“I can do everything,” Rina said. “I’ll get the arrangements, get the flowers, make the calls to everyone including Devek, find a cemetery plot, and organize the entire affair. What you can do is take care of Chris. Make sure he doesn’t do anything dumb—at least until after the funeral.”

“I think I have the harder part,” Decker said.

Rina said, “I do not envy you at all.”

AFTER THE FUNERAL, after the speeches and the tears and the pomp, the crowd gathered for the wake, held in the lounge because so many people had shown up. Besides all the women and men who turned out for the boss, there was the Decker clan, who came in support of Gabe. Devek came to say his good-byes and to pick up his children. Terry’s half sister, Melissa, was there, as dazed and confused as the rest of the crowd. She was now thirty-five, and it was the first time she had ever met her niece, Juleen, and her nephew Sanjay.

Wakes were not the solemn shivas of Rina’s culture. Wakes were parties, celebrations of the lives of those who had passed. And Rina made sure that this was a grand one. She had ordered trays upon trays of foods from all cultures, she had stocked the bars with the best brands of spirits, and she had decorated the lounge with pictures of Terry from all parts of her life, from childhood to her recent wedding with Donatti. It included not only dozens of snapshots of Chris and her but also photographs of her with her children, even a few of her and Devek, at Chris’s behest. He wanted everyone who had been involved in her life to be represented.

As Rina observed the crowds, she saw that Chris was in his element. The popular kid. He was talking, smiling, eating, and drinking, probably more drink than what was wise. His employees gathered around him, never leaving him alone for a minute. They were his paid admirers, but they seemed genuinely concerned for their boss. Some of the women were even crying. Every so often, Chris would find Gabe and pull him to his side, looping his arm around his son’s shoulders and squeezing his neck. Then just as quickly, he’d drop his arm to his side, a sign that Gabe should beg off and return to the shelter of his fiancée and his foster family.