Uncle J crossed over about a week ago, during a big storm that knocked out the power. He’d spent the week prior tangled up in the veil, same as Uncle C had, and to save Aunt L the tiresome chore of reading texts out loud, I sent voice notes instead.

“It’s one of your favorite nieces,” I said one day, “the one who doesn’t want to claim lone-favorite status because the other candidate will put a foot up my ass for doing so, so: Sarah,” and I talked about nothing much and told Uncle J to rest.  

“It’s your favorite niece,” I said the next day, and explained that Cousin D had ceded the title to me in exchange for my formally entering into the record the superiority of the Uncle C team in familial wiffleball contests. “This is me, doing that, because I still fear The Foot Of D.” I knew he’d be relieved we’d settled that, I said, and I talked about the weather and told him to rest.

“No need to respond,” I said the day after that, “but you know that sign on the factory floor of this family’s history, the Days Since A Lost-Time ‘Embittered Reference To Grandma Throwing Out The Baseball Cards’ Incident one? Well, I would say that I regret to inform you it was reset to zero earlier today, but I do not regret it one bit and neither does Dave Sr. What kind of super-villain gives a Robin Roberts rookie card to Goodwill, honestly. When you see Louise tell her that was bullshit. Love you, write if you get work.” Uncle J opened his eyes when Aunt L played that one. The next day, the rains rolled through, and when they left they took J along.  

Moments later, we cousins believe, the roasting of my grandmother began on the other side – excuse me: “resumed,” not began; I can’t imagine Uncle C waited eight years to tease her about the baseball cards, the lima beans, watering the Cutty, “there are too many pillows nowadays, please eliminate three” crackpot ideas about sleep hygiene.

Of course it never stopped on our side, either; this is why I brought up the cards. Nobody actually cares about the actual cards. (Mostly.) We care about the story of the cards. Performative outrage about dishonoring the Whiz Kids is a family tradition, a reading of names, “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” It is a story we know and share, one we can all live in together as long as it’s still told. It can go on because we do.

Last winter, when Dave Sr. fell ill, when we thought he would pass through first, Uncle J and I told each other these stories and tried to laugh, about the cards and the Cutty, and of course The Ice-Skate Incident. And we told each other that Uncle C and C Sr. and Louise would watch over Dad.

At least one of us believed this; at least one of us, driving the same 30 snow-blasted miles from Brooklyn to Jersey every day, had to believe this, asked the ancestors to assemble, to protect Dave Sr., to give us strength and grace. To come back into the story with some sipping whiskey and keep the pipes from freezing until Dave Sr. got back to the house. Just one more baseball season, get him to spring training, give us another summer of exchanging Mets bloopers and “bunting: why the hell would you do that” headlines. Give me that. Give me more story.

I spend a lot of time thinking about narrative and grief, if a story aims to reflect the world or perfect it, and specifically in true crime – is this story a whodunnit or a whydunnit, a “what happened here” or a “why is ‘here’ the way it is, and how might we never return.” A lot of the genre is straightforward accounting, a chronological report of a case.

And a lot of it is mourning, which has no answer or uncomplicated end. A lot of books, crimoirs, with a murder at their “centers” have at their hearts something else – simple sorrow. “This is the story of my friend, that ended too soon”; “once upon a time, I had a brother, but now, I only have all the funny/dumb stuff he said.”

So, we tell all the stories we have, to fill the space left by the ones we didn’t get. We repeat them to each other, because they create the “we”s and sustain the “each other”s. We believe the ancestors remember how the stories go, know their parts, hear that anecdote about the Shibe Park bleacher bums inducting three gleefully scandalized Bryn Mawr boys into the Creative Curse Words Society, and fold their hands of cards and come out from the horizon to see what’s needed.

We wait for them, and we go on, with and without them.

And we assemble the candles for Don once more. That cake’s getting crowded, friend.

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