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I am back on dessert and coffee detail, as though I never left Lake Como, but this time it’s different, or maybe it’s that I have changed. It’s little things. I move through the rooms without anxiety. I stay in the moment and don’t look for validation. (I remind myself, for what exactly?) I don’t take random comments to heart. I listen. But there is a restlessness in me. As much as I love seeing family and friends, I long for Piazza Alberica and the Italian sunrises that marked my time there. Perhaps this is the biggest difference, the most seismic change: I have a new landscape for my hopes and dreams.

“Jess, it’s so nice to see you. I wish it were under better circumstances.” Carmel, Aunt Lil’s surviving sister, looks a lot like Aunt Lil, with smaller stones in her jewelry settings.

“I’m so sorry for your loss. We loved Aunt Lil.” I embrace her.

“She got a kick out of the Capodimontes. Your mother tells me you’re in charge of everything.”

I nod. “I haven’t had a chance to go over to Aunt Lil’s yet, but I want you to know, the jewelry goes to you and to Marina. That was Aunt Lil’s wish.”

“It’s too much.” Carmel places her hand on her chest.

“No such thing. Aunt Lil taught me that you can never have too many diamonds.”

“I loved her.” Carmel cries. “She was a wonderful sister. I mean, we squabbled, you know, as sisters do, but I always loved Lil. So many memories.”

“Mom, do you need anything?” Marina, her daughter, joins us. Marina is in her early forties, shy and delicate; she looks like she’s made of the same porcelain from which Mom’s Lladró Madonna was poured.

“My sister left us all of her jewelry,” Carmel says softly to her daughter. “Can you imagine that?”

“I don’t have anyplace to wear it,” Marina says sadly.

“Then wear it at home and let it be your inspiration to travel the world and meet interesting people,” I tell her.

Marina is about to tell me something when Lisa Natalizio lopes toward us, holding the wall with one hand and her drink in the other. Lisa is three-quarters in on her second jumbo tumbler of rum and Coke. She lets go of the wall and throws her arm around me for balance. I hold her up. Aunt Lil’s funeral reception is about half an hour away from turning into a sloppy ladies’ night at the Stone Pony, where we drink until we can’t remember the words to the Hail Mary. I’m already way behind, so I help myself to a swig of Lisa’s drink.

“Loved your epistle,” Lisa says.

Lisa hated religion class at Saint Rose, and it shows she retained nothing for her lack of effort. “Eulogy,” I correct her.

“That too. Just keep the dress,” Lisa slurs.

“No, it’s yours.”

“It looks better on you.”

My father comes up behind me and puts his arm around me. “I missed my baby.”

“I missed you too, Dad.”

“Wonderful job on the eulogy,” Dad says.

“I was just sayin’…” Lisa rolls her head around, attempting to nod like a sober person.

“Yes, good job, honey,” Mom says as she offers us tea sandwiches on a silver tray. “Death has become a permanent resident on the lake. We’re losing family right and left. Poor Lil. It was so fast. She had trouble breathing, went to bed, and was gone. I hope God graces me with an easy death when the Grim Reaper comes for me.”

“I’m sure he’s on the intersection of North Boulevard and Surf Avenue, Phil.” My father shakes his head.

“Go ahead, Joe, make fun of me. But things are changing. Keep that big head of yours in the clouds and you’ll live to regret it. Look at the street. More houses dark than lit. It’s like a set of rotten teeth around the lake. Falling out one by one. Clink. Clink. Clink. Soon, the smile is gone, and we don’t have a face.”

“Good God.” Dad shakes his head. “You make grief worse.”

“Tradition can only exist in a state of change,” I tell them.

“Who the hell said that?” Mom asks.

“An artist in Italy.”

“Well, he can keep his lousy observation. Joe, put on the air.”