Joanna held vigil in the kitchen, watching her mother make the batter and pour it into the waffle maker, and repeatedly asked after the status, until at last her mother said breakfast was ready. As soon as her mother opened the door to the bedroom, Joanna jumped off the kitchen chair, hit her knees, and prayed with all of her might. She pointed the tips of her fingers straight to heaven as the nuns had taught her, and repeated under her breath, “please God, please God,” over and over.

The next thing she heard was her mother screaming the words she feared the most. “Oh, my God! Mike, Mike, wake up! Oh, no! He’s all blue!”

The tradition in that part of Brooklyn at the time was for Roman Catholic families to hold a wake for several days. Joanna thought it was silly that they called it a “wake,” when they knew the person in the casket was not going to wake up. It seemed to her that everyone just sat around and whispered, and left as soon as they could, but the family members stayed throughout the hours the funeral home was open. This became the new normal for Joanna, and she found that she would regularly inspect the floral arrangements and meander over to kneel beside her father as often as possible. She wanted to make certain she did not miss one second that she could look at her dad, even though he really didn’t look like himself. She was filled with dread at the idea that in just a few days they would put him in the ground, and she would never see him again.

Her dad had treated her like a princess. He had loved to lift her up onto his lap, and tickle her belly or make a silly sound blowing on her neck. Whenever she would come home from school or he would enter the house at the end of the day, he would make his first glimpse of her seem like a celebration. He had always made her feel special, and so she wanted to do something for him—but she couldn’t, and, on top of that, now she never would be able to buy him those work boots, so she felt she had broken her promise. She did the little things she could, such as straightening his tie, pressing down the handkerchief in his suit pocket so it would lie flat, and adjusting the rosary beads in his hands, though they didn’t move at all. This last thing she didn’t like to do because his hands felt so cold and hard. In real life, her dad had hardly ever worn a suit, but here he was, all dressed up in the dark suit he saved for special occasions, such as weddings and christenings.