Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde

went last year when Uncle Sal died," Mom pointed out.
    "That was different," Dad said, by which I took him to mean Uncle Sal was practically in the
Guinness Book of World Records,
he was so old. They flew his ashes back from the retirement community in St. Petersburg, Florida, so that he could be buried next to Aunt Imogene, who had died so long ago even Amorette hadn't been born yet. So it wasn't like it was a surprise Uncle Sal had died. And it wasn't like we knew him.
    When Raquel's mom, Aunt Cleo—who we of course knew—died, we'd been on a weeklong cruise over winter break. We didn't even hear about it till we got back two days after she'd been buried.
    So for Raquel, in the end Mom and Dad left it up to us whether we wanted to go to the funeral parlor. I would have voted no, but the frightful four wanted to go, so that made me feel like I had to.
    The room was big, and full of aunts wearing
a lot
of perfume and uncles fighting back with equal amounts of aftershave, and about as many flowers as they put around the altar on Easter morning. My head began to swim as soon as we crossed the threshold.
    There was a book, which Mom said she'd sign for all of us, and I asked a perfectly reasonable question: "What's the book for?"
    Mom said, "So your Uncle Al will know we came."
    "Isn't he going to be here?" I asked.
    Mom gave me one of those that-was-a-weird-question looks, and Gina smacked the back of my head.
    "Don't do that," Mom told her. She told me, "Of course he'll be here."
    "Then why does he need the book?"
    I dodged a second smack, so that Gina's hand accidentally made contact with the stand on which the book rested.
    She clutched her fingers and swore, loudly, and the person who had signed the book right before us, an older woman I didn't know, turned around to glare.
    "If you can't behave...," Mom said in a low but threatening voice.
    "It's
his
fault," Gina said. "Tell him it's not cute to keep asking dumb questions."
    "Enough," Dad told her.
    "I'm not—" I started.
    "Enough," Dad told me, too.
    The signing-in was only a stop along the way. The line continued, following the contours of the room, then passing by Uncle Al like a wedding receiving line, except that it ended just beyond him at Raquel's coffin. For the moment, I wasn't worrying about that last part. I was doing quite well at
not
thinking about Raquel. What I was worrying about was what I could possibly say to Uncle Al.
    Relatives who'd been through already came to chat with us and keep us company. The adults called me "young man," with the uncles shaking my hand (as if attending a funeral made me into a grown-up, too) and the aunts giving me powdery pecks on the cheek. People asked Amorette how she liked college, and she answered, "Very much," which was a surprise considering all the complaining she does at home. They asked Gina if she was beginning to look at colleges yet, and she said she wanted to go to Vascar, but that Mom and Dad wouldn't even take her to look because of the expense. "State schools are fine," Dad would explain, to cut off any sympathy she might have gotten. And as far as Corinne and Sophia, people kept getting the two of them confused and then finding an infinite source of quiet amusement in that.
    Mom leaned in close to Dad, but I could hear her when she whispered, "The casket is open."
    That made me jump, because I thought she meant it was opening right then and there. But the lid was all the way up and nobody else seemed to be reacting.
    Sophia, who's probably going to be a teacher when she grows up—either that or a spy, because she has such sharp eyesight that nothing gets by her—had of course noticed me. "What a moron," she sighed.
    Dad told us, "After we give our condolences to Uncle Al, you don't have to go up to the casket if you don't want to."
    Corinne asked, "Was her face run over?"
    The woman ahead of us in line got all stiff-backed.
    Mom took hold of Corinne's arm, and she dragged her out of the