. Alice wanted to hear jokes, Devlin started telling them, mixing in funny stories about their parents and Buddy and young Ev, things he hadn’t thought of in years, the beer parties at Culver’s Lake, more jokes. One of the women got her husband to come in and listen, and then the other men came in, too. They had lame hillbilly jokes they wanted to tell, but in a few minutes they saw it was Alice’s time. She wanted her cousin from the city to make her laugh, the only person in the room who had known her when a night like this was beyond all imagining, when night itself held only promise, adventure, and what in their youth they had believed was dangerous romance. All that wonder and joy had come to this woe, Devlin was thinking, and if this was the bitter truth of life, it was also very funny. Alice had gone full circle inside herself tonight, and before the visit grew overlong, Devlin rose to leave. Then she cried, but briefly, and while still laughing.