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Show Go Love/192 matters When it's all said and done, we're a little lost, the three of us-Renee, my good wife to whom I've not spoken six sensible words since it started, Lara, who has just asked-in the sweetest sad voice-if grandma was hungry in her casket, and me-Joey Stepwell Harvell, a man whose just chosen his mother's ghost face over the one people have now viewed. We're lost because the rest of the family, all the Stepwells and Harvells, O W., Traceleen, Uncle Bold and Aunt Judy, Shurl's whisked them out to the three black hearses where everyone sweats and wipes their foreheads Through the foyer glass, we see all, but the place is a labyrinth-a mystery-and getting out requires changing levels. In the stairwell, halfway to the bottom floor, we run into Dora and my Uncle Davey, whose voice I've never heard. "I'd know you anywheres," he says, holds out a ring-studded hand to shake. My blood uncle offers a hand and I take it. "Your old man, he'd be proud of you son." "I don't know you." "Yes you do," he says, shakes his head and walks up three stairs so we're the same size "Sometime when this is over, I'll catch up with you," he says "I got a lot to pass your way. You to, cutie " Renee puts her arm around my shoulders. The stairwell between floors is heavy with perfume Dora follows Davey. "Your Mama said she had a soul mate, and it was you " She pats me three times on the shoulder of O.W 's coat. "There's a man you talked about today-Lord. I called him, too. Josie told me he danced like hell on wheels." In the hallway out, pall bearers carry the white casket by its silver hardware The thing looks almost like a jet airplane, a 747. |