“So I start wondering about myself. I think, sure, I can live on my own for now, but how long is that going to last? The lady I was with for ten years died too, and do I want to wait until I'm like Dom? So I call him up and I say, ‘Hey buddy, we're getting too old for this crapola. You know that assisted living place on the water we heard about? I'll go there if you will.’ And that's what we did. It's not bad here. Couple of nights a week we go to the casinos over in Trum-bull, and there's a bus that takes us down to the old neighborhood when we want to play bocce. The docs here let Dom have a lot of freedom because they know I'll look out for him.” He grinned. “And you can't beat the ratio of men to women in this joint.”

His fake brown hair had a reddish tinge, but the eyes that shone behind his dark glasses were kind, and his smile was one of the sweetest Carrie had ever seen. Let's hear it for the Leporellos, she thought.

“You're a great friend,” she said.

Uncle Paulie waved it away with a dismissive gesture. But she could tell he was pleased. “I do what I can. But you didn't come here to hear about me.”

“Well, there were some things I wanted to know …” But then, she didn't know how to start the conversation they needed to have.

Uncle Paulie was studying her as if he had something to say, but apparently he didn't know how to begin either. Finally, he decided to risk it. “Before, when you said I looked like Lu … have you … ? I mean, did Rose ever … ?” He left the question dangling.

Carrie shook her head. “No, I've never met Lu. Not that I can remember, anyway. I've seen pictures of her, that's all.”

He sighed. “Well, there were always plenty of pictures of Lu around.”

“Not in my house,” Carrie said. “I had to go to the library to see them.”

“And that's why you're here. You want to know what happened between your mother and your grandmother.”

“Yes.”

“I can't tell you that. I don't know what the fight was about… I guess there was a fight, but I'm not even sure about that.” He looked out at the ocean for a while. “What do you know about your great-grandmother? My mother?” he asked.

It was an unexpected turn. “Nothing, really,” Carrie said.