We were laying my mother to rest at her funeral, but as it turned out that day would bring no peace. My sister and I sat on either side of my father in the wooden church pew. My six brothers entered the standing room only church and rolled her casket, resting on a wheeled device, up the center aisle to repose behind the altar. Dad grasped my hand, his shaking. He’d lost his wife of sixty-two years, cancer devastating her body in eleven weeks.

My brothers then joined Dad, my sister, and me in that first row. But the pew couldn’t fit all of us and my oldest brother, Jim, joined my husband Michael and teenage son Nick in the second row. You should be in this row I thought. Jim was the prodigal son. My parents had been clueless on what to do with a gay son when he first came out as a teenager in the 1970s, and their reaction had been to mostly ignore him. His decades of alcohol and drug abuse further separated him from the family. But now, sober and in his fifties, Jim worked to find his place in the family. He still so wanted to be loved by all of us and had taken an active role in our mother’s hospice care.

Mom would have loved the grand traditional Catholic ceremony. The assistant archbishop, who my parents had known since his first days as a priest at their parish, led the service and three other priests co-officiated. The church could hold a few hundred people but had an overflow of people standing along the walls, underneath the stained glass windows. Three of her grandchildren brought the offerings of oil, water, and bread to the altar.

Instead of a formal eulogy, there were a few remembrances by my sister and two of my younger brothers. The parish priest read a piece I supplied; a collection of emails that my siblings and I had exchanged over the last few months gave the crowd an idea of what Mom’s last days had been like, and also a sense of who we were as a family and the love and humor that prevailed. At some point over the summer, we’d all started signing our emails “Blessed to be an Allio.” And although I’d used my husband’s last name for eighteen years now, I’d switched to using Marianne Allio.

After the funeral mass, we walked downstairs to the church hall for a lunch reception. I stood by Dad as the flow of people stopped to talk with him, hug him, take his hand. He cried with some, took the picture of Mom at twenty in a bathing suit out of his back pocket to show others, and complained to me whenever there was a lull.

“I can’t stand that woman,” he’d say. “Your Mom liked everyone. But I can’t stand her voice.”

He’d towered over me as a kid but now seemed so small at just 5’8” and 130 pounds, but still handsome with his dark, olive skin and full head of salt-and-pepper hair. Just a few months ago, I’d walked with Dad from the San Francisco Ferry Building to the Giants’ baseball park and back, a two-mile walk. And now I had to help him to a table to sit down. Mom’s death took so much from him.

“I don’t really want to eat,” he said. “How soon can we get the hell out of here?”

Dad lived on the edge of anger and I tried to pacify him, always had. Jim brought him a plate of green salad, lasagna, salami, cheese, and garlic bread. I’d had no idea how many people to estimate for the caterer, and I looked at the food line snaking into the street, counting. At least two hundred people. The food seemed to calm Dad.

My husband set up his guitar and a microphone on the stage at the front of the church hall. During the weeks of Mom’s hospice care, he’d learned a new song, Michael Kiwanuka’s, Home Again, a beautiful, melodic piece that comforted me. My brother Jim had never warmed up to my husband, and still seemed jealous of our relationship. Jim had been my best friend during childhood, and we’d even lived next door to each other for several years in our twenties. But his addictions took a toll and our relationship had soured. As Michael played and sang, Jim stood behind my chair, and said, “Oh, I didn’t know we were having a talent show,” and exited to the street.

I drove Dad home in his sedan, not guessing he’d buy a sports car in a few months. My husband had to return to work, and Jim drove my son in my car back to Mom and Dad’s home. I was a bit jealous at how easily my sixteen-year-old son and brother connected. Nick would tell me years later, after he’d been out as a gay man for a few years, that Jim made him feel like there was someone like him in the family. Nick and his generation of cousins gravitated to Jim—at his best Jim could make you feel seen and accepted without judgment. I missed the affection and closeness we’d had for so much of our younger years.

We returned late that afternoon to the family house at the crest of a hill, with the big picture window looking down on street after street of homes that stretched to Highway 101, the business park, and finally way out there to San Francisco Bay. Visitors to the house always commented on the beautiful view but I’d never seen it that way. From the time we’d moved into the house when I was five, to now in my fifties, the view looked cluttered. A snapshot of middle-class homes leading to the steel factories of my youth which had shut down years ago and been replaced by tech companies. And the constant noise of airplanes flying in and out of San Francisco airport still jarred me. This house was anything but peaceful.

Dad, his eight kids, their spouses and kids filled the house, about thirty-five of us. So much food was left over from the lunch reception. We’d brought home covered aluminum trays of lasagna, salad, French bread, salami, and cheese.

“I don’t want all that food,” Dad said, relaxing in his lounge chair in the television room. He already had the Golf Channel going with the sound blaring and had lit a cigarette.

“You guys take it.”

“Great,” Jim said. “I’ll take some.”

My sister volunteered to pack up leftovers for Jim and packed full one of the aluminum trays. Dad wandered into the kitchen and eyed the tray.

“Who’s taking that?” he asked.

“Jim,” my sister replied.

Jim, my son Nick, and I stood in the kitchen.

“You’re taking that much?” Dad said, glaring at Jim. He sounded angry.

“I guess so,” Jim said. “I’ll take whatever she packed up for me.”

“You motherfucker,” Dad barked. “That’s enough for ten people.”

He’d erupted. I wasn’t surprised but I still felt the blow of his words. The amount of anger he could throw never ceased to upset me.

“Yeah, there’s a ton of leftovers,” Jim said. “But I don’t need to take all of that if you think it’s too much.” Jim stayed calm, diplomatic.

“Take it you selfish asshole,” Dad continued. There was no reason for Dad to talk to Jim this way. An angry heat flooded my body. I wasn’t taking this from Dad anymore, even today.

“Let’s go,” I said to Nick and Jim.

I picked up my purse and sweater and Nick’s jacket from the living room and headed back into the kitchen.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Jim said and walked out the door, not taking the tray.

Nick’s eyes were huge. He nodded and followed Jim out.

“Take the goddamn food,” Dad yelled after Jim.

“You’re out of line, Dad,” I said, staring hard into his eyes, and walked out. What a fucked-up end to the day. And one that fit in to our family history like finding the right jigsaw piece. Dad didn’t have it in him to be nice for long periods of time, especially to Jim.

***

Jim and I had always come to each other’s rescue. When he was in eighth grade, Tom, the class bully, “called him down” which translated to meet at Siebecker Recreation Center after school for a fistfight. Jim showed up even though he knew he’d get the shit beat out of him, and I was there, too, a puny fourth grader, and so afraid. Jim knew nothing about fighting—this would be Tom beating Jim up. But as soon as that big lug started pummeling Jim, I jumped on Tom’s back, wrapped my legs around his back and started pounding. He was so surprised that he stopped hitting Jim and spun around a few times trying to unleash me. Someone shouted, “Stop it Tom!” and the crowd began chanting those words. My jumping in forced the crowd to move away from the excitement of a fight to the absurdity of these two opponents fighting each other. When push came to shove, I would protect and fight for my big brother.

***

And even knowing that this day, the day of Mom’s funeral, was one of the saddest days in my father’s life, I still couldn’t excuse his behavior. Once again, like our lives had always gone, the day revolved around Dad. And yes, he had lost his wife. But his children had lost their mother. And I don’t know that it occurred to Dad to wonder how we, his children, were doing.

I started the car and headed toward the Bay Bridge. We were all quiet for a few minutes. Jim sat next to me and Nick was behind him in the back seat.

“I’ve never seen Poppi like that,” Nick said. “I’ve heard you guys talk about how he gets but I hadn’t seen before. He’s scary.”

“You just got a glimpse at Jim’s childhood,” I said.

Jim rubbed my shoulder and nodded. I hadn’t wanted this day to end this way, but I felt I might have found the trailhead leading back to my big brother.

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