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“Always.” Uncle Louie sipped the lemonade. “This is delish, but you hit a point in life when nothing tastes like it used to.”

“That’s sad.”

“Can be. But let’s not be grim, shall we?” Uncle Louie fished a red pepper out of the jar with a plastic fork, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. “Philly canned these?” Louie nodded his approval. “My sister should’ve opened a restaurant. I offered to put her in business, but she couldn’t get past that I didn’t want her in marble.”

“What was the problem?”

“An Italian family in business cannot endure.”

“You’re joking, right? Ferragamo? Prada? The House of Gucci is one hundred years old.”

“You think those people cut the leather and make the shoes?Mannaggia.You think they work like you and me? No way! They farm the jobs out to manufacturers and put their name on it while they sit under a loggia on the Isle of Capri, drink wine, and fan themselves all summer as they watch the oligarchs sail by on their yachts. They work all right. They count the money; that’s about the extent of the manual labor they do. That’s why I like the Kerrigan kid. I got an honest set of eyes and ears in Italy; he’s true-blue like his father before him. You never do better in business than a partnership with a good Irishman.”

“What happened with you and Mom?”

“Your mother is not good with the public.” Uncle Louie chose his words carefully, as though he was allowing himself to choose just one sweet off a cookie tray. “Philly does not possess what we call a human touch. She’d talk customers out of projects when her job was to talk themintoan installation. If your mother were left to run Cap Marble and Stone, there’d be nothing left but slag by the time she was done with it. She just didn’t have the knack.”

“We asked her why she left the company. She always gave us a different answer.”

“I fired her.”

“We thought she quit. When she left the company, all she said was, ‘I will never speak to my brother again.’ ”

“And that’s another thing. Philly was conflict averse. Or should I say she was solution averse? She could fight all right, but she never knew whatfor. She read every situation as personal and took offense. Communication in business is everything. Didyou hear me on the phone with Conor? We discuss, we plan, and I finesse. But my sister? Incapable. Philly would blow up, put me on ice, stonewall, and send me packing with a one-way ticket to the Island anytime she disagreed with me.”

The Island was an imaginary place the Caps sent you when they weren’t speaking to you. In other families, it’s called the deep freeze or the silent treatment. Sometimes you didn’t know why you had been banished to the Island. When circumstances changed and they decided to speak to you again, you had no idea how you got off the Island, and you didn’t ask because you didn’t want to go back on the Island.

I chewed a bite of the sandwich thoughtfully. My mother had sent so many people to the Island she had a timeshare on it. “Mom said that her failure in the company was preordained. She told us that your father favored you over her.”

“That’s a fair assessment. Look, my father was a good guy, but he was a typical immigrant. He didn’t just move out of Italy; he packed it up and brought it with him. In that culture, a firstborn son can do no wrong. Ergo, your mother couldn’t do anything right. That’s just the way it was. Pop used to say when you have a son, you worry about one dick in town. When you have a daughter, you worry about every dick in town.” Uncle Louie chuckled. “He had one of each, so he knew.” He unwrapped his cookie from the wax paper and broke it in half. “Did Philly bake these?”

“Caroline Giovannini.”

“Best baker in Lake Como.” He dusted the crumbs off his hands with a paper napkin. “Enough with the biscotti. It’s time, Jess, and I mean this sincerely. You gotta get back in the game. An overhaul is in order. I’m going to put a little extra in your paycheck this week. Buy yourself some clothes that aren’t black. You’re not in mourning; you got divorced. There’s a difference.”

“This is my professional look.”

“If you’re a Jesuit. You must up your game. Lil and I always say you are the prettiest Baratta girl. That face. You need a wardrobe to go with that face.”

I looked down at my schlumpy black pants with the loose elastic waistband, shot from wear. I wore practical shoes because I didn’t want to ruin my good ones on job sites. My uncle was right. I dressed like the aide who hands out the ice cream cups in a mental institution.

I cleaned up the picnic table and put the thermos back into the lunch bag. “I’m getting my hair done this weekend,” I offered. “I may get bangs.” I sounded pathetic.

“Get it out of that Heidi braid. The Alpine look is for saps unless you’re wearing skis.”

Slightly offended, I patted the long brown braid that rested on my shoulder like a pet snake. “This is a cascading braid,” I clarify. “I’m in a rut.”

“Climb out! You’re squandering the juicy years. The time will come when you won’t desire a new purse or good shoes. You’ll give up entirely and keep your cash in your bra and wear foam sandals that seal with Velcro.”

“I’m not there just yet.”

He drew the letterOin the air with his finger. “You’re circling.”

I’m beginning tounderstand the importance of journaling. Writing helps me recall Uncle Louie’s particular turns of phrase and his way of speaking and, in it, his intent.

Uncle Louie snores so loudly in the hospital bed, he’ll eventuallywake himself up. His long nostrils expand and contract as he breathes. He looks frail. Maybe it’s the gray overhead light in the yellow room. My thoughts go to the worst outcome. I cannot imagine the world without him. I want a warning so I might prepare myself, but in my family, people don’t linger; they sigh and die.

My phone buzzes on top of the plastic food storage tower on the hospital windowsill. I check my texts.