For an awkward moment there was silence on the line. I could not think of anything to say, I’d been struck between the eyes by—something . . . Not even sure what we’d been talking about, I’d been so thrown off-balance.

That was the danger in calling either of my sisters. They would try to discourage me. Try to protect me from being told what I did not want to hear which was (as I knew) what I’d already been told and should have known and (indeed) did know. And yet.

“Violet? Are you still there?”

“Where else would I be?”—adolescent sarcasm now.

Katie seemed about to say something further but then as if weary of the subject, or exasperated by me, she murmured only, in a conclusive way: “So.”

So was a mere expulsion of air, a sigh. I did not want to interpret it So, Violet, you can see that this is not a good time for you to return home but rather as a neutral signifier, friendly, informative.

“Katie, thanks! I guess—I will see you on Thursday—at St. Matthew’s.”

Quickly hanging up then, before Katie could protest.

LEFT A NOTE FOR MY AUNT IRMA TO SPARE HER TRYING TO DISSUADE me.

Dear Aunt Irma, I am going to South Niagara for the funeral. I will take a bus. I will be all right. Will try to call when I can.

How to sign? I hated hypocrisy, damned if I would say Love, Violet.

Finally just signed V. Reasoning, Irma would know who V. was.

FISTFUL OF SMALL-DENOMINATION BILLS. FORTY-SIX DOLLARS.

Chump change painstakingly saved from babysitting for my aunt’s friends and neighbors. Tempted to take (small) bills from Uncle Oscar’s wallet left on a bureau in his bedroom but decided against this thinking shrewdly—One day, might want to take all the bills in that wallet. Not yet.

With these bills, and not much left over, I was able to purchase a round-trip ticket to South Niagara on a Greyhound bus leaving Port Oriskany at 7:10 A.M. on Thursday and arriving in South Niagara at 9:25 A.M. If the bus was not delayed, and if I could get to St. Matthew’s (which had to be at least two miles from the South Niagara bus station) within a half hour, I would not be late for the funeral mass; and if I was late, I would sit quietly at the rear of the church in a pew by myself and my parents would discover me, the end of the service when everyone rose to leave, and understand that I’d hoped to arrive on time but had had to come a distance, from Port Oriskany . . .

Obsessively I rehearsed: Greyhound bus, bus station in South Niagara, Front Street, Huron Avenue, Comstock Street, Bryant, St. Matthew’s Church where a priest (Father Greavy) would be saying a solemn high mass for my grandfather’s soul.