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“I did. But my mother? Never.”

“It grew out, didn’t it?”

“Like weeds.” I smile for the first time since Uncle Louie died. “Are you still seeing the electrician?”

Lisa makes a face. “Lights out.”

“You’ll meet somebody new.”

“I’m two dates in with the guy that owns the Kiffle Kitchen. But there hasn’t been a Norman invasion of this Italian girl since mysophomore year at Marywood,” she says as glops of my brown hair hit the floor. I tense up in the chair.

“I’m cutting to the shoulder. It will give you movement,” Lisa says soothingly as she snips. “So. Bobby Bilancia moved back to Ocean Avenue.”

“I heard.”

“Got a house.”

“I know.”

“When you guys got divorced, all hope was lost. If you two couldn’t make it, what does that say about the rest of us?”

“It says don’t look at anyone else to define your relationship.”

“Good point. I mean, I’m trying. I’m out there. I persist. I’m on those crap apps. I’ve had more cups of cold coffee with un-hot men than I can count. Have you signed up yet?”

“Nope.” I’m not ready to date. I’m not ready to think about dating, but I don’t want to depress the only other single woman my age in Monmouth County, so I keep my thoughts to myself.

“Maybe you could put aside whatever issues you and Bobby have and take a run at it again?”

“I guess anything is possible.” I can’t kill Lisa’s dream, not when she holds the scissors.

The Frank R.Cortese Funeral Home of Belmar, a stately white brick Georgian with black shutters, is lit with powerful floodlights that mimic the kliegs at a movie premiere in Hollywood’s Golden Age. The entrance is flanked by two large terra-cotta planters fanned with stalks of pink gladiolas and festooned with white ribbons. The Corteses have served as the undertakers for the dearly departed of our family for generations. The first investment theCaps and Barattas make before buying a new car or putting the down payment on a house is to pay in advance for our funerals:Lay away before you’re laid away.

Inside the marble foyer (Uncle Louie installed it in 1984), a junior version of the black-and-white diamond-checker-patterned floor of Westminster Abbey, there are jardinieres stuffed with day lilies and more gladiolas in brushed-gold urns.

The sign for Uncle Louie’s viewing outside the funeral home is propped in a frame on an easel in white letters punched into a black velvet board. The table bearing the sign-in book also holds a crystal bowl of breath mints and a spread of Uncle Louie’s Mass cards, with his dates of birth and death and words of wisdom from Saint Jude. The Mass card tree will soon be filled with envelopes as mourners line up to pay their respects. Cash donations in sympathy cards are a tradition in the same vein asla busta, where money is collected for the happy couple at a wedding. Family and friends donate to cover the expenses of the funeral, with extra for a Mass said in Louie’s name at our church. There will be so many people praying Uncle Louie’s immortal soul to higher ground in heaven, he will breeze through purgatory like it’s the HOV lane on the Jersey Turnpike during rush hour on Friday afternoon.

The viewing rooms are painted a delicate seashell pink, from ceiling to floor. The walls match the carpeting. Uncle Louie is laid out in a mahogany casket under the same pink lights they use to keep the prime rib warm at the Sons of Italy Easter dinner.

Lisa Natalizio’s LBD is JTT (just the thing). Honestly, it’s a little tight, but who’s going to be looking at me? I yank it down from the hem as I bend over to read the tribute cards on the flowers. There’s a marble arch made out of white carnations from Louie’s trade union. Next to it, a large round floral replica of the face of a clockmade of red carnations with Louie’s time of death, in clock hands made with yellow carnations, with a card signed by Googs,Remember the Good Times. Uncle Louie isn’t here to remember. But I am. No more slices of pizza when he’s feeling peckish at four o’clock. No jelly doughnuts from the Dunkin’ drive-through when his sugar drops. I never minded his dietary quirks or hearing his stories on a loop. There’s no one to tell the story of meeting Steve and Eydie in an elevator in Vegas in 1982, no one left to identify family members in old photographs, no one in the family who knows every lyric to “American Pie,” and no one to perform magic tricks. Louie Cap is gone.

Joe has his arm around Aunt Lil’s waist; she looks tiny in her black bouclé suit. Connie takes her hand as they stand before the open casket. My mother and father stand behind them. Mom has a bottle of smelling salts in her black patent leather dress purse, just in case Aunt Lil faints. After Aunt Lil pays her respects, my sister and brother help her to her seat in the front row to receive the mourners.

Connie, Joe, and I have taken our seats in the row behind Aunt Lil when Mom turns and jams her finger into my rib cage. “Stand and greet the mourners.” I look to Connie and Joe—hardly kids, we’re in our thirties, but suddenly we’re nine, eleven, and fourteen again.

“I want this affair to roll out like Princess Grace’s funeral. Class all the way,” Mom whispers. We stand erect like we’re the royal family of Monaco lining up on the balcony to witness cannon fire on a holiday. Mom and Dad move up to our row, taking the aisle seats.

Lisa Natalizio is first in line to pay her respects.

“That dress looks better on you than it ever did on me.” Lisa tucks the Mass card in her purse and I accompany her to the kneeler in front of the open casket.

“Louie looks good,” she whispers.

It means a lot coming from someone who has a certificate in cosmetology.

“Is it too soon to pray to him? I have a third date with Blaine Gundersen of the Kiffle Kitchen.”

“Uncle Louie will help you from the other side,” I promise her. “You have to make a space to fill it.” So, this is how the process of grief is going to unspool. I’m going to quote Uncle Louie and sound like wisdom you find on a refrigerator magnet.