My sisters and I had had to help Mom clean Grandpa’s room. And Grandpa’s bathroom. Trying not to get sick to our stomachs. If we complained too much Mom lost patience and screamed at us—What about me? You will help me God damn you.

But no one could complain to Daddy about Grandpa.

Fortunately for us Grandpa spent most of his time in his room listening to ranting talk radio or watching TV; he didn’t care to eat with us though Mom prepared all his meals. Nights he fell asleep in front of the blaring TV, plates and cutlery encrusted with food, emptied ale cans, whiskey bottles on the floor at his feet in filthy carpet slippers. He hadn’t set foot in a church in decades—yet, officially, Grandpa was still Roman Catholic and would require a solemn high mass and burial in the St. Matthew’s cemetery which was hallowed ground.

I smiled, remembering. The clatter of Grandpa’s whiskey bottles in the big green trash container one of us (usually one of my brothers, but sometimes me) would have to roll out to the curb for Friday trash pickup . . .

“Violet, what? Is something funny?”

Aunt Irma who was easily shocked, was shocked.

Often it happened, I smiled when a smile wasn’t appropriate. Or, I didn’t smile when a smile would’ve been appropriate.

At seventeen, I wasn’t a young girl. Not in my soul. No one messed around with me at school, I’d acquired something of the swagger of my older brothers serving time at Marcy. The taunts had long vanished. Ugly rumors of what the “pervert” math teacher had done to me back in ninth grade may have circulated but I knew nothing about them.

With adults I was careful not to offend. I was polite, “mature.” Unfailingly I gave the impression of being cooperative. I had absorbed from Mr. Sandman the fact—(I didn’t doubt it was a fact)—that persons in positions of power want you to agree with them no matter what they say and that is all they want—agreement, acquiescence. The adults of the world controlled so much of my life, I could not make enemies of them.

It was sheer relief I felt, that Lionel hadn’t been paroled. No emotion at all about my grandfather’s death except a small stab of hope—Now Daddy will have one less person he cares about.

Family meant so much to Daddy, even the old sod. One less person in his family would increase the value of the exiled daughter.

“. . . sad, that Grandpa has died. When exactly . . .”

As if I gave a damn, when! I’d hardly given a thought to my grandfather since I’d been sent away from home.

Not paroled! Not paroled yet.

That was all I cared about: my brother, still incarcerated.

Then it occurred to me: there would be a funeral for Grandpa Kerrigan.