UNCLE PAULIE WAS leaning against the rental car, arms crossed over his chest, lost in the past and the story he'd been telling as he stared up at the gray-and-green house.

“Did Lu go to New York with your father?” Carrie asked.

The spell broke and he turned to look at her. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “See, if Lu didn't go, then that made Mama a liar. And lying was wrong. Mama was real strict about right and wrong.” He looked back at the house, shook his head, and started to laugh. “But the thing was, that first trip for Lu? That was the beginning of the end for Mama.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pop got a big kick out of taking Lu to New York. She loved the city—from the first minute she saw it, it was her town. So from then on, whenever he goes there, Pop brings her with him. And then one time Pop takes her to see a show—a musical written by Mr. Cole Porter. Well, Lu goes crazy for it. All the way home on the train, she's humming the songs from the show—and then she's making up words to go with the melody. She always had this thing she could do, it was like a trick memory—she'd hear a song once and she knew the music. The words didn't come quite so fast; she usually had to see them written out. But you could sing any tune to her and she'd sing it back to you.

“So Lu and Pop are going home on the train and Lu is singing her own words to the songs and doing gestures like she remembers from the show and trying to dance in the aisles and Pop thinks she's real cute. And after that, they go to a show every time they're in New York—not telling Mama, of course.

“A couple of years go by with them going to the theater behind Mama's back, and then Miss Gaspari—she's still teaching Lu at the school—wants to set up an appointment to see if Maestro DiTullio will take Lu as a pupil. Lu doesn't even ask Mama; she goes straight to Pop and he says, yeah, sure, why not? Mama gets real mad when she hears about it, but what can she do? Pop is the man of the house.

“DiTullio hears her sing, and says he'll take her. But to make Mama not be so mad, the deal is, I've got to go with Lu to her lesson every week. I've got to sit there for the whole hour until she's finished, then walk her home. Every Saturday morning when all my friends are outside playing ball!” He paused for a moment, then added, “But even I know DiTullio's real picky about who he takes—so being his pupil, that's a real feather in Lu's cap.