A funeral mass—a “solemn high mass”—for all the relatives, and I would go to it—in St. Matthew’s Church. Aunt Irma and I would go together, and would sit with my family in a pew at the front of the church.

Like something swelling, opening in my brain: an American beauty rose, a sunburst. I will go to Grandpa’s funeral.

But when I asked Irma about the funeral she shook her head evasively. “I don’t think they want us, Violet. Lula was sounding so tired, she didn’t even think to mention a funeral.”

Lula. So my mother had called. Another time, she hadn’t asked to speak to me.

“Did Mom ask how I was?”—breathlessly.

“Y-Yes, Violet. She always does . . .”

Always. Fucking damn lie, but I loved to hear it.

“What did you tell her?”

Aunt Irma was staring blankly at me, she’d lost the thread of the conversation.

As if, in an exchange with me, there was ever getting away from me.

“What did I tell her?—I told her you were doing well. Very good grades at school. We were talking about your grandfather, mostly . . .” Irma spoke apologetically. “He’d had a stroke, at the end. Last week. He’d been hanging on so long with his emphysema, at the nursing home they said it was like a miracle . . .”

Miracle! Bullshit. Almost, I laughed in Irma’s face.

Katie had told me, you had to admire the old sod. Emphysema, angina, tremors in both hands, deaf, macular degeneration—our grandfather had come close to dying a dozen times but had always recovered, to a degree. In the Catholic nursing home he’d remained as mean as ever like an old snake, very still, cunning, you approached him at your own peril.

“Is the funeral tomorrow? The next day? We could go—we could drive . . .”

“I don’t think so.” Irma was sounding embarrassed. “Lula didn’t ask me to come. She just thought that I should know about Jerome’s father dying but—I wasn’t close to your grandfather—I hardly knew him.”

Irma paused. She may have been recollecting something unpleasant about my grandfather who’d often, for no reason except meanness, made crude comments about women’s faces and bodies to evoke laughter in others. And Irma was not the sort of attractive, sexually alluring or vivacious woman whom the old man admired.

I said, “I should be there. Everyone will be there.”

“No, Violet. I don’t think so . . .”

“Won’t they expect you? Me?”

My voice rose in distress. Irma caught at my hands, that were flailing about like wounded birds. Even as I thought calmly—Of course you are not invited, you are not wanted there. Not ever.

THAT NIGHT, IN A STATE OF HIGH EXCITEMENT I CALLED HOME. Sheerly by chance Katie picked up the phone.

“Oh. God, Violet. I can’t talk now . . .”