Chapter 15: The Wake

"I didn't touch your safe," I said.

"Then open the bag."

"No."

"Open it!"

The housekeeper had come up behind us in her gray cardigan.

Two of the men from the gate were in the hall.

My mother looked at all of them, and her voice went high and wet.

"She's been in that room every night for a month. She's got him signing God knows what. And now his will is gone."

"Donna," Angelo said. His voice was wrecked. "My brother's upstairs. He's been dead twenty minutes."

That stopped her.

For about one second.

"I know where my husband is," she said. "I'm asking where his will is."

I didn't answer that.

I turned around and went back upstairs to finish washing him.

The wake was Tuesday night at the Corso funeral home on Passyunk.

The line went out the door and down the block in the cold.

Captains and their wives.

Truck drivers in their good jackets.

Longshoremen with their hands folded in front of them, big and quiet, the way I remembered them from another funeral.

I wore a black dress the housekeeper lent me.

Angelo stood beside me at the side of the room in a black suit, and he didn't leave my side once.

My mother sat in the front row in black lace as the widow, taking people's hands.

Corrine sat beside her in a black sheath dress.

Paulie's gold watch was gone from her wrist.

Paulie worked the room.

I was standing by the flowers when it happened.

Corrine got up from the front row and walked over to the casket.

She laid one hand on the edge of it, very gently.

Then she turned around to face the room.

"I'm sorry," she said, loud enough to stop every conversation. "I can't stand here and pretend anymore."

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