“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to celebrate the wonderful life of Carol Margaret Zefarelli.”
All heads went back up. Slinking down in my seat so I was partially hidden, I looked up to the front but could no longer see from my lowered vantage point if I was being watched.
Father Murphy continued. “She was a woman of incredible fortitude, and an amazing, loving kindness with a tenacity and stubbornness beyond compare. Believe me, I know. If she disagreed with you and felt that her way was better, she let you know.” Soft laughs rippled through the sanctuary. “Oh, so I’m not the only one.” Father Murphy smiled. “And what made her so wonderful was that she used her attributes to help others in need. She had a clear, unbending sense of what is right. She championed the underdog and believed in fighting for the less fortunate with all the powers God gave her. We knew her as a loving mother, a doting grandmother, a faithful wife, a beautiful friend and, most of all, one of God’s cherished children. And she loved our God with all her heart. She truly believed she was put on this earth to do His work.”
He paused, looking out over the crowd of mourners. “As I see all of her many friends and family before me, I see you loved her as much as she loved all of you. Recently, I visited Carol at her bedside, and her spirits were very high, even though she was in a great deal of physical pain from her illness. She still managed to smile when I entered and asked me if I’d performed any good miracles lately.” Scattered murmurs of laughter greeted the Father’s fond memory. “She had a wit, no doubt. I sat down beside her and she took hold of my hand, smiling through her pain and said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Father, I’m going to be fine. I’m going home. But please look after my family.’” Father Murphy paused again, glancing down at Carol’s family members with a sympathetic smile. He looked back over the crowd. “Carol was fearless.” The sound of quiet tears increased, accompanied by sniffling and coughing. “I held her hand and we sat silently together, praying. Then Carol, always one for surprises, handed me a list of all the people she’d been watching over, people who needed food or care or a friendly visit every so often, and she asked me to take over for her.” He looked to the ceiling. “Carol, I am honored to continue your life’s work. Let us pray.”
In sync, everyone’s head went down, including mine. I’d been drawn in by the priest’s words. I felt tears on my cheeks, tears of empathy for those around me and the grief they were experiencing. Father Murphy finished the prayer and called Carol’s eldest child, Connie, the woman who’d been sitting beside the twins, to the altar.
Connie was in her early fifties. She stood before us, nervous. She cleared her throat. Shyly, she looked up at the crowd of mourners, then back down to her papers. “I promised myself I would not cry, so bear with me.” She took a deep breath. “My mother was an incredible woman, feisty and proud and stubborn and very loving. She taught us to believe in ourselves and be the best that we could be and always to do the right thing. Our mother was a special kind of lady.” Her shoulders shook, the tears falling down her cheeks, in spite of her promise. She dropped her head as she gathered herself. Many of the family members followed suit. I could see shoulders shaking in the front row. The giant man up front put his arm around one of the blond twins as she rested her head on his shoulder.
Connie proceeded with her eulogy. “Many of you may not know this story, mother wasn’t one to brag. When we were very young living in Pittsburgh, my mother taught history at a prestigious prep school. One year, her favorite student was a shoo-in for valedictorian. My mother referred to him as one of Einstein’s peers. I was only a little girl, but I remember her talking about this boy. At the end of the year, she discovered that another student was going to be given the valedictorian honor, and my mother got very angry.” A smile crossed Connie’s lips at the memory of her mother’s temper. “There’s nothing worse than an angry Sicilian woman. When she found out, she immediately left her classroom and marched through the school halls to the headmaster’s office, demanding to know why the most qualified and deserving student in the senior class was not going to be valedictorian. The headmaster looked up at her from behind his desk, as my mother liked to tell it, saying, ‘But Carol, he’s a Jew. We’ve never had a Jewish student become valedictorian. We can’t do that.’ My mother didn’t say another word to him. She marched out of his office, went back to her room, sat down at her desk, and typed up her letter of resignation, stating that as long as the school followed its tacit policy of bigotry, she was resigning effective immediately. She ripped the page out of the typewriter, marched right back to the headmaster’s office, and placed it on his desk.”
Sitting in my pew in the back, I was not the only one in the congregation enthralled. The great room was silent, no rustling of clothing or coughing or ancillary noises. Everyone was keyed into the daughter’s voice. In my mind’s eye, I saw the story unfold: a young Carol, beautiful and vivacious, her dark eyes stormy in their anger as she shamed the headmaster for his discrimination. I envisioned the headmaster’s reaction to her resignation, realizing he was going to lose his most prized teacher over reasons he could not address publicly. Maybe the headmaster had a secret crush himself on young Carol, and his fear of losing her was enough to galvanize him into action. Connie’s voice pulled me out of my imagined reverie.
“My mother’s resignation threw the school into an uproar. Later that same week, the headmaster came to our house, begging my mother to come back, telling her that the academic committee had reconsidered its position and reviewed each of the candidate’s capabilities and realized my mother’s favorite student was the one most deserving of the award and would be named valedictorian that year.” Carol’s daughter looked up with a proud, distant smile on her face, somewhere with her mother in a memory long ago. A murmur of satisfaction floated through the church.
I took my focus off the front for a moment, looking around at the mourners packed into the church, all ages represented in the crowd. Carol had a long reach, touching many people. There were even young adults in their teens and twenties interspersed throughout the mourners. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for picking such a good memorial service. This was exactly what I needed to bring myself out of my depression, to show myself there is good in the world. When I looked back at the altar, I watched as Connie took her seat to be replaced by the blond twins. I immediately slunk back into the pew, not wanting them to notice me from their heightened vantage point. I searched the program, discovering the twins’ names were Francesca and Daniella. I watched over the shoulders in front of me as the twins positioned themselves behind the altar, their shoulders touching the entire time.
Francesca, or Daniella, started talking. “We’re sure many of you knew Grandma was special.”
Then Daniella, or Francesca, “She was one of kind.”
Their voices even sounded identical. It was disconcerting to watch. They chimed in together, “We are going to miss you, Grandma, so, so much.”
As if on cue, they started to cry, their shoulders heaving in unison, tears trickling down their cheeks. The young women standing before me at the front of the church appeared demure and innocent, not much like the two women I saw smoking pot and aiming cans of dangerous, debilitating spray at my face earlier. Then again, I had pounded on their car window like a crazy person at their beloved grandma’s funeral, so what did I expect? After a moment, they took a collective breath and continued.
Right Twin said, “Grandma, we’ll miss your stories about your childhood in Italy.”
Left Twin, “And about your travels throughout Europe.”
Right Twin, “And then when you came on the boat over to America.”
Left Twin, “We’ll miss your hugs and your love.”
Right Twin, “We’ll miss your advice on men.”
At this, with a soft smile she looked over at head-and-shoulders sitting beside her empty spot in the front row. Left Twin looked over
at him as well, but something pulled her attention farther into the crowd. I realized she was staring at me, even though I was buried down in my pew. Right Twin picked up some kind of mental cue, turning her attention to me also. Their stares made me squirm in my seat. It lasted for a second, then two, then three. They stood at the altar, their gazes like lasers focused on my forehead. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck. I looked around to see if anyone else was looking at me. I slowly sunk down in my pew as far as I could to get below their sight line.
Suddenly, they turned to one another, and then they began to sob. Through their tears, they said, “Grandma, we love you.”
Head-and-shoulders went up to the altar to guide Right Twin back to her seat followed by an older man who could only have been their father, who took Left Twin down from the other side. They returned to their seats in the front, but some rustling and confusion followed them after they sat down. As Father Murphy moved in the direction of the altar, the rustling pulled his attention, drawing him away from the altar toward the family. After quiet debate among the priest and Connie and a very elderly gentleman with a close-cropped, thin white head of hair, the priest and Connie helped the elderly man, ancient by any standard, out of his seat. As he made it up to the altar, Father Murphy and Connie made sure he was stable and settled before they returned to their seats. The man stared down at his feet for a moment. When he finally looked up at us, his eyes were swollen, his cheeks reddened from a trail of tears. I looked at my program to put a name with his face. Tomasso Zefarelli, the husband left behind. He took a breath to start talking but fell into a coughing fit instead. One cough turned into two, and the old man began to suck air, trying to pull in enough oxygen to stay upright, his body convulsing with the coughing. Both Connie and another woman near Connie’s age, I assumed to be one of her sisters, hurried up to the altar to help him. Tomasso waved them off with an irritated, I-can-take-care-of-myself gesture. The sisters pulled up short on either side of their father, not sure what to do. The coughing subsided as Tomasso pulled in more oxygen, gathering himself together. Connie and her sister meekly returned to their seats, appearing a bit peeved that their father had scared them so. Tomasso looked out over us all.
“My family didn’t think it would be a good idea if I spoke at my wife’s memorial service. They weren’t sure if my heart could take it.” A sad, sly smile crossed his face. “But I can be as stubborn as Carol. Carol always said the children got their bullheadedness from my side of the family, so I don’t want to let her down. This year we celebrated our sixty-second wedding anniversary. Carol was afraid she wouldn’t make it, more worried about that than she was about what was happening to her. She put up with me for all these years, so that means she wasn’t only special but also incredibly patient. When Carol was first diagnosed two years ago, we both hoped maybe it was just one more bump in a long life of little bumps, and that if we worked hard enough and prayed long enough, we could get over this one too. But this bump was too big for my darling Carol. She was the strongest person I’ve ever known, but this disease was stronger.”
At this point, tears began falling from his eyes. He paused, overcome with grief. The silence in the sanctuary was deafening. Even at his old age, life was still precious and love lost was all consuming, debilitating, and painful. I watched this old man I didn’t know mourning over the loss of his wife, and wondered what he was feeling inside, how he comprehended the death of his life partner.
Tomasso’s tears subsided as he gathered himself together. “I can honestly say, folks, that in my many years of life, I have never felt this kind of pain. And it is the most wonderful, bittersweet pain. Carol was my wife, my true love, my best friend, and I feel lost without her. For an old grump like me, my life would not have been worth a damn if Carol had not held my hand and been my guide. But I know she’s gone home and she’s happy watching over us.” Tomasso looked up to the ceiling. Sporadic sniffles could be heard throughout the church. “Don’t worry, I won’t be long in this life. I’ll be with you soon.”
Sobs followed his last words from family members at the front of the church. For the first time in any memorial service I’d attended—and I’d attended quite a few—I felt like an intruder, that I was witnessing something not meant for my eyes. Tomasso leaned on the altar, his hands spread out for balance, weeping shamelessly. Silently, Father Murphy stepped up to the mourning husband and whispered into his ear. Tomasso’s sobbing subsided as Father Murphy looked down to the family. Connie also appeared to be crying, as did many members in the front row. Connie’s husband gave his wife a reassuring hug and then stood to help guide his father-in-law back to his seat. Once Tomasso was settled, his daughters surrounded him and wrapped their arms around him. Father Murphy stood at the altar quietly, his eyes downcast so as not to bring any further attention to the mourning family and their intimate display of affection and sadness. The daughters held onto their father, and when the tears seemed to have run their course, the family found their way back to their seats.
Father Murphy looked up from the altar. “In our sadness, let’s not forget that Carol has gone home, she’s where she’s always wanted to be. She confided to me not long ago that even though she was a little scared, she was excited to finally meet her Maker. Her faith never faltered. She credited all her successes in life to be not of her doing but that of the Almighty’s. Carol’s faith was boundless, and her joy for life contagious.” Father Murphy paused. He looked at Carol’s family. “In our pain, we must remember that Carol has started a new chapter and is looking down on us with open arms. Let us pray.”
Father Murphy dropped his head. “Father, in your infinite wisdom, You have shown us your will, and we ask that You care for Carol as she joins You in her eternal resting place. Please lay your blanket of protection over her family and friends and guide us as we move through this difficult time of grief. Help us honor Carol’s life by recognizing the faith that You instilled in her of your greatness and infinite love.”
Everyone followed suit and a collective “amen” sounded throughout the church. The rustling of clothing and people shuffling in their seats signaled the end of the memorial. Father Murphy invited everyone to join the family in the hall next door for refreshments. That was my exit cue. In the many memorials I’d attended, I never once stayed to eat. I’d gotten what I came for—inspiration—and didn’t want to siphon any more from the family. People were filing out of their seats toward the front of the church to pay their respects to Carol’s family. I went the other direction as unobtrusively as possible. I sidestepped several elderly people standing in the lobby, exiting through the front door of the church into the sunlight. People were milling around, some smoking cigarettes, the irony obviously lost on them. I passed them down the church steps to the sidewalk and followed the path along the side of the church heading toward the parking lot. I felt a little lighter than I had before going in. Silently, I looked up at the sky. Thanks, Carol, wherever you are. I had work to do, and now I felt like I could get started.
I was getting close to the parking lot, and as I expected, it was still full. The back of my neck tingled with the same feeling I had prior to the service. I was hesitant to trust my instincts, given my embarrassing encounter earlier, though not hesitant enough to look around. A car was tracking with me on the road, keeping abreast of me as I walked. It was another Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. I decided God must not like me very much. I stopped. The car stopped. I started walking and the car began moving with me. I stopped. The car stopped. I took a step backward. The car backed up a foot. Real cute. Didn’t Williams have something better to do? I turned and faced the car.
“What do you want?”
The window lowered to reveal Tony Vespucci’s heavy, Joey. “Tony would like to have a word with you.”
I suddenly felt a sick feeling in my stomach. I had not contacted Vespucci or his daughter since my second visit at the end of September. I’d been so wra
pped up with Sara and the breakup and my own emotional turmoil that I’d totally ignored my promise to Vespucci. I stood on the curb stupidly nodding my head. “Oh, sure, sure. Does he want me to call him? Or do I need to fly to New York?”
Joey looked at me like I was a complete moron. He jerked his head, indicating I should get into the back seat.
“Oh, of course.”
I hustled into the street and climbed into the proffered back door of the Lincoln, but I didn’t see Vespucci anywhere. I closed the door, sitting back with a lead feeling in my gut. I had promised a solid draft of their story by mid-November so Maggie and Marco could review it and make the necessary changes couples always wanted to make. I had about ten days to go to meet this deadline and I hadn’t even begun. With Joey staring at me in the rearview mirror, I did my best not to let him see me panicking, but the look in his eyes made me panic even more. I wondered if Vespucci was even going to let me live another two weeks. Joey turned in his driver’s seat, throwing a friendly, sinister smile my way that quickly turned to a scowl. I looked at him dumbly, not sure what he expected of me. He jerked his head downward, indicating a flat screen monitor against the back seat. Vespucci’s face filled the screen.
“Jon. How are you?” Vespucci’s voice came from everywhere in the car, like the surround sound in a movie theatre.
A bit disconcerted, I responded, “I’m good.”
“I hope Joey was polite to you.”
I glanced at Joey now back to watching me in the rearview mirror. I answered with a vigorous nod.
“Oh, good. Sometimes he can be overzealous when I ask him to do something. Joey tells me you’re at the funeral of Carol Zefarelli?”
Jon Fixx Page 6
