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and about what Waters had told me. Were there things he wasn’t telling me? He’d been a cop forever; he must’ve had more gruesome conversations than ours. Yet he’d seemed unnerved by it. They’d found the murder weapon, but Waters still said there wasn’t much that was useful at the scene. I wasn’t a cop, but I knew there were all kinds of things a gun could reveal. What could be more useful to a murder investigation than the murder weapon? Why did I care?

    I tried to think of something else, something useful and kind to say to Julia. She was as stubborn a person as I knew, and, despiteher comments about needing me there, if she wanted services, they were going to happen, with or without me. She would do it all herself if she had to. She had so far and was already maybe keeping score against me for leaving her alone with it. I took a deep breath.

    “What do you need from me?” I asked.

    “First, I want you to take me to the Mall tomorrow,” she said. “I need clothes for this. The wake, the Mass.”

    “The Mall,” I groaned. “You’re a painter and you’re short on black clothes? I hate the fucking Mall. It’s everything . . .”

    Julia silenced me with a glare. “You’re coming with me. I’ll buy you lunch. I can’t argue about this anymore.” She stood and headed for the stairs.

    “Where are you going?”

    She stopped at the foot of the stairs. “I’m exhausted. I’m going upstairs to read for a while and then I’m going to bed.”

    “It’s barely six o’clock,” I said. “You need to eat something. Let me take you to the diner.”

    Julia looked at me, and then up the stairs, rubbing her hand up and down the banister. “I need some time alone.”

    I got up off the couch and went halfway to her. “I’m sorry I’m such a jerk. I’ll buy you a salad and we can start this conversation over.”

    She shook her head, held her hand up for me not to come closer. “I want to get an early start on tomorrow. We have a lot to do.”

    I returned to the couch, my beer, and the game. After a while, I realized Julia was still standing there. I ignored her for about thirty seconds. Then my skin started to itch. “What?”

    “You might want to start thinking about the eulogy,” she said.

    I stared at her for a long time. “You’re kidding.”

    “Who else is there?” she asked. “You’re the oldest son. It’s your job.” I was speechless. Had my sister lost her mind? “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You know I’m right. We’ll talk more about it later. Maybe you can talk to Jimmy about it.” She walked up the stairs.

    I stretched out on the couch, one leg thrown over the back, one foot on the floor, trying to relax into my first real moments of peace and quiet since Purvis had come to my door.

    When I woke up, it was dark out and the game was in extra innings. Carlos Beltran, the Mets’ All-Star center fielder, stood on second base, clapping his hands, infield dirt staining his uniform from his knees to his number. The cameras panned the ecstatic Shea Stadium crowd. Beltran had tied the game in the bottom of the eleventh with a two-out, two-run double. I was pleased, but my knowledge of the inevitable muted my enthusiasm. I knew Beltran would be stranded at second base. He would never make it home, and the Mets would find a way to lose the game, rendering Beltran’s big hit only a pretty but meaningless highlight in what was ultimately a losing effort.

    The Mets held on through the twelfth, but I couldn’t get back into the game. Instead of getting caught up in the excitement of extra innings, I found myself wishing they’d hurry up and get it over with. The commercials before the thirteenth seemed interminable. Unable to sit still, I stood and stretched. My legs and back ached from the long weekend hours behind the bar. I felt short of breath and the house suddenly seemed claustrophobic. The walls seemed too close, the ceiling too low. Though I knew