At her funeral.
My mother was dead.
I had no mother.
My chest caved every time I took a deep breath. I drank vodka straight from the water bottle I’d brought with me from home. Angelo sat next to me, holding me tight against his chest. For once, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to punch everyone who got in my way.
“I’m here,” Angelo said against the shell of my ear. “Just let it out, G. I got you.”
I felt nothing.
For no one.
I was empty.
Even Angelo couldn’t make me feel. He was there, but I didn’t care. For all I knew, he was responsible.
Why did I still love him?
Why did my body still crave him?
Why did he still own every part of me?
We had a Catholic funeral mass, even though my mother never went to church after I made my Communion. I hadn’t gone in so many years I wasn’t even sure of the protocols anymore. The hymns sounded familiar. The music reminded me of faded memories from my past. I zoned out for most of the mass until the priest whipped me out of my drunken haze.
“Bianca’s daughter, Gianna, would like to say a few words about her mother,” the priest said, looking straight at me.
Angelo rubbed his hand down my arm. “You want me to go up there with you?”
I shook my head and slipped out of Angelo’s grasp. When I stood, my heels felt too tall, and my legs were like rubber from all the alcohol I’d ingested. I staggered up the few stairs to the pulpit and just about fell into it. Somehow, I managed to hold on to the edge and slid behind it.
“Thank you,” I said to the priest, who nodded and took his seat near the altar behind me.
With my back turned to the priest and altar boys, I looked out into the crowd. There were so many people I had trouble seeing the back of the church. It was as if everyone from the old neighborhood had showed up for the occasion. I recognized people from my law classes as well as some of Angelo’s business associates and Made guys.
The entire Morelli family took up the front left pew. Angelo’s asshole brothers were there along with his parents. Sonny was in the pew behind them with his mother and younger sister. His dad was still in jail. All of the guys from Fat Tony’s racing crew were a few rows back. My father and grandmother sat opposite Angelo’s family to my right. There were too many people in the crowd. The more I stared at them, the more nervous I became.
Did my mother even know these people?
I pulled the microphone to me and tapped it with my finger, the sound reverberating throughout the church.
“I sat up all last night, trying to come up with something clever to say today.” I let out a frustrated groan, trying to recall at least one thing I’d written down. My mind was blank. “But I got nothing. What can I say about my mother you don’t already know? She was complicated and distant for a long time. My mom hated what my father did for a living. She never fully came to terms with anything I did, at least not until the night she died.”
I gripped the front of the pulpit with one hand and drank from the water bottle in the other. “In case you’re wondering… this is vodka, no chaser. I drank about a fifth of it while I was trying to write a eulogy. Maybe I don’t have one because I got blackout drunk, or maybe it was because I have nothing to say. I don’t know.”
“Gianna,” my grandmother said under her breath from the front row. “Stop acting like a heathen.”
I stepped out from the pulpit with the microphone and water bottle in my hand.
“Hey, Nona!” I tipped the bottle in my grandmother’s direction. “News flash, I am a heathen. I’ll be lucky if I don’t set on fire while I’m up here. If I do, maybe go run in the back and dump some holy water on me.”
A few people in the church laughed. I raised my water bottle to them, before drinking from it. Then, I kicked off my heels and breathed a loud sigh of relief into the microphone. “Much better.” I giggled. “You know, my mom picked out those heels for me. She said they would make my legs look longer. I’m five feet tall. Nothing’s going to make my legs look longer, and they hurt like a fucking bitch.”
My dad got up from the front pew and held out his hand. “Let’s go, Gianna. You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.”
“No Daddy,” I whined into the microphone, pulling away from him. “I’m not done yet. I have more I want to say.”
“Sweetheart, please just say whatever it is you want to say about your mother and wrap this up. You’re drunk and cursing in a church.”