Across the room, my father hit the armrest again — hard — and jabbed his good hand downward, pointing at something under the cushion of his own chair.

Chapter 5 — The Casket, Closed

Rowena’s voice cut across the room, sharp now, the funeral-parlor smoothness gone.

“Julius.

Do not make a scene.

Let us bury your wife with some dignity, and then the family can discuss all of this privately, later —”

“Later,” I said.

I stood up.

I lifted my daughter onto my hip, and I reached out with my free hand and I closed the casket.

I shut it, and I put my back against it, and I looked around the room at my mother and my brother and my aunt — at my whole family, arranged around a coffin they were in a very great hurry to put in the ground before I got home.