Cheered by her own optimistic statement, she glanced out the window. “Oh, Willy, don’t you love the Christmas decorations in all the windows?” she asked. “It’s such a shame Bessie died so near the holidays; she always loved them so.”

“It’s only the fourth of December,” Willy pointed out. “She made it through Thanksgiving.”

“That’s true,” Alvirah conceded. “I’m glad we were with them. Remember how much she enjoyed her turkey? She ate every bite of it.”

“And everything else in sight,” Willy said dryly. “Here we are.”

As their taxi pulled up to the curb, an attendant at the Reading Funeral Home opened the door for them and, in a subdued tone, told them that Bessie Durkin Maher was reposing in the east parlor. The heavy, sweet smell of flowers drifted through the hushed atmosphere as they walked sedately down the corridor.

“These places give me the creeps,” Willy commented. “They always smell of dead carnations.”

In the east parlor they joined a group of some thirty mourners, including Vic and Linda Baker, the couple who had rented the top floor apartment of Bessie’s townhouse. They were standing at the head of the casket next to Bessie’s sister Kate, and, like family, were accepting condolences with her.

“What’s that all about?” Willy whispered to Alvirah as they waited their turn to speak to Kate.

Thirteen years younger than her formidable sister, Kate, was a wiry seventy-five-year-old with a cap of short gray hair and warm blue eyes that were now welling with tears.

She’s been bullied all her life by Bessie, Alvirah thought, as she enveloped Kate in her arms. “It’s for the best, Kate,” she said firmly. “If Bessie had survived that stroke she’d have been a total invalid, and that wasn’t for her.”

“No,” Kate agreed, brushing away a tear. “She wouldn’t have wanted that. I guess I’ve always thought of Bessie as both my sister and my mother. She might have been set in her ways, but she had a good heart.”

“We’ll miss her terribly,” Alvirah said, as behind her Willy breathed a deep sigh.

As Willy gave Kate a brotherly hug, Alvirah turned to Vic Baker. So formal was his mourning attire that Alvirah immediately was reminded of one of the Addams Family characters. Baker, a stocky man in his mid-thirties, with a boyish face, dark brown hair and shrewd china-blue eyes, was wearing a black suit with a black tie. Beside him, his wife, Linda, also dressed in black, was holding a handkerchief to her face.

Trying to squeeze out a tear no doubt, Alvirah thought dryly. She had met Vic and Linda for the first time on Thanksgiving. Aware of her sister’s failing health, Kate had invited Alvirah and Willy, Sister Cordelia, Sister Maeve Marie and Monsignor Thomas Ferris, the pastor of St. Clement’s who resided in the rectory a few doors from Bessie’s townhouse on West 103rd Street, to share the holiday dinner with them.

Vic and Linda had stopped in as they were having coffee, and it seemed to Alvirah that Kate had pointedly not invited them to stay for dessert. So what were they doing acting like the chief mourners? Alvirah asked herself as she dismissed Linda’s apparent sadness, assuming it to be phony.

A lot of people would think she’s good-looking, Alvirah conceded as she took in Linda’s even features, but I’d hate to get on the wrong side of her. There’s a coldness to her eyes that I don’t trust, and that spiky hairdo with all those brassy gold highlights is the pits.

“…as though she were my own mother,” Linda was saying, a quiver in her voice.

Willy, of course, had heard the remark and couldn’t help adding his own. “You rented that apartment less than a year ago, didn’t you?” he asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he took Alvirah’s arm and propelled her toward the kneeling bench.

In death as in life, Bessie Durkin looked to be in charge of the situation. Attired in her best print dress, wearing the narrow strand of faux pearls the judge had given her on their wedding day, her hair styled and combed, Bessie had the satisfied expression of someone who had successfully made a lifelong habit of getting other people to do things her way.

Later, when Alvirah and Willy were leaving, they said good-bye to Kate, promising to be at the funeral Mass at St. Clement’s and ride in the car with her to the cemetery.

“Sister Cordelia is coming too,” Kate told them. “Willy, I’ve been worried about her this week that you’ve been away. She’s been under so much strain. The city inspectors are giving her a terrible time about Home Base.”

“We expected as much,” Willy said. “I called today, but she was out and didn’t get back to me. I had expected to see her here tonight.”

Glancing across the room, Kate saw Linda Baker bearing down on them. She dropped her voice. “I asked Sister back to the house after the funeral,” she whispered. “I want you to come too, and Monsignor will be there.”

They said their good-nights, and because Willy said he had to get some fresh air just to get the overwhelming smell of flowers off him, they agreed to walk a ways before hailing a taxi.

“Did you notice how Linda Baker came running when she saw us talking to Kate?” Alvirah asked Willy as they strolled arm in arm toward Columbus Avenue.

“I sure did. I have to say there was something about that woman that bothered me. And now I’m worried about Cordelia too. She’s no spring chicken, and I think she’s bitten off more than she can chew by trying to mind those kids after school.”

“Willy, they’re just being kept warm and safe until their mothers can pick them up from work. How can anyone find fault with that?”

“The city can. Like it or not, there are rules and regulations about minding kids. Hold on, I’ve had enough of this cold air. Here comes a cab.”

“Like it or not, there are rules and regulations,”

Sister Cordelia said with a sigh, as she unconsciously repeated Willy’s exact words the next day. “They’ve given me a deadline-January 1st-and Inspector Pablo Torres told me he was already breaking every rule in the book to stretch it that far.”

It was one o’clock, and after a Mass of Resurrection, Bessie Durkin had been lowered into her final resting place, alongside three generations of Durkins in Calvary Cemetery.

Willy and Alvirah, Sister Cordelia and her assistant, Sister Maeve Marie, who was a twenty-nine-year-old former NYPD policewoman, and Monsignor Thomas Ferris were at the table in Bessie’s townhouse, enjoying the Virginia ham, homemade potato salad and sourdough biscuits prepared by Kate.

“Is there anything else I can get anyone?” Kate asked meekly before she took her place at the table.

“Kate, sit down,” Alvirah ordered. She turned to Cordelia. “What are the specific problems that are so terrible, Cordelia?” she asked.

For a moment the troubled frown on the face of the seventy-year-old nun disappeared. Cordelia’s eyes softened as she looked at her sister-in-law and smiled. “It’s nothing even you can fix, Alvirah. We have thirty-six kids, ages six to eleven, who come to us after school. I asked Pablo if he’d rather have them on the streets. I asked him what we’re doing wrong. We give them a snack. We’ve rounded up some trustworthy high school kids who help them with their homework and play games with them. There are always adult volunteers in the thrift shop, so there’s plenty of supervision at all times. The kids’ mothers or fathers pick them up by six-thirty. We don’t charge anything, of course. The nurses at the schools have checked any kids we take in. They’ve never complained about anything.”

Cordelia sighed and shook her head.

“We know the property is in the process of being sold,” Sister Maeve explained, “but it’s at least a year before we have to get out. We’ve freshly spackled and painted the whole second floor where the kids stay when they’re there, so there isn’t a peeling chip anywhere. Apparently it’s still a problem though, because they say that lead paint was used years ago. Sister Superior asked Pablo if he’d taken a look at some of the places where these kids live and compared the conditions there to those at Home Base. He said he doesn’t make the rules. He said there have to be two exits, and they can’t include the fire escape.”