"We can't have the caskets open. They told me."

Veronica turned away. I went into my bathroom and washed my face and hands until I heard them go downstairs.

A young guy with a black crew cut, maybe a few years older than I was, greeted us in the lobby of the funeral home. Why do funeral homes smell so distasteful, like the doctor's office, or a confession booth? He introduced himself as Roger and shook my hand like an ape. Must be the son of Lawrence's school mate, I thought. He had the hands and shoulders of someone who worked in construction during the summer, and wore a ugly beige suit so badly cut, it had to be a hand-me-down.

Roger escorted us into a large room in the back of the parlor that was filled, wall-to-wall, aisle-to-aisle, with coffins. f.u.c.king coffins! He cleared his throat and asked us to choose a pair, before running down the portico to answer a ringing phone.

I gazed out at the showroom of coffins. Choose a pair, huh? Hey, everybody, look! We're shopping for coffins! "What about that one?" I pointed to a sleek, jet black model directly in front of us.

Veronica shook her head. "Its too masculine for your mom."

"Fine." I pointed at a creamy white oblong job next to it. "That one for her."

Veronica shook her head again, taking a closer look at the white casket. I noticed she was wearing one of Mom's French scarves. "It's still...well, old-fashioned."

Old-fashioned? "Fine." I walked over to a pair of caskets in the corner that were molded from aluminum alloy. One was silver, and the other was a light gold. "These are modern."

"Don't you think they seem...cheap?"

I grabbed at the silver's price tag, hanging from one of the side grips. Fifteen hundred dollars? "They aren't."

Veronica shook her head yet again, her eyes locked on a casket I could see was made out of ebony. "What about this one?" How many clarinets could you make out of that?

Uncle Alex beamed back down to Earth and spoke up. "That looks too expensive."

I exhaled angrily through my teeth. Roger came back into the room and smiled stupidly at me. Jabbing a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the burial box boutique, I snarled, "Which one of these things are popular?"

Roger hurried over to a rose-colored casket with a metallic finish. "This one is, sir. It's very nice." He said that as if he were pointing out a sunroof on a Jaguar sedan. I stormed over to him and pushed my hand down inside the box, testing the mattress, as it were.

"It feels like raw springs with a bed sheet over them."

Roger blushed and looked away from me. "They're all like that, sir." Well, what if they're not dead yet? Hm? Laying there on that lot, they'll come back and haunt us, I was convinced. "But look at these!" Look at these whitewalls! He pointed wildly at the casket's handles, miniature sculptures of Biblical scenes, not unlike the Stations of the Cross.

The florist was a friend of Mom's. Her hands shook as she leafed through a large binder which contained hundreds of pictures featuring different floral arrangements, wreaths, bouquets, and so on. All the ones I really liked were meant for weddings.

Uncle Alex dropped a hand-blown crystal swan.

Veronica insisted on examining each of the funeral setting pictures like they were plans for the latest Soviet nuclear submarine. I played with the florist's s.h.a.ggy Chow, who took a liking to me after I kept feeding him Christmas cookies, which I took from the pocket of my pea coat.

Breakfast, you see.

Veronica was torn between a pair of full settings, raised flower pots, church pew decoratives, and wreath. One was mostly purple. The other had a lot of yellow and blue. Uncle Alex liked them both. The florist was delighted. They were both expensive. I reached across the three of them and flipped the page to an even more elaborate full setting, which had been initially rejected because it consisted solely of costly red roses.

"That's the one. I want these."

No one argued with me. The Chow tried to follow me out the door. It was beginning to snow again.

"Are you hungry, baby?"

I swore, if she called me that again, I would strangle her with Mom's scarf. The back seat of Uncle Alex's rented Ford Granada was uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess."

"Alex?" My uncle stared out of his window, evidently counting snowflakes or something. She called his name again before he looked back at her with glazed eyes. "Would you like to stop for lunch?" He nodded. Veronica kept to her driving, rather than fish for any more bad conversation.

I saw a Greek-owned family restaurant coming up on the right. You know the sort. Open twenty four hours with a huge menu (even though the burgers and breakfast were the only things worth having), complete with a giant, flashing tower that proudly featured the words STEAKS CHOPS c.o.c.kTAILS FOUNTAIN, and, of course, FINE FOOD. The only thing missing was EXP WAITRES WANTD on the marquee, but that was because it was HAPY XMAS SEASN.

I was in the middle of my salty French onion soup when Veronica looked at me with the kind of cheery, perky, HAPY smile that would irritate me when I watched one of the local newscasts on TV. She crushed an unopened bag of crackers before pouring the remains into her thick bowl of mushroom soup while Uncle Alex busied himself with over-b.u.t.tering a pair of Ry-Krisps.

The waitress refilled our coffee, unable to keep from looking over her arm at my face.

"I was thinking." This is good, I thought. She thinks. "After all of this is over," you know, like a long, boring movie is eventually over, "maybe we should all go down to Miami, or San Diego, someplace warm." Why, in G.o.d's name? "The three of us. They would have wanted us to." 'They? They aren't even in the ground yet, you scavenger. "What do you think, baby?"

Where was Mom's scarf?

It was the day after Christmas. We should have been returning all the gifts we really didn't like, and snapping up the half-price discounts on the good leftovers.

Three-thirty, and the low, grey sky outside the funeral home was already turning dark. Flurries of snow had been blowing since lunch. Someone mentioned there was a blizzard on the way for the entire Midwest. Every time somebody came in the front entrance, cold, fat gusts of wind followed them through. I was. .h.i.t by one of these drafts as I exited the men's bathroom, where I had just washed my hands and face again. The florist's delivery man, an older black gentleman with kind eyes and a grey moustache, struggled with his goods as Roger nervously escorted him into "The Resting Room" without lifting a finger to help the man carry anything.

I caught the young-and-old pair of ladies in the funeral home office looking at me like I was a Bengal tiger or something, locked in a small cage they didn't want to get too close to. I slammed the gla.s.s door against its supporting gla.s.s wall to give the hags something to talk about as I withdrew to watch the gloomy December sunset.

I stood restlessly in between Uncle Alex's rent-a-car and the funeral home's early model Cadillac station wagon. The florist's van was parked in the middle of the parking lot with its side door open. The delivery man glanced sadly at me as I ignored the dropping temperature and let the falling snow build up on my hair and grey tweed suit jacket.

"You should go back inside, child." He reached into the van and handed me a short-stemmed rose before he continued bringing in the various floral arrangements. I looked at the incongruous flower for a long time, watching the edge of the petals roll backward as snowflakes landed upon them. I broke off the bottom of the stem and inserted the remainder into the b.u.t.ton hole of my lapel. I wasn't sure if wearing the thing would be considered untoward.

I could still make out a hint of the rose's fragrance as I stalked back into the chilly and silent Resting Room, now festooned with flowers, empty chairs, and Mom and Dad's matching coffins, which were decorated with an odd a.s.sortment of framed pictures showing them in rather a better state than they were today.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"G.o.d bless you."

"What a terrible, terrible thing."

"If there's anything you need..."

"We were such good friends."

"You look charming in that suit."

"He was my favorite cousin."

"They've gone to a better place."

"We're here for you."

"You look tired."

"The flowers are beautiful, just beautiful."

"Our prayers are for you."

"How could this happen?"

"Why? Oh, why?"

"She was a wonderful woman."

"G.o.d be with you, little friend."

"What happened to your face?"

"I can't find the words."

"You've grown so much."

"Be strong."

"Can we do anything for you?"

"Horrible."

"I know they'll always be with you."

"Everything looks so nice."

"Call if you need anything."

"At least there was no suffering."

"We'll all miss them."

"Aren't any of your friends here?"

"Try not to take it very hard."

"If there's something I can do..."

"How are you holding up?"

"I didn't know you could buy so many roses in December."

"My G.o.d, on Christmas Eve!"

"You poor dear."

"We have to keep in touch."

"I miss them already."

"G.o.d will keep them for you."

"If there's anything I can do..."

I sat alone in the Reflection Room. It was decorated with dark paneling, uncomforting religious prints, and burgundy leather furniture that hadn't been broken in. One wall featured rows of leather-bound volumes, much like an attorney would own. I wasn't surprised to note the almost complete absence of any worthwhile literary works, aside from Balzac's Pere Goriot and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. Tiny snowmen and Santa Claus lights were hung around the borders of the stained gla.s.s windows. There were two black wrought-iron lamps in the suffocating box. I kept the one furthest from my seat on. The only piece of furniture in the room I really liked was a large cherry wood radio console.

n.o.body came into the room after I had retreated into it. Nicolasha and Roger talked quietly amongst themselves outside the door, discouraging anyone from doing so.

I spent the first part of the evening playing greeter while Uncle Alex tried to sober up, and then took to walking back and forth between the snowy parking lot, the wash basin in the men's bathroom, and the Resting Room, where the family had grabbed half of the seats to hold court, a chatty swarm of locusts whose company served only to rea.s.sure me that my cage really was too small that night.

I almost prayed for Felix to walk in the door.

After sitting in silence for I don't know how long, I plugged in the radio and switched it on to the Mom and Pop cla.s.sical station, just in time to hear one of their three announcers intone his best wishes for everyone's happy holidays, and introduce a live recording of the Orchestra del Teatro ala Scala di Milano playing a few overtures of Rossini. I'm glad I was alone in the room. No one saw me smile. My wandering mind alternated between images of Elmer Fudd having his hair done by Bugs Bunny, and lines of robed guests wandering about the Roman health spa in glorious Felliniesque monochrome. Il barbiere di Siviglia...bravissimo, indeed!

I decided I would one day visit Milano to see the opera.

"Little friend, your uncle would like you to come out." Why? "It is time for the closing prayer." Nicolasha and Roger beckoned me with a pair of melancholy smiles. I stood up and made them wait until the last few bars of Semiramide finished.

That's it, I thought. I'm going to Italy over Easter Vacation. To h.e.l.l with reality.

Nicolasha brushed his hand over my hair as Roger shifted back and forth on his heels. The funeral home heir said, "If there's anything we can do..." I walked past him, laughing under my breath.

I always knew G.o.d had a sense of humor.

The snow continued to fall through the endless night of the wake. Urged on by a bitter east wind, the snowstorm was still going strong by the time we met at Holy Rosary the next day. The ride to and from our old church was slow and treacherous.

Earlier that morning, the Polish priest had called me at home, to ask if I would say a few words during the church service.

"About what?"

"Your parents, of course. Whatever you might be feeling about them, or their pa.s.sing. Maybe something you remember from your childhood. It is up to you."

Fine.

"No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehea.r.s.e, But let your love even with my life decay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan And mock you with me after I am gone."