Chapter 18: The Funeral Guest

On Friday I sat in the front pew of the Pozzi church with my hair down and my veil over my face.

Allegra's mother had pinned the little brown mark by my eyebrow herself, with a pencil, in her kitchen.

"Be her for an hour," she had said. "Then be yourself, and I'll love you for it."

The coffin stood white and closed at the foot of the altar.

On top of it lay a single blue scarf.

Every family head in Chicago sat behind me in dark coats, and I could feel the weight of their eyes on the back of my neck.

Vincenzo sat on my right, and the oldest Pozzi uncle sat on the mother's far side.

Fio, in black, had stolen a cherry from the funeral flowers and was holding it in her fist.

The church doors opened at ten past ten.

Dario walked in alone, in a black suit with a black tie, carrying a wreath of white roses.

The whole church turned to look at him.

Then he looked at the front pew, and he saw my face under the veil.

His step caught.

It was a small thing, one foot landing wrong on the stone, and half the room saw it.

He recovered and came on slowly, up the long aisle, and laid the wreath on the coffin.

His hand shook against the lid.

"Brother," the oldest uncle said. "You asked to speak."

"I did."

Dario stepped up to the lectern and unfolded a sheet of paper.

He did not look at me.

"Allegra Pozzi was twenty-two years old," he read, "and she was the kindest girl who ever sat at my table. She..."

I lifted my veil off my face with both hands and laid it across my knees.

The paper in his hand trembled.

"She laughed at all my jokes," Dario read. "She was like a daughter to..."

"Uncle," I said.

I said it softly, in the voice the actress had been taught, and it carried to the back of the church.

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