“You should try that chemical stuff you pour on your head,” Grandma said. “My friend Lois Grizen uses it and she grew some hair. Only problem was she used it at night and it rubbed off on her pillow and got on her face and now she has to shave twice a day.”

My father looked up from his paper. “I always wondered what was wrong with her. I saw her in the deli last week and she looked like Wolfman. I thought she had a sex change.”

“I have everything on the table,” my mother said. “Come now before it gets cold. The bread will go stale.”

Valerie was already at the table with her plate filled. My mother had put out an antipasto platter, fresh bread from People’s, and a pan of sausage-and-cheese lasagna. Nine-year-old Angie, the perfect child and an exact replica of Valerie at that age, sat hands folded, patiently waiting for food to be passed. Her seven-year-old sister, Mary Alice, thundered down the stairs and galloped into the room. Mary Alice has for some time now been convinced she’s a horse. Outwardly she has all the characteristics of a little girl, but I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to the horse thing than meets the eye.

“Blackie tinkled in my bedroom,” Mary Alice said. “And I had to clean it up. That’s why I’m late. Blackie couldn’t help it. He’s just a baby horse and he doesn’t know any better.”

“Blackie’s a new horse, isn’t he?” Grandma asked.

“Yep. He came to play with me just today,” Mary Alice said.

“It was nice of you to clean it up,” Grandma said.

“Next time you should put his nose in it,” Kloughn said. “I heard that works sometimes.”

Valerie impatiently looked around the table. She folded her hands and bowed her head. “Thank God for this food,” Valerie said. And she dug in.

We all crossed ourselves, mumbled thank God, and started passing dishes.

There was a rap on the front door, the door opened, and Joe strolled in. “Is there room for me?” he asked.

My mother beamed. “Of course,” she said. “There’s always room for you. I set an extra plate just in case you could make it.”

There was a time when my mother warned me about Joe. Stay away from the Morelli boys, my mother would say. They can’t be trusted. They’re all sex fiends. And no Morelli man will ever amount to anything. A while back my mother had decided Joe was the exception to the rule and that somehow, in spite of genetic disadvantage, he’d actually managed to grow up. He was financially and professionally stable. And he could be trusted. Okay, so he was still a sex fiend, but at least he was a monogamous sex fiend. And most important, my mother had come to think that Joe was her best, and possibly only, shot at getting me off the streets and respectably married.

Grandma shoveled a wedge of lasagna onto her plate. “I’ve got to get the facts straight on the shooting,” she said. “Mitchell Farber just got laid out and Mabel and me are going to his viewing at Stiva’s funeral parlor right after dinner, and people are gonna be on me like white on rice.”