From my grandfather's driveway I stared at the bleak front yard, once carpeted in pink feathery fallout from giant mimosas. My cousin Big and I had been the childhood murderers of those trees. Mimosa trunks had served as chopping blocks, testing grounds for drills and other newly discovered hardware. Papou had stood in his maitre d's pose at the top of the driveway with his hands clasped behind his back and smiled calmly. "You like-eh the trees, eh?" With his purple tongue wedged at the side of his mouth, Big just nodded his head and kept drilling, fascinated by the mimosa's bleeding thin sap that would turn sticky and ruin Papou's tools and our clothes. I stripped the trunks with the claws of Papou's hammers, exposing pale, wet wood. Papou seemed thrilled every time we emptied the tool shelf in the garage. Still, we sneaked away like thieves with drill bits and sledgehammers and returned them to their precise positions as if we were replacing Yiayia's stolen jewelry. Hearing the muffled banging of his tools in the garage, Papou would open the door from the family room.

"You want Oreo Cookies?"

We would grab two bottles of Coke from the cases by the snow shovels and head toward him. When he smiled you could see brown cookie on his dentures.

We would sit on the floor and pour Coke into ice-filled glasses while Papou handed us Oreos one at a time from the bag on his lap. "Or-e-o," Papou said, trilling the r and stressing the e, "means good in Greek. Good Cookies." If we begged, he sat on us for fun and we pretended to suffocate. But we could chew and gag and laugh all at the same time while he stuffed our mouths from above. His hand came down like a crane.

"Yianni, put on-eh the wrestling." Only Yiayia liked to watch professional wrestling. She sat by the phone in the back of the room. Papou was her remote control. Why did this old woman watch wrestling, we wondered.

"Papou, anything but wrestling," we whispered.

"Why don't you go take Yiayia for a walk—on the highway," he said to us. Papou's forehead and eyebrows moved up and down when he laughed. We laughed with him but didn't understand. Yiayia didn't either. She got her English from watching wrestling.

"Yianni, the wrestling!"

Papou still did not move. He laughed sardonically and waited before he changed the channel. Sometimes his bounces, and our laughing, caused us to choke for real, but we gave no sign.

"Yianni!"

"Yeh, yeh, the wrestling," Papou said. Yiayia was happy, and as long as she was not moaning about being sick or depressed, Papou was happy, too.

"We take care of each other," Papou laughed. We laughed for him and cleared our throats of Oreo crumbs. Later Yiayia insisted on Lawrence Welk, which must have relaxed her after a long day of body-slamming and head-butting.

Now here I stood on my grandfather's driveway, remembering—my duffel bag heavy on my shoulders—not yet ready to come in from outside.

When she last called New York, my mother had said Papou might not make it through the night. Sunday when I had left Canin it seemed as if he might live another year, yet her phone calls did not surprise me. I knew that one day he would simply wake up in his bed and decide to stay there. I've had my turn, he would say. It's your turn now.

I had told him about acting. About going to this place called Tribeca, about my one shot at making it in the movies. He sat in his restaurant, hands folded softly on the tablecloth, listening to kitchen sounds and the fading echoes of grandchildren. His cheeks turned flushed and tears fell into a smile. And sometimes there was no smile. He was retracing steps. He shared with me his discoveries. Not details of his own life or long, wise comments on the human experience. In fact, he said very little. But his words were soft and generous. Once, he told me we were alike. He said that though I looked like my father, who had died when my mother was pregnant with me, I took after him, my grandfather, in all the important ways, traits he never bothered to define. He simply assured me, Don't worry. You're one of the good ones. At times I felt he could see my future. Perhaps at these moments he was retracing the steps of his early days in America.

Just last week he had sat at his table in the barroom. He was tired but didn't seem sick. When I kissed him good-bye, he sat up and said, New York is a good place for a young man. He smiled and I left for the city.

Now I was back, dreams of New York behind me. The drive had taken all night. The sun was just coming up behind the house. The family expected that I'd return for good. The door to Papou's house was like a back-stage curtain with the audience waiting on the other side. I stalled on the driveway because I didn't know my lines, or even what part to play.

When I finally entered the house, my Uncle Nick was on the phone, joking with the undertaker about group rates. Papou was leaving enough money so that Uncle Nick could buy cemetery land for the whole extended family. Papou had always been concerned about keeping the family together.

"Hey, Chad, are they cheaper by the dozen?"

He laughed and then paused. He covered the mouth piece and whispered the undertaker's name to me, "Chad Taylor." I wondered why Greeks changed their names to Taylor and then called their sons "Chad." Maybe for the same reason their immigrant wives dyed their hair blond.

I left my duffel bag by the door.

Between rushed bites of baklava, Uncle Nick turned to me and waved. The sun was bright now behind the peach and rust-colored drapes that covered the sliding doors. He wiped syrup from the coffee table and licked his finger. The glare made his dark skin match the creamy yellow paneling behind him. Papou did not think much of home improvements, and Yiayia did not think much of anything at all anymore. Uncle Nick's small brown wing-tipped shoes pushed and pulled nervously against the shag orange rug, and his laugh glided to a sobered stop.

"Okay, Chad, yeah, thanks, Chad. We'll call you as soon as . . . well, we'll call you."

Uncle Nick's stained white oxford-cloth shirt smelled of kitchen grease and cow fat from the restaurant.

"Hey, Shakespeare." When Uncle Nick stood from the chair the color of his skin returned to his normal brown. "So, how's my nephew, the actor? Ready to come back to work in the kitchen?"

"I like it there," I said.

"Acchh. What are you gonna work at a restaurant in New York when you can work with your Uncle Nick at home?" His plain red polyester tie sat flat on his chest. "C'mere." I stepped back—he rushed at me, grinning and slumping, with a flurry of fake jabs and upper-cuts that stopped just short. "Did you eat? You look thin." Then he lunged, surprising me, grabbed the back of my head like a loose football, laughed, and scooped me into his belly.

"Uncl—" He released me.

"You can work here and practice your acting thing at home."

I was grateful for his offer, but he knew you didn't become an actor in Canin, Pennsylvania. Besides, when you were in the family and you worked at the restaurant, you didn't just wash dishes or just wait tables. You ran all over the place, splitting oysters and manning the grills. You didn't go home and recite soliloquies from Hamlet. You passed out.

A drop of sweat fell from his chin and made a spot on his shirt right next to a small faded circle of fat. His clothes were always freshly washed, but they never lost the faint smell of the kitchen or the indelible brown of old grease splatter.

"Maybe when—"

"Maybe—" he said. "That's good. Nobody can ask for more than that—"

He reached to shake my hand, and a whiff of shellfish danced with the scent of steak. His handshake had gained strength since he chopped his thumb off on Christmas Eve. The finely sewn stub reminded me of how hot the kitchen got and how you lost your head when it started getting busy. You couldn't keep your mind on the butcher block when you had a rare filet due up in a couple of seconds and waitresses were yelling for their steaks as if it were the end of the world.

"Where is everybody?" I said.

"Every-a-body is-a upstairs." Uncle Nick amused himself with exaggerated imitations of Americans doing Greek accents.

"Ahh, I see." I tried to reciprocate with some kind of Greek flair, but my sense of humor had been drained. I extended my arm and made a fist. Uncle Nick could tell I wasn't trying.

"Let's go upstairs and see your Papou."

I smiled and nodded. Uncle Nick twisted to fit between the banister and Papou's elevator-chair tracking. Recently, Papou's legs had gotten so swollen that he had installed this electric system that we had been badgering him to buy. He had been breaking his back trying to get up the stairs, but he'd refused to spend the cash. "I like it very much," he admitted, eventually. "We've come a long way." Now he probably thought the elevator was a bad investment since he'd gotten to use it only a few times.

The chair was still on the top step.

Uncle Nick was quiet when he walked toward Papou's room. He was hobbling suddenly, or limping, perhaps from a new injury. He braced himself with his right hand just outside Papou's door. His left shoulder brushed the wall and tilted an old brass plaque given to Papou by the Canin Kiwanis. Some people make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. Uncle Nick's short white sleeves reached his elbows, somehow exaggerating the dwarfed size of his thumb pressing up against the door frame. The back of his neck was bright pink, seemed freshly shaved—too high and slightly angled—and I wondered, stupidly, if the barber had been by the house earlier.

The barber had been making house calls since Papou finally forfeited his driver's license a few months back. Papou shouldn't have been driving at all, but he loved a fresh haircut. Every Saturday he and Yiayia had shuffled into their brown Buick. He would back into the seat and then pivot his body until his feet arrived at the brake and gas pedals, but he never slid the rest of his torso behind the wheel. His thighs wedged against the door when he pulled it shut. Donning his fedora, he looked like Truman Capote, tipping toward the center of the car, all his weight resting on the palm of his right hand. In his suit he looked suave, this position intentional and well-planned, but both he and Yiayia sat the same way for the same reason. They were tired. The car was wide, smelled like mothballs and gravy, and, though leaning toward each other like young lovers, Papou and Yiayia never came close to touching. Papou would drop her off at the beauty salon for her weekly curl-and-dye, then head to the barber shop. These days, though, the barber had been coming to him. "He's a good man," Papou would say. "I pay him well." For a moment, just outside Papou's bedroom, I tried picturing my grandmother's hair, and I wondered if she'd been getting a ride downtown or if bald spots and gray had emerged unnoticed.

Mom came from Papou's room and hugged Uncle Nick. This was not a greeting but had become the automatic thing to do under the circumstances. Uncle Nick went in.

"Johnny, where have you been?" she said and hugged me. Her face was wet. "It's not enough your Papou's dying and I have to worry where you are?"

"Sorry," I whispered. "I left a message."

"Papou looks a lot different from the last time you saw him. Just so you know," she said, and left cold tears from her lips on my cheek.

Papou was small and white on top of old pink sheets that had been pulled up and over the mattress's edge by his agitated, puffy feet. His eyes and mouth were open. The bottom half of him had disappeared. Except for small heavy breaths that pushed out his bloated chest, he was motionless. His forehead looked like clay that had not made it to the kiln. It was beginning to crack. Aunt Helen wiped it with a wet washcloth to keep it moist.

A semi-circle of people surrounded the bed—Uncle Nick knelt at the head, Yiayia was wedged in a chair, Aunt Helen sat and blotted Papou's face, and I stood between Mom and Big at the foot, where Papou's callused heels reached the white coiled crease along the edge of the mattress. At first it bothered me that no one had pulled the sheets back down, but the mattress's frayed fabric on his calves did not seem to bother him.

Big's face was pink. He greeted me with the release of air. "Hey." He pulled in another deep breath and held it.

"Hey, " I said.

"Sorry about New York," he said.

I nodded.

Big wore checkered chef pants and shrimp bisque-glazed Converse All-Stars. He let out another breath and pulled back in. He was exhausted.

"He's not doing so hot," he said. He shook his head and snorted into his throat the last hour's collection of drained tears and mucus. He pushed his wrist across his nostrils, then swiped his finger back. He stood up. "I'll be back," he said and left the room.

Aunt Helen wiped Papou's forehead, then handed the washcloth to Uncle Nick, who turned for the bathroom. Yiayia sat in a blue chair that had been brought up from the family room. It was a reupholstered chair that had made its way home from the restaurant. The furniture's old red vinyl had cracked and molded to Papou's rear end, and when you sat with him in the lobby or barroom, he looked like he had been sitting there forever. Uncle Nick had refurbished the restaurant with blues and whites and dark brown oak, the silver legs of chrome bar stools now hiding under navy seat covers. Big and I would sit and spin on frustrating Sunday afternoons after the last customers had left, while adults talked endlessly over coffee refills and rice pudding and older relatives watched the Phillies on the TV above the bar.

Yiayia was doing surprisingly well. Her body filled the chair, and her chin rested on her shoulder. Mom knelt down and pulled up Yiayia's short stockings so that they reached her knees. Within an hour she would be doing it again. Yiayia's left hand pulled the polyester seam of her dress down to meet the rolled ends of her stockings. She shifted her chin to the other shoulder. Forty-eight hours waiting in this chair, she seemed ready to drift into sleep again.

Uncle Nick came from the bathroom with the newly wet cloth and reached for Yiayia's arm.

"Mom, why don't you go lay down, eh? C'mon, why don't you take a nap, Mom."

"No, Neeko, I stay here next to Papou." She pulled her arm back, and it flopped onto her belly-breast.

"All right, Mom. You stay." It did not seem like she was depressed or frantic. Just quiet, biding time, like the rest of us.

Lamp light blended with the sun through the thick curtains above Papou's bed.

Sitting on his dresser, a clay dish held his dry dentures on a bed of pennies. I imagined his shrunken mouth wrapped around the gigantic teeth flecked with Oreo Cookies. A framed post card from Uncle Paul sat on Papou's bureau next to a fading photograph of three generations of restaurant owners. Papou wore the red and black jacket of a maitre d', and Uncle Nick wore the usual kitchen attire, the white short-sleeved oxford, red tie, blue pants, and brown wing-tips. Big was dressed like his father, only not as stained or tired. He had the spirited look of a boy eagerly waiting to inherit the family lawnmower. A small, black-and-white passport-like photograph of Papou fell from behind the restaurant picture when I picked it up.

Mom had said how handsome Papou was when he was young, but the passport photo captured more than good looks or the anxious face of a Greek immigrant. His lips were thin above the cleft in his broad and angular chin. His large forehead wrapped smoothly around the sides of his almond-shaped eyes that seemed slightly closed but were not. It was just the restful position of calm eyes. Confident. Invincible. Eyebrows peaked and stopped sharply, leaving a half inch for the white of his nose to blend upward into the brow of his forehead. They narrowed as they approached his temples and caressed the soft slopes of his eyelids that reached down toward his cheekbones. A black bow tie with crisscrossed white lines made a shadow over a pin on the wide lapel of what looked like a tan sport coat. He looked about eighteen. On the back, faded pencil read Yiannis Demos, Manhattan 1920.

"Nee-ko, I clean the toilet." There was Yiayia, calling Uncle Nick from the doorway of the bathroom. She held a toilet brush at her side.

Uncle Nick had been kneeling with his head bowed. He turned and looked up, then stood. "Ma, what the hell are you cleaning the bathroom for now?"

He took the brush from her hand and led her back into her chair. Aunt Helen stepped from the bed and blotted Yiayia's cheeks with Papou's washcloth.

"Ma, you don't need to clean now," she said. "Pop needs you here, Ma, just sit and try to be good, okay?"

"Okay, Helen. Yeh, I sit."

She was quiet again as if no time had passed since she had headed for the bathroom.

Big was back with food from the restaurant. He'd taken it upon himself to feed us. He'd arranged chicken sandwiches neatly on a silver tray from downstairs and set it on Papou's desk next to the bathroom door. He opened a large Styrofoam box, and steam rose from a mound of french fries. We ate while we watched Papou. Yiayia bowed her head over a handful of fries. I held my sandwich with both hands, like some sacred thing, and chewed quietly. Mom brought up a tray of Cokes and Seven-Ups. Each of us took turns when it seemed appropriate, feeling the cold leathery skin of Papou's forearms and hands. His feet were frigid, and his chest was hardening. We disguised our fascination with solemnity. Gravity pushed against his chest, which fought back with the help of his tireless diaphragm, each thrust causing the sharp coughing sound of a trucker gathering phlegm. His ears had disappeared into the pillow. Uncle Nick took a bite of sandwich and wiped bleu-cheese dressing from the side of his mouth.

"Paully's coming, Pop. You gotta hold on for Paully, he's coming from California to be here with you, Pop."

Uncle Nick squatted next to Papou. He stopped chewing, his one cheek full, turned and laid his half sandwich on the tray, then returned to clench Papou's hand. Occasionally he brought the pale knuckles up to his own flushed cheek.

"We're all gonna be here, Pop. No one's gonna spoil the party."

Uncle Nick laughed, then swallowed painfully, red-faced and still squatting. He licked a shred of tomato from his lower lip.

"Pop would always say, 'Don't-eh spoil the party!' Even the last few days, you couldn't leave without hearing 'Oh, there goes Nicky. He's gonna go and spoil-eh the party.'"

His head nodded to the rhythm of his silent laughter as he squinted to see through his glazed eyes. His head hovered right above Papou's face, which Aunt Helen still wiped periodically though she no longer bothered to wet the washcloth.

The house was hot. Uncle Nick wiped his beading forehead with his bare forearm, transferring the sweat. Papou would tell us that Yiayia was trying to burn down the house with him in it. "The woman's trying to make toast of me," he would say. "All I want is a little grapefruit juice and some goddam air condition."

"Hey, Ma, maybe Pop wants some more blankets, eh?" Uncle Nick teased.

"Yeh, Nicky, I keep Papou warm. I turn on heat for Papou." She tried to lift herself from the chair. I remembered Mom's brief accounts of locked closets and wooden spoons and wondered if Yiayia's old temper would ever emerge from a dark past.

"Ma, sit down, Papou's not cold," Mom said. Yiayia took a step toward the bed. Her knees buckled, and Mom caught her elbow before she lost balance.

"Her legs must have fallen asleep," Aunt Helen said.

Yiayia sat back down.

"Papou is-eh cold," she said. Then she pulled up her stockings and reached for the Styrofoam box of cold french fries.

* *

At eight o'clock Big and I picked up Uncle Paul and his family at the Philadelphia Airport. Aunt Dawn's hair was blonder now, and her breasts seemed bigger and firmer since my Christmas trip. She had been spending quite a bit of time in the sun and at the spa, so she had said. Little Hayden wore red-striped, white Nikes, along with a double-breasted blue blazer and gray pants, just like Uncle Paul, whose distinguishing black tasseled shoes looked just shined. We greeted quickly and rushed for the luggage terminal, Big and I leading the way.

"Are you gonna give me any baseball cards?" Hayden asked, trotting to keep up. Big's baseball card collection dwindled with every visit.

"Hayden, you don't just say, 'Gimme some baseball cards.'" Aunt Dawn laughed apologetically and, walking briskly alongside, palmed the top of Hayden's bouncing head. "Sorry."

"Tie your sneakers, Hayden," Uncle Paul said.

We all stopped suddenly in the long, store-filled corridor.

"They are tied," he said, and knelt and tied his sneakers, one knee on the ground. Uncle Paul put his hand on my shoulder as I looked for my aunt's reflection in a gift shop's window.

"How's the acting?"

"Good. Just got back from New York—"

"We've been boating quite a bit. The weather's been beautiful. Hayden! Finish tying those sneakers! We're in a hurry!"

"I am finished!" Hayden switched knees.

"So you're gonna be a movie star, huh?" Uncle Paul said. "You know, we should check out Aunt Dawn's friend—a sit-com writer or something. Hayden! Hey, Dawn, what does Marcy do in L.A.? Sit-coms, right?"

"Commercials."

"Commercials, that's right. So how's the Papou doing?" Our eyes met in the glass. "Hanging in there?"

"Oh, he's uh—"

"He's not doing so hot," Big interrupted. I refocused. Aunt Dawn was sharpening the part in Hayden's hair now.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's not gonna make it through the night."

Aunt Dawn pulled Hayden's blazer sleeves and tightened the shoulders. Uncle Paul contained himself, his perturbed jaw muscles jumping, betraying him.

"And how long has he been this bad?" Why didn't someone call me?

He took off for the luggage terminal, and we all followed.

"Oh, he's really only been this way for a few hours," Big offered, catching up. "You probably already left."

Uncle Paul's face relaxed, relieved that he had not been forgotten after all. "He'll be okay till we get there, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Big said. "He's waiting for you."

"Is that what he said?"

Our walk slowed for a moment.

"Um, well, he's not really conscious. But I think he knows. I mean a few hours ago anyway, he knew we were there. You could just tell. He was holding Dad's hand."

Uncle Paul dashed toward the luggage area.

"He is waiting, though, really," Big said, losing ground.

On the way home Big drove, and I sat next to him. Aunt Dawn sat behind Big. She asked if we should risk getting pulled over, and Big slowed down. Uncle Paul was silent except for a few reprimands to Hayden, who leaned forward and pressed Big for his Pete Rose cards, then for Babe Ruth rookie cards.

"My friend's dad got like a million dollars for one."

Finally, Uncle Paul yanked him back.

I was surprised when Aunt Dawn handed me a packed, white envelope from her big leather handbag. She leaned forward and showed me photographs of their home's recent additions. I held the pile and she narrated.

"The mosaic's finished, finally. It's hard to see."

I nodded and flipped to the next picture.

"So, he's breathing all right?" Uncle Paul broke his silence and reached for Big's shoulder.

"Oh, yeah. He's breathing all right. I mean, not really, but he's breathing. It's just starting to get really heavy and the spaces between breaths are getting longer and longer."

I turned to the next picture.

"There's the boat," Aunt Dawn said. "You see the oak steering wheel?" She reached under Uncle Paul's arm and pointed. "Your Uncle Paully just got that."

"His eyes are open," Big continued, "but he isn't seeing anything. He's really sunken. You might want to look at him first before you let Hayden see him."

"Daddy lets me steer."

"Oh, yeah?" I said. Aunt Dawn's hand rested on the seat, waiting to point. She had a French manicure, a creamy white and light brown.

I flipped to the next picture, returning to the beginning of the stack.

"Dad even called Chad Taylor already, so he's ready to come over when we call." Big waited for another question.

"That's the end," Aunt Dawn said.

"I can look at him, right, Dad?" Hayden said.

"Hey, Hayden," I said, tucking the pictures back in the envelope. "Who's your favorite team?"

Hayden went on about the Phillies and Mike Schmidt. Big and I smiled, staying face-forward. Hayden had learned baseball from his east-coast cousins. Then it went suddenly quiet. Big stepped on the gas. When I turned and handed Aunt Dawn her pictures, she smiled nervously. Hayden was staring straight ahead, right past me. Uncle Paul seemed cold, arms crossed, his gaze lost in the passing farms along the turnpike. It was not the right time to tell Hayden that Schmitty might not make it through next season.

* * *

Uncle Nick and Mom were stone-faced in the hallway, and I thought Papou must have died. Greetings to the new arrivals were coupled with warnings about his appearance, but Uncle Paul and Aunt Dawn survived the initial shock of the bluish body. Without instruction, Hayden waited in the hallway for Mommy's gasps or moans. Hearing none, he peered by the door's edge and tiptoed toward Papou's pale green feet and touched his strange skin with a fingertip.

"His toes are cold." He looked up, curious.

Aunt Helen sat on the bed, the washcloth now dry and folded on the windowsill. She stroked his matted, yellow-gray hair. His breathing changed again, not heavier, but faint. His chest filled with fluid falling from his throat, drips in a cave.

"Paully's here, Pop. Everybody's here now, Pop." Uncle Nick backed away from the bed, giving his brother space, cushioning his squat with a stool brought from Yiayia's bedroom across the hall. Aunt Helen got up from the bed, too, welcoming Aunt Dawn. Hayden leaned back into Aunt Dawn's hands to warm his cheeks. Uncle Paul approached and stared down at Papou.

He unbuttoned his sport coat and lifted Papou's right hand, clasping it in a formal shake. He stood, bent at the waist, putting his face into what should have been Papou's line of vision. "Hi, Pop!" He placed Papou's hand back down on the mattress, then stood straight. "Nothing," he whispered. He laid the back side of his hand on his father's forehead, as if testing for fever. Uncle Paul's face was flushed but stubborn. The youngest son learns not to cry. His nostrils flared and jaw muscles flexed each time he turned his hand from palm to backside as he felt for warm spots on Papou's skin.

Aunt Dawn took Aunt Helen's place, sitting next to Papou. Hayden came and hid himself between Big and me at the foot of the bed. We watched Uncle Paul try to make sense of Papou's bloated chest.

"Listen to him," I said.

"You think he knows we're here?"

"I don't know."

Next to Big, my mother bowed her head, listening.

"He really did it, you know?" Big said.

"Yeah," I said.

"The whole American Dream thing, I mean."

My mother looked up. "He's ready," she whispered.

We looked at her.

"This is all he wanted. He just wanted us all here when he went." She paused. "We should all be so lucky to go this way."

I looked at Papou and leaned my thighs against the bed's footboard.

Uncle Paul pressed his chin down against his sternum. He stepped back, frustrated. Aunt Dawn shifted on the bed and began a circular rub on Papou's chest. His worn, almost clear, v-neck T-shirt buckled and pulled under her tan fingers. Then Uncle Paul stepped forward again.

"Pop, it's Paully!" He tried his long-distance phone voice again, but, still, no connection. "We're all here now, Pop. And, Hayden's here."

He re-buttoned his sport coat and stood beside his wife, who rubbed and patted.

"Helen!" Yiayia awakened. "Find me a dress! In-eh the closet."

"What the hell, Ma?" Uncle Nick turned, grimacing and amused, preparing, it seemed, to tame her once again.

Both Mom and Aunt Helen leaned patiently toward Yiayia.

I tucked my hands in my pockets, curious.

"Helen, I don't have-ehh dress for tomorrow!"

Maybe it struck her suddenly that she was the wife of Yiannis Demos, the successful restaurateur of Canin, once a poor Greek immigrant, now a respected, rich American. Perhaps she realized that admiring employees, loyal friends, business partners, and first-generation Greeks she had assumed were dead would be arriving in black to pay their respects to the deceased, and to her, the proud wife. Maybe she saw Aunt Dawn and was impressed by her clothes, the silk skirt and candy-striped nails, the way she sat so proudly by her husband, the long, crossed legs and the cool, majestic swoop of her hair. Tomorrow, she too should be such a grand lady, dignified, composed, standing in black beside her husband's open casket.

Or perhaps she simply woke from a blank stare that left her eyes gazing at the lime green polyester hem of her dress when it registered: I—need—black—dress.

"Here, Ma. Look. Two pretty dresses." Aunt Helen said. I turned to see her bring two dresses from Papou's closet.

"O, no. Helen, I can't." One was black but with dime-sized white polka dots. The other, a solid navy, but not a very dark navy.

"Ma, they're fine," Mom said. "We don't have time for shopping." She stepped toward Aunt Helen to examine the dresses.

"No, sure we do," Uncle Nick said, standing now, his hands on his waist. "We'll take a drive down to Macy's first thing in the morning."

Aunt Dawn's small circles slowed down to a soft isolated pat on Papou's elevated chest. Breaths were coming slowly.

"Ma, c'mon, this one's fine. The navy is okay," Aunt Helen said.

"Ma, this is America," Mom added. "You don't have to wear all black anymore."

America? Yiayia was not convinced. Widows wear black.

"America, Ma, you know," Uncle Nick said. He raised a hand, an operatic gesture. "A—merrr—i—caaa, the beauuu—tiful." Uncle Nick kept his singing low, respecting Uncle Paul's and Aunt Dawn's efforts to reach Papou.

I pulled my hands from my pockets and crossed my arms.

"Yeh yeh, Nicky, I know America." Yiayia laughed.

"Ma. The polka-dots are fine." Uncle Nick went into the bathroom.

Papou's chest was beginning to rise. Aunt Dawn turned to us with a rueful smile.

"Nee-hee-ko! Please, I can't wear!" Yiayia bellowed.

Uncle Nick reappeared in the bathroom doorway. "Ma, fine. Don't wear the goddam dress—"

"I can't wear!"

"Ma!" Uncle Paul faced Papou with his hands on Aunt Dawn's shoulders. He turned, composed and stern, then reached and grabbed Yiayia's arms.

"I want you to be a strong American woman. Do you understand?"

I leaned toward Papou, my folded hands inches from his toes.

"Honey—" Aunt Dawn said.

"Dawn, I'm speaking to my mother." He didn't turn around, just stared at Yiayia, releasing her arms.

Aunt Dawn patted Papou's chest as it descended. She rubbed on the way back up. Her hand and his breathing were synchronized. Down pat, up rub. Down, pat. Up. Her hand waited. Papou was stalling. He wanted us to turn around. Be with me now. Just let her have a black dress.

"Pop does not want you in black, Ma," Paully hissed, finalizing.

Yes I do!

Yiayia rolled her head back, and her mouth opened. She looked at Uncle Paul and moaned.

"Papou—" she whispered. "—no like the dots."

"Dammit, Ma!" Uncle Paul took the dress from Aunt Helen. "Here, look!"

I clenched my hands.

"Paully, that's enough," Uncle Nick said.

Uncle Paul glanced at his brother, then faced his mother.

"Look, Ma. This is not the Old Country! Do you know that? You don't need a black dress!"

Buy the poor woman a goddam black dress!

Aunt Dawn patted again. Papou waited. I'm almost gone. Just watch me, that's all. Nine seconds, ten. Still no rub.

"Pop does not want you to look like some old Greek peasant woman, Ma!"

Papou's back arched, suddenly, and Aunt Dawn pulled her hand back as his cheeks sucked sharply toward each other inside his mouth. Eleven. Papou's back fell. With a cough, he released his last breath, which left his body with a spray of white foam that shocked Aunt Dawn's dark neck. Twelve. His body was still. We were alone.

"Papa!" Uncle Nick slid down the wall outside the bathroom. His knees and forearms met the rug and crawled toward the bed. Aunt Dawn wiped her face with the dried-out washcloth. Her face fought a look of disgust. Uncle Paul held the polka-dotted dress. Yellow blood inched toward Papou's forehead. We should all be so lucky to go this way.

Five minutes. Six minutes. I unclenched my hands. Mom and the aunts helped Yiayia to her bedroom. She cried something in Greek over and over. Side by side the men stood over Papou. Our arms stretched wide, resting on the backs and shoulders of each other.

He was shrinking. He looked nothing like Papou, but I recognized him in his late teens, a face that, perhaps, he chose for me. I imagined him tall and slender, naturally dark from the Greek sun. He wore a hat like Bogart that shaded his fear. The walls of the city made a dark tunnel to nowhere, but he strode toward the center of Manhattan as if he were going home. New York is a good place for a young man. I heard his voice. I remembered Papou sitting on me with all his weight: I was choking and laughing at the same time, afraid that he'd stop and that one day the weight would be lifted. Papou. This small man, this gray man disappearing before a wall of grandsons and sons, it was as if the spotlight faded from him now and we were thrust from behind curtains, shoulder against shoulder, this horizontal force somehow holding us up as we emerged from a shadow.

Mom came from across the hall. "Chad's coming soon."

Uncle Nick turned and stood before Papou's dresser.

"His teeth," he said.