The Don's Wife Never Looks Back novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: The Memorial

Nathaniel had switched on the lamp.

He was sitting up beside me under the blue quilt, watching my face.

"As the daughter," I said into the phone.

"I told her I'd have to ask you," the priest said. "It's your mass. You paid for the flowers."

I thought about Mama's sewing box on the parlor table.

I thought about the sealed envelope under the pincushion, with two words on it.

"Let her," I said.

The priest was quiet for a moment.

"Mira. Are you sure?"

"Tell her yes. Tell her she can speak right after the gospel."

Saint Bridget's was full by a quarter to ten on Saturday.

I'd never seen it that full, not even for Easter.

The neighbors came first, in their good coats.

The old lady next door, the butcher and his wife, the women Mama had sewn for, the altar society, the men from the Knights.

Marisa's family took up a whole pew, and Marisa's mother had brought a casserole dish she held on her lap through the entire mass.

Then the Corsis.

Nonna came up the aisle on a cousin's arm, four foot ten in black, and sat in the second pew directly behind me.

The aunts filled two rows behind her.

The foundation wives came in a group, in pearls and wool, and the oldest one with the emerald brooch nodded to me as she sat down.

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