It was sheer relief I felt, that Lionel hadn’t been paroled. No emotion at all about my grandfather’s death except a small stab of hope—Now Daddy will have one less person he cares about.

  Family meant so much to Daddy, even the old sod. One less person in his family would increase the value of the exiled daughter.

  “. . . sad, that Grandpa has died. When exactly . . .”

  As if I gave a damn, when! I’d hardly given a thought to my grandfather since I’d been sent away from home.

  Not paroled! Not paroled yet.

  That was all I cared about: my brother, still incarcerated.

  Then it occurred to me: there would be a funeral for Grandpa Kerrigan.

  A funeral mass—a “solemn high mass”—for all the relatives, and I would go to it—in St. Matthew’s Church. Aunt Irma and I would go together, and would sit with my family in a pew at the front of the church.

  Like something swelling, opening in my brain: an American beauty rose, a sunburst. I will go to Grandpa’s funeral.

  But when I asked Irma about the funeral she shook her head evasively. “I don’t think they want us, Violet. Lula was sounding so tired, she didn’t even think to mention a funeral.”

  Lula. So my mother had called. Another time, she hadn’t asked to speak to me.

  “Did Mom ask how I was?”—breathlessly.

  “Y-Yes, Violet. She always does . . .”

  Always. Fucking damn lie, but I loved to hear it.

  “What did you tell her?”

  Aunt Irma was staring blankly at me, she’d lost the thread of the conversation.

  As if, in an exchange with me, there was ever getting away from me.

  “What did I tell her?—I told her you were doing well. Very good grades at school. We were talking about your grandfather, mostly . . .” Irma spoke apologetically. “He’d had a stroke, at the end. Last week. He’d been hanging on so long with his emphysema, at the nursing home they said it was like a miracle . . .”

  Miracle! Bullshit. Almost, I laughed in Irma’s face.

  Katie had told me, you had to admire the old sod. Emphysema, angina, tremors in both hands, deaf, macular degeneration—our grandfather had come close to dying a dozen times but had always recovered, to a degree. In the Catholic nursing home he’d remained as mean as ever like an old snake, very still, cunning, you approached him at your own peril.

  “Is the funeral tomorrow? The next day? We could go—we could drive . . .”

  “I don’t think so.” Irma was sounding embarrassed. “Lula didn’t ask me to come. She just thought that I should know about Jerome’s father dying but—I wasn’t close to your grandfather—I hardly knew him.”

  Irma paused. She may have been recollecting something unpleasant about my grandfather who’d often, for no reason except meanness, made crude comments about women’s faces and bodies to evoke laughter in others. And Irma was not the sort of attractive, sexually alluring or vivacious woman whom the old man admired.

  I said, “I should be there. Everyone will be there.”

  “No, Violet. I don’t think so . . .”

  “Won’t they expect you? Me?”

  My voice rose in distress. Irma caught at my hands, that were flailing about like wounded birds. Even as I thought calmly—Of course you are not invited, you are not wanted there. Not ever.

  THAT NIGHT, IN A STATE OF HIGH EXCITEMENT I CALLED HOME. Sheerly by chance Katie picked up the phone.

  “Oh. God, Violet. I can’t talk now . . .”

  In my sister’s voice was distress, dismay. I did not want to think, dislike.

  Katie had asked me not to call her at my parents’ number. But I had no other number for her, just yet.

  “Christ! Let me take this into another room . . . .”

  In the background were voices not distinct enough to be identified. I could imagine Katie slipping away from the others with the cordless phone clutched behind her back, hoping no one would notice.

  Not a good time to call. I knew this. The very day of a death in the family. The household would be in an upheaval. Relatives of the deceased man would be dropping by—there were many in South Niagara alone. As usual Mom would be in charge. Mom would be preparing food for visitors. And Daddy would be in an excitable and unpredictable mood.

  Soon, Katie would be moving out of the house on Black Rock Street. She was taking courses at the community college and working part-time.

  Wanting badly (she’d said) to leave South Niagara where everyone knew about Jerome Jr. and Lionel in prison but she couldn’t abandon Mom, as Miriam had.

  Yes, everyone still talked about it. Hadrian Johnson.

  Seemed like South Niagara was divided almost in two: those who believed that four white boys had killed a black boy by beating him to death with a baseball bat, and those who believed, or professed to believe, that the white boys had been unfairly blamed, “railroaded” into pleading guilty and unjustly sent to prison.

  The subject was so painful, I did not ask Katie about it any longer. Everything there was to be said had been said many times. White racists, black racists were accusations freely flung about.

  Especially, I didn’t want to know how Katie herself felt.

  Problem was, Katie was telling me frankly: Daddy would be really pissed with her if he knew that she and I spoke often on the phone.

  As if we spoke often!

  I was hurt, and I was resentful. But I knew not to betray sarcasm for Katie would soon hang up.

  At first Katie was as evasive as Aunt Irma had been about the time of Grandpa’s funeral, then she relented: Thursday morning, 10:00 A.M. at St. Matthew’s.

  This was good news! Two days from now.

  Quickly I told her that Aunt Irma wanted to come to the funeral. A plausible lie: Mom had asked Katie to come help her in the emergency.

  “. . . could drive there, if we left early Thursday morning. We could stay with . . . Well, that would be up to Mom. I guess lots of Grandpa’s relatives are coming, from Niagara Falls?”

  At the other end of the line Katie was startled, silent. What was Violet saying!

  Blithely I repeated that Irma intended to come to South Niagara, to help Mom. And I could drive Irma’s car some of the way, I had a driver’s permit now.

  Still, Katie was silent. I could envision my sister biting her lower lip, staring into a corner of the room.

  “Katie? Are you there? Is something wrong?”—my voice cracked with anxiety.

  “I—I’m here, Violet. I am—here.” There was a blankness in my sister’s speech like the blankness in Aunt Irma’s face when I’d asked her a question she had not seemed to hear.

  “It’s all right if I come, Katie? Isn’t it? I mean—Grandpa is my grandfather, people would wonder if I didn’t come to his funeral . . . Wouldn’t they?”

  “Oh, Violet. I—don’t know. It’s kind of a stressful time for us. Maybe not good to try to ‘visit’ right now—you know how Daddy feels about you.”

  “But Daddy would see that I cared. About Grandpa.”

  Katie seemed to be contemplating this. To me, it seemed so plausible that a death in the family would draw us together.

  “. . . thing is, Violet, it’s not a great time for any more surprises. Grandpa had not wanted to be moved to the nursing home. He went kind of crazy, so angry. Breaking things. Shouting. Threatening he’d set the house on fire. We were all afraid of him especially Mom who was stuck in the house with him so much. Daddy was hoping they could make it up before he died, but that didn’t happen. Grandpa wouldn’t even see Daddy at the end, or anyone. In the nursing home they had to restrain him even after he’d had strokes and didn’t weigh more than one hundred pounds. So Daddy is feeling terrible, how things turned out. And he might have to sell the house, to pay lawyers. That makes him really depressed, him and Mom both. You know how Daddy loves this house.”

  Terrible news! The house I’d been forbidden to enter, of which I dreamt every night . . . If my father sold it, there would be no home for me to return to, ever.

  “. . . and Lionel was up for his first parole hearing this week—I told you. But it was postponed until next month, we don’t know why.”

  Postponed to next month. That was why Aunt Irma hadn’t mentioned it, there was no news only a deferment.

  A reprieve, it was. I would not have to think about my vengeful brother released to punish me for another four weeks at least.

  “Violet? You know how Daddy is . . . How he’s been . . . I don’t think he would be much different now, if you showed up at the funeral. I mean—he hasn’t changed his way of thinking about you. Mom maybe, a little—Mom does say she misses you. But . . .”

  Misses me. But won’t do anything about it, will she.

  Hearing this I thought—I hate her more than I hate him.

  For an awkward moment there was silence on the line. I could not think of anything to say, I’d been struck between the eyes by—something . . . Not even sure what we’d been talking about, I’d been so thrown off-balance.

  That was the danger in calling either of my sisters. They would try to discourage me. Try to protect me from being told what I did not want to hear which was (as I knew) what I’d already been told and should have known and (indeed) did know. And yet.

  “Violet? Are you still there?”

  “Where else would I be?”—adolescent sarcasm now.

  Katie seemed about to say something further but then as if weary of the subject, or exasperated by me, she murmured only, in a conclusive way: “So.”

  So was a mere expulsion of air, a sigh. I did not want to interpret it So, Violet, you can see that this is not a good time for you to return home but rather as a neutral signifier, friendly, informative.

  “Katie, thanks! I guess—I will see you on Thursday—at St. Matthew’s.”

  Quickly hanging up then, before Katie could protest.

  LEFT A NOTE FOR MY AUNT IRMA TO SPARE HER TRYING TO DISSUADE me.

  Dear Aunt Irma, I am going to South Niagara for the funeral. I will take a bus. I will be all right. Will try to call when I can.

  How to sign? I hated hypocrisy, damned if I would say Love, Violet.

  Finally just signed V. Reasoning, Irma would know who V. was.

  FISTFUL OF SMALL-DENOMINATION BILLS. FORTY-SIX DOLLARS.

  Chump change painstakingly saved from babysitting for my aunt’s friends and neighbors. Tempted to take (small) bills from Uncle Oscar’s wallet left on a bureau in his bedroom but decided against this thinking shrewdly—One day, might want to take all the bills in that wallet. Not yet.

  With these bills, and not much left over, I was able to purchase a round-trip ticket to South Niagara on a Greyhound bus leaving Port Oriskany at 7:10 A.M. on Thursday and arriving in South Niagara at 9:25 A.M. If the bus was not delayed, and if I could get to St. Matthew’s (which had to be at least two miles from the South Niagara bus station) within a half hour, I would not be late for the funeral mass; and if I was late, I would sit quietly at the rear of the church in a pew by myself and my parents would discover me, the end of the service when everyone rose to leave, and understand that I’d hoped to arrive on time but had had to come a distance, from Port Oriskany . . .

  Obsessively I rehearsed: Greyhound bus, bus station in South Niagara, Front Street, Huron Avenue, Comstock Street, Bryant, St. Matthew’s Church where a priest (Father Greavy) would be saying a solemn high mass for my grandfather’s soul.

  And again: Greyhound bus, bus station in South Niagara, Front Street, Huron Avenue, Comstock Street, Bryant, St. Matthew’s Church . . . I’d begun to tremble with anticipation and excitement.

  “Traveling far?”—a stout woman in a pea-colored woolen coat was seated beside me, on the aisle.

  “Not far.”

  “Alone?”

  Couldn’t she see that I was alone!—I wanted to protest. Of course, I only just murmured yes.

  The friendly woman was traveling to Buffalo, she said. Where she had family. Was that where I was headed, too? Her voice was warm, confiding.

  (Could I pretend not to hear?) (But no, I could not. Could not bring myself to be rude to this friendly stranger.)

  “. . . South Niagara.” My answer was vague as if I wasn’t altogether sure and in any case did not want to elaborate.

  “Visiting family?”

  A pause. How grudging I felt, having to explain myself. And how self-pitying it sounded, in a voice unexpectedly weak.

  “My grandfather’s funeral . . .”

  “Funeral! Oh. I am sorry.” The friendly woman ceased smiling like a light switched off.

  Holding myself very still. Staring out the window. In dread of having to speak with another person for the next hour and a half when I wanted only to be alone with my thoughts.

  But the woman would not relent. Turning to me, like a heat vent suddenly opened, inescapable—“You are traveling alone to the funeral? Will you be all right?”

  What a question to ask! Would I be all right.

  Blood pounded hotly in my cheeks. No one in my life any longer, not Aunt Irma, certainly not my mother, spoke to me so intimately, or seemed to care so much about me as this inquisitive stranger.

  “I—I’m old enough to take the bus to South Niagara alone. It isn’t far.”

  “Isn’t far, but it’s a funeral . . . You sure you all right? How old are you?”

  Something suspicious and tender in the woman’s voice was wounding to me. I could not bring myself to face her. My eyes welled with tears, turned to the passing landscape outside the window.

  None of this stranger’s business how old I was but I heard myself tell her, barely audible—“Eighteen.”

  “Eighteen! No.”

  Because I did not look eighteen? My heart beat in resentment. Why the hell didn’t this woman leave me alone!

  It was true, I wasn’t (yet) eighteen. But I felt much older. I carried myself (I was sure) with the assurance of a young woman in her twenties.

  “Where’s your family, you got to travel alone to a funeral?”

  Intonations of a mother’s voice. A mildly scandalized mother. I had a dread of this stranger clutching at my hands suddenly, to comfort me.

  “My family is—where I am going. That’s where I am going.”

  So inanely I spoke, my lips felt parched. The frantic thought came to me that I had to escape—push out over the woman, stumble along the aisle to the rear of the bus, find an empty seat . . .

  But the bus was moving, the driver would shout at me. The friendly woman would be surprised, and hurt.

  “How old was your grandpa?”

  “I—I don’t know . . .”

  “Real old, or just—kind of old? Seventy-five? Eighty? Or—younger? Ohhh, I hope not.” Laughing, as if the prospect of a young grandpa dying was especially alarming. “Did you love him a lot?”

  Love him a lot. How absurd was this!

  “Y-Yes . . .”

  “Oh, I loved my grandpa a lot, too! Just the one grandpa I knew, the other I didn’t know, I guess my momma didn’t, either. But the one—I did know, he was a blessed person.”

  Blessed. The word was a blank to me, beyond comprehension.

  Oblivious of my discomfort the woman persisted: “Is this grandpa your momma’s father, or your daddy’s? Were they close?”

  Determined not to answer any more inane questions. I would take out a textbook and begin to read.

  But heard myself say stammering that Grandpa was my father’s father. No, they were not close. But maybe—yes. They didn’t get along but they were close. I thought so. Maybe they were. Maybe it was a bad shock to my father, that Grandpa had died. “My father doesn’t like things to change. He feels sad, he can’t make things better than they are for his family.”

  Why I was speaking in this way to a stranger on a Greyhound bus, I had no idea. Though I felt sulky, hostile, prickly as a wild creature trapped in a corner my voice was the voice of a child in need of consolation.

  “Oh, your daddy will take it hard! They all do. It’s like a woman losing her mother—real hard. Like, if they ain’t been getting along, it’s worse, ’cause they can’t make it up, and that’s the worst—you can’t change how the other person feels, ’cause it’s too late. And what you feel—it’s too late.”

  Like warm water the woman’s sympathy spilled onto me. A miserable sensation, yet I could not break away.

  Heard myself say suddenly it had been a terrible shock to me, news of my grandfather’s death. “I guess—I will miss him a lot . . .”

  Astonishing, the words that spilled from me. Maudlin tears in my eyes for a grandfather I might have loved if he’d loved me—if, in fact, Grandpa had been a different person. Grieving for a person who’d never existed—like reaching into your pocket and encountering a hole in the fabric. Whatever might’ve been in the pocket has vanished.

  Now she’d pried me open, like a mollusk. Now, the woman whose name was Sarabeth had me in her grip and would not release me. Extracted from me the information that my name was Violet—and that I lived with an aunt in Port Oriskany. That I was a senior in Port Oriskany High School where all of Sarabeth’s children had gone—“But they’re too old for you, Vi’let—you wouldn’t know them.” In turn Sarabeth embarked upon a complicated story of her mother’s mother who was born in Macon, Georgia, and married at fifteen, lost her first husband (“something bad done to him by bad people”), and remarried, and traveled north with the second husband in the 1930s—first to Cleveland, then to Erie, Pennsylvania, then to Buffalo, and Tonawanda where Sarabeth’s grandfather worked on the New York Central Railroad, and they had eleven children—“And those eleven children, they had children—lots of ’em!” Two of Sarabeth’s daughters were teachers and her youngest son was “some kind of expert in computers” in Rochester. “You got to be impressed, my grandma was the great-great-granddaughter of slaves. Makes me real happy to think how far we all come!”

  Sarabeth spoke without rancor though with an air of incredulity. I could not help but share this incredulity. Slaves?

  In my distracted state I hadn’t registered that Sarabeth was dark-skinned. Girls at school with whom I was friendly were mostly black and I had ceased to notice the color of their skin. The woman’s physical presence, her persistent friendliness had been overwhelming to me.