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“His niece.”

Another nurse checks her watch. “Three thirteen a.m.”

I look at Uncle Louie. The color drains from his face. He grows as pale as the pink paisley hospital gown he’s wearing. “He’s gone?”

“We tried. I am sorry,” she says with great kindness. “We’ll give you time with him. Take as long as you need.”

“I have to call my aunt. My mom. The family. They were just here. They wanted to be with him.” I panic.

She places her hand on my arm. “It’s my experience that the patient chooses the person to witness his passing. That’s you, hon. I’m sorry.”

This can’t be true. I look up as though I’ll locate Uncle Louie’s soul floating overhead and yank it out of thin air and put it back in his body. He’d give me a wink, like a secret signal, one only I would understand. But there’s nothing but white pressboard over my head. I feel a strange chill and shudder. “Where did you go, Uncle Louie?” I look down at him. There’s a little smile on his face, not smug, but a warm one that seems to say,I told you I had a lousy ticker.

My hand shakes as I call my mom. She doesn’t pick up. I text my father to wake up my mother and tell her so she can go and get Aunt Lil and bring her to the hospital. I text my sister to go and be with my mother. I text my brother to go and be with my sister. I text my father again to make sure that my mother, sister, and brother are okay when I think:Just group text.

Uncle Louie is gone. He went peacefully at 3:13 a.m.

The nurses return to prepare my uncle for his trip to the Frank R. Cortese Funeral Home. I know for sure that’s where he’s going because I wrote it down on his admission form yesterday as Uncle Louie instructed. I thank the nurses and excuse myself to step outside into the hallway. I’m numb. I lean against the wall and slide down until I’m seated on the spotless, polished linoleum floor.

Uncle Louie used to say that the floors of the great institutions are always made of marble because it is the only stone that stands the test of wear over time. “Ain’t the Colosseum still standing? The Vatican? Grand Central Station? Your mother’s half bath?”

In honor of Uncle Louie, I look for the marble. I find it in thewhite baseboards along the corridor, which form a trim on the wall with rounded edges. A sign. Uncle Louie also said if you saw marble anywhere in New Jersey, he was the jackass who hauled it over from Italy. Louie Capodimonte was no jackass; what he knew, he knew. And he knew marble.

6

Birds of Passage

Some Italians whoimmigrated to America at the turn of the twentieth century eventually moved back to Italy. They worked and saved while they were here and returned home in better shape than when they left. These birds of passage had a love for Italy that was bigger than their American dream. The Caps and Barattas stayed, living and dying in their new country. We believe we take flight when we die, on a journey back to the source. In that sense, we are all birds of passage, even Uncle Louie. I wonder if he knew that he changed the lives of every person who had the privilege of knowing him. He was a man you were happy to see, regardless of the circumstance.

Every person in my family who was present with my uncle when he collapsed would remember what they needed to take away from the experience. The children would remember the magic quarters. Connie would recall that Uncle Louie said he loved her, while Joe would remember that he prevented further trauma by helping our uncle to the floor before he hit his head. Diego would regret that he mentioned Aunt Lil and Uncle Louie were childless. My fatherwould lament that he didn’t do enough to save his brother-in-law. My mother would remember that her brother disinvited her to Italy and keeled over before he could make it right and reverse his decision to include her. Aunt Lil would remember it as the night she lost her husband and became a widow. I would look back on that Sunday dinner as our Last Supper, the end of life as the Caps and Barattas knew it on Lake Como. I would recall that night as the death of my Italian dream, which also marked the moment when I lost the only person in my life who had my back.

The Mona Lisa Beauty Salon

“What are we going for?” Lisa Natalizio puts her face next to mine in the well-lit mirror. She sparkles with strategically placed blond highlights and shiny blue-green eyes, while I am pale and washed out, like a dirtymopeenat the bottom of the bucket after the car has been washed.

“Thanks for keeping the shop open for me.” I avoid my face in the mirror because I haven’t slept. “I want to look good for Uncle Louie. It was his dying wish.”

“My pleasure,” she says as she pumps the chair until my head is at eye level with her scissors. An appointment at the Mona Lisa Beauty Salon in the Belmar Mall is coveted:classic looks for modern women, the sign over the door says. Lisa is all about her family and friends. (The shop is named for her mother, Mona, and the proprietor, of course. Bobby and I aren’t the only graduates of Saint Rose who went into a family business.)

The shop is closed but Lisa stayed late for me. The final plans for Uncle Louie’s viewing and funeral are overwhelming. The great hair stylists know their skills are needed most when looking presentableis the last thing on a woman’s mind. Lisa and I have been friends since kindergarten; she’s been styling my hair since she got her beautician’s license at twenty-one. Even Lisa went away for school; she studied at the Bumble and Bumble salon in New York City.

“I can give you any look you want. You’re in mourning, so nothing drastic,” Lisa says. “What are you wearing?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“I got an LBD. It’s C-U-T-E. I’ll drop it off at your mother’s.”

“Y-E-S. Can we stop with the spelling?”

She ignores my request and goes on. “It’s my go-to for wakes, funerals, and my annual visit to the accountant. It would be my honor to loan it to you. Your uncle was a good guy. Always with a joke.” She squints at me in the mirror. “You realize I knew Uncle Louie as long as I’ve known you. So, let’s lighten up in his honor. We’re gonna do some highlights around your face. I can paint them at the sink.”

“Paint me however you see me. Just don’t give me the Saint Rose Primary School special.”

“I had lousy equipment,” Lisa says defensively. “Who can cut anything but pipe cleaners with those blunt scissors?”

“You did. You cut off all of my hair. You gave me the Scout cut fromTo Kill a Mockingbird.”

“Will you ever forgive me?”