“Our dead,” Calliope says. “Of course.”
“Of course.”
They tap their flasks together and drink.
“One more,” Ken Fen says.
“Oh, I’ll be having more than one.”
He chuckles. “Toast. One more toast.”
She leans in again.
“To our living,” Ken Fen says.
“To our living,” Calliope agrees.
They drink.
Following the release of her remains by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office, Julia “Jules” Fennessy’s body is interred at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain. Per the last will and testament of her mother, the body is placed in a mausoleum atop a small slope in the southern corner of the grounds. Funds are dispersed from the estate of Mary Pat Fennessy every month to pay for flowers to be placed around the mausoleum door. Funds are also dispersed to satisfy an odd stipulation. Once every weekday, the assistant sexton, Winslow Jacobs, is tasked with spending half an hour inside the mausoleum with a transistor radio tuned to the local classical station, WJIB.
Winslow Jacobs has had some strange jobs in his time on this earth, but this might be the strangest. He ain’t complaining, though — the head sexton, Gabriel Harrison, pays Winslow an extra fifteen dollars a week for the duty (which means Gabriel’s got to be making thirty), and the truth is, within a month, Winslow has developed a fondness for the break in his day. Plus, the music grows on him.
As time goes on, he falls into the habit of talking to Julia Fennessy most afternoons. He tells her about his son, who works for a company paves road out in California, and his two daughters who are raising families of their own not far from where they grew up, and his wife’s cooking, which won’t win any prizes but tastes like home and that’s good enough for him. He tells Julia about his father, who he’s certain never loved him, and his mother, who loved him twice as hard to make up for it, tells Julia Fennessey most of what he can remember about his life in all its highs and lows, all its dashed dreams and surprising joys, its little tragedies and minor miracles.
Acknowledgments
Infinite gratitude to:
My editor, Noah Eaker, who pushed me to be a more precise and more economical writer.
The earliest readers — Kary Antholis, Bradley Thomas, Richard Plepler, and David Shelley.
The later readers — Michael Koryta, Gerry Lehane, Mackenzie Pietzak, and David Robichaud.
My wife, Chisa. I wrote most of this novel in New Orleans while running a TV show during frequent COVID outbreaks and lightning strikes in the furnace of a Louisiana summer. Oh, and then a hurricane hit. Throughout it all, you gave me more love, support, and wise counsel than I could have ever dared hope for. This one’s for you, babe.