After the funeral we're all in the Pine Room at Ascension Church. A gray-haired woman touches my elbow with the hand that's not holding a cup of red wine. "Juliet, remember me?" I don't. "Sue Antoinette. I'm so sorry."
Peggy Kelly interrupts to ask if I got a prayer card. It's from P.M. Smith and Sons. Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary... In her dresser drawer my grandmother kept prayer cards for Thomas P. Kearin, Kathleen Kearin, Arthur W. Clark, and John F. Kennedy.
Sue's middle name is Marie. Suzanne Marie Antoinette. "Well, your grandma sure would've liked this party."
The last thing my grandmother gave me was her recipe for spaghetti pie. On the back of the recipe card was printed, in green, in a medieval script,
'TIS A DOUBLE BLESSING TO BE BOTH IRISH AND A GOOD COOK.
2 eggs, butter, 1 lb Italian sausage, 1 c sour cream, 8 oz spaghetti (broken)...
Oh Mother of the Word incarnate! Despise not my petitions, but, in Thy mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.
She picks up a fork. "Have you tried this? You do eat beef, don't you? It's the sugar in the sauce that makes it so good. By the way, whatever happened to your father?"
