matters clamored for attention. Remo had to go to the morgue that morning to identify Alessa’s body. This dreaded formality, mandatory for the police investigation to get underway, would serve as a sort of closure for him.
When he arrived at the morgue, the coroner led him to the room where Alessa’s body had been laid out. A large bandage camouflaged her head where the bullet hit, and a sheet covered her body from the neck down. Her face was pale and serene, as though relieved of all the troubles that had plagued her throughout her life. Remo approached her for the last time. Part of him expected her to sit up and give him that radiant smile that had been such a comfort in his life for years now.
Remo gazed down at her face. “Oh, Alessa,” he croaked, “it’s not fair. None of this should have happened.” He took a few moments. His shoulders shook, and his hand rested over his forehead to regain composure. “There will never be anyone like you in my life again. We will miss you. We will keep you with us forever,” he cried.
Alessa would be cremated that afternoon, and he knew this would be the last time he would ever see her.
Heartbroken and alone, he wondered how he would live through the day, as he looked into her face for the last time. “You were the love of my life. No one will ever take your place. And there will never be a more loving mother for Lucy. You saved me, Alessa. You saved so many of us.”
Then the coroner gently led him away.
***
Over the next three days, Remo and Ebby discussed the funeral arrangements, as Lucy sat listening to them in silence. They would have a mass at the local Catholic church, and Remo’s dad planned to buy a plot for Alessa in a Philadelphia cemetery so they could bury her ashes there.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Lucy suddenly butted in on the conversation between Remo and Ebby, her eyes filling with tears. “This is not what Alessa would’ve wanted. I hate you guys! How can you not understand?”
Remo and Ebby were shocked at her outburst but realized that perhaps they hadn’t paid enough attention to her feelings.
“What is it, Luce?” Remo asked gently. “What would Alessa have wanted us to do?”
“Alessa would’ve wanted her ashes scattered under the bridge where the two of us used to live,” Lucy mumbled between muffled sobs. “She would’ve wanted to be there because she always told me it was living there that had changed her life forever.”
Remo and Ebby conceded that the girl was right. Lucy had been an inseparable part of Alessa. Sometimes, it had seemed as if they were the same person.
Remo put his arms around her. “You’re absolutely right. That’s what we’re going to do. Okay, Luce?”
The girl nodded and buried her face in Remo’s chest. There was something she had to know right away but was apprehensive about asking him.
“Remo?” she said in a shaky voice. “Are you and me still going to live together or do I have to live somewhere else?”
Remo was taken aback. “God no, Lucy. You and I will always be together. We’re family. Even without Alessa here, you and I belong together.”
The tension in Lucy’s body lessened, knowing they would get through Alessa’s death together. She pulled in a long quivering breath. At last, Lucy let her defenses down and let out her bottomless unrelenting grief as she wailed and clutched at Remo.
They scheduled a time to scatter Alessa’s ashes under the bridge near the train station. They informed the residents of the Outside Inn, who had been devastated to learn of her death, so they could attend. Alessa’s sister, Rosabella, had been called. She would be coming with her daughter, Eva. Patrick, Hannah, and Sara would be there, as would Regina and her parents.
As they drove down Thirtieth Street to the bridge where Alessa’s ashes would rest, people were lined up on both sides.
“Great,” Remo remarked, “there must be an event taking place here today. We’ll park here and walk. We’re only about four blocks away.”
He, along with Lucy and Ebby, walked the four blocks, holding the urn that contained Alessa’s ashes. They realized quickly there wasn’t an event in the city that day. The people who lined the sidewalk reached out to them—homeless people, business people, and others who had come to pay their respects to Alessa. So overwhelmed were the three of them by the love and devotion she had inspired in so many during her short time on earth, they cried and held on to each other as they moved toward the bridge. Lucy led them to the spot where she and Alessa had slept years before.
Remo’s parents were both there, waiting. Patrick put his arm around his son, while Hannah comforted Lucy. There was no room to move, as people gathered around them.
“I want to thank you all for coming here today,” Remo began. “Alessa would never have expected so many of you to be here. Nor did she realize how many lives she had touched. We will all miss her and the magic that she had managed to retain within her, despite all the hardships she lived through.” He paused to look around him. Everyone was weeping, and Remo could not contain his tears either, as he grieved openly for the woman he had loved.
Ebby patted Remo on the shoulder and took a step forward. “Alessa once told me,” Ebby said, “that her only wish in life was that someone would miss her when she died. She was alone at the time, with no one in her life. But since then, you all have filled her life with joy. I imagine her now, looking down from heaven and saying, ‘Ebby, can you fucking believe it? Look at all the people who will miss me!’”
The crowd laughed at this well-remembered image of Alessa, who was known as a potty mouth and proud of it, too.
Finally, it was Lucy’s turn. The crowd gazed at her, overwhelmed by the grief of the thirteen-year-old as they watched her mourn, feeling the pain of her loss. But the young adolescent was the most eloquent of them all.
“Alessa believed that our names meant a lot,” she said. “She told me my name meant ‘light.’ She used to say I was the light that had showed her the way.” Lucy paused to compose herself, then continued. “She also told me that it was her grandmother who had given her the name ‘Alessa’ when she was born. It means ‘defender of mankind.’ That’s what her grandmother believed she saw as she looked into the baby’s eyes and glimpsed at her soul. Alessa loved to tell me that story. It was the only happy memory from her childhood. And she defended and saved so many of us. She was the only mother I ever had, the best mom I could ever have asked for. I’m going to miss her for the rest of my life.”
As the crowd bowed their heads to pray for Alessa, they all believed she was watching over them.
After they had scattered the ashes, Remo turned to Lucy and took her hand. He reached up into the tree that towered above them and rubbed the brass plate mounted on the tree trunk. Then he moved her in front of him so she could rub her hand across it, too. Ebby looked up to read what was written on it:
Alessa – Defender of Mankind
The Greatest Mother, Wife, and Friend
