It's extremely dramatic and maybe even a bit overdone to begin the story at a funeral, but I'm doing it anyway. That's just the way it's got to be since it was a major turning point in my life. Four days ago, everything changed in an instant, and now, at this very moment, I found myself staring at an arrangement of flowers that hung over my husband's closed coffin.

You heard me right.

I had the wrong idea about widows. In my mind, that word applied to old, or at least
older
women. Twenty-three certainly didn't feel like the right age to obtain that title, but there I was, staring at a big, wooden box that contained…

I put my face in my hands, and tears freely fell. It was no use trying to contain them. My mother-in-law was sitting next to me and she felt me take a breath in between sobs, which started her crying again as well. I could feel her begin to shake, and it made me cry even harder.

The car accident that took my husband, also took his father and brother, which meant Laura Milano lost her husband and two sons in one fell swoop.

I was married to her younger son Anthony, and her older son, Tommy, was married to a girl named Anna. Anna was sitting on the other side of Laura, and the three of us were huddled on the front pew, waiting for someone to speak. My late father-in-law, Gianni, had a business partner named Vinny, and I was relatively sure he would be doing the honors, but I couldn't be certain. I didn't really care who was speaking, as long as it wasn't me.

I felt a wave of anxiety hit me, causing cold sweats and nausea flood my body. For a few seconds I thought I might pass out. I wanted to leave as quickly as my feet would take me, but I stayed for Laura's sake.

She sobbed loudly with no regard for the rows and rows of people sitting in the church pews behind us. It had been four days since the accident, and you'd think we'd be all cried out, but tears continued to stream. My face ached and my eyes burned, and more than once I thanked God that Laura made me wear a black veil.

I glanced up to see that someone was making his way to the microphone. I begged myself to become distracted so I could avoid wailing uncontrollably. I stared at him.
That's Vinny. Look at him. Look at his suit. It's a grey suit. You should look at his grey suit.
I stared at the faint plaid pattern, trying to do anything but remember why we were there.

"I remember when Gianni first came to me and said, 'we should move to Arizona,'" Vinny said, testing the mic with that first statement. He settled on a place to hold it and regarded the crowd. "It was twenty years ago. The boys were babies." He paused, clinched his eyes shut, and put a fist to his mouth at the thought of the boys. Laura cried uncontrollably, and I sobbed right along with her. We held onto each other tightly in an effort to keep it together so Vinny could finish his speech.

We must have been doing a pretty good job, because Vinny was talking again. I wasn't sure how much of his speech I missed while I was trying to get myself together; I was so out of it that it was hard to tell. It was impossible to focus on anything—impossible to form a coherent chain of thoughts.

Anthony and his family were all I had, so like Laura,
everything
had been taken away from me in that accident. My thoughts during Vinny's speech were desperate and delirious, and jumped around to random things. I barely heard what he was saying. Every time I tuned in, I'd hear something that made me start crying, so mostly I just didn't listen.

Tommy's wife, Anna, was one of four girls, and she had her whole family there to support her. Her mom was sitting right next to her, and her sisters were also on the front row, down a little ways. I, on the other hand, had no family, so I physically clung to Laura as we did our best to get through the funeral.

Swimming.

My head was swimming. My thoughts were swimming. There was a wet, swimmy quality to the whole day that I thought might be a result of all the tears. There were a lot of people at the funeral. A lot of people I didn’t even recognize. I spoke to a few of them, but all of my interactions felt as if I was floating in a fishbowl and the people I was talking to were outside breathing real air. I normally communicated with people just fine, but today was different; my encounters were warped and surreal.

By the time we went back to Laura's house, my face and head throbbed painfully. The service and burial were over, but Laura had a house full of people who stayed until past dinner time. By 9PM there were only four of us left.

Anthony and I shared a rent house with Tommy and Anna while we each saved for down payments to put toward our own place. Neither Anna nor I had spent the night at the house since we lost the boys. I was staying at Laura's and she at her parents' house.

Anna and her mother had just gone home, which left me, Vinny, Laura, and her brother Joey who'd flown in from New Jersey.

I was lying on the couch with my eyes closed—had been for quite some time. Anna and her family assumed I was sleeping and were careful not to wake me on their way out. My head was throbbing so badly that I didn't bother to explain that I was awake.

"We need to talk," I heard Joey say right when the door closed. I knew it was Joey who spoke because his East Coast accent was a lot heavier than Vinny's. "I know it's not a good time, Laura, but we really need to talk about the logistics of everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I heard her ask.

"I've been talking to Vinny. You need to know that there's some things Gianni wasn't honest with you about." There were a few seconds of silence. "About the business," he continued.

"I really hope you don't have bad news for me, Joey, because right now I don't know if I can—"

"It's pretty bad," Vinny said. "I'm sorry, Laura. We've barely been keeping our heads above water. It's been like this since Bellman expanded."

Gianni and Vinny were partners in a car dealership that specialized in high-end used cars, but five years ago when Rob Bellman of Bellman Toyota, Bellman Nissan, and Bellman Subaru expanded his dealership to include a mega used car lot, their business started going downhill.

Anthony and Tommy must have known the state of affairs, because I'd heard them discussing other business ventures when their dad wasn't around.

"We owe a scary amount of money to the IRS, and we haven't been able to make payments to Frankie, but we have quite a bit tied up in cars right now, and I think if we sell everything, we'll be able to pay at least
some
of what we owe."

"We can't sell the business," Laura said, sounding shocked. "That's how we make a living. It's all we have."

"You can't have that business," Joey said.

He sounded heartless, and I ached for Laura. I considered going to her for support, but my head weighed a thousand pounds. Plus, I knew they'd never be having this conversation if they thought I was awake.

"Keeping the business isn't an option," Vinny said, with at least some regret in his tone. "I'm sorry that it had to come at a time like this, but we need to unload it."

"Why do we still owe Frankie money?" Laura asked. "I thought we paid him back years ago."

"We did pay him back… for what he gave us to start the business, but we borrowed some more a few years ago when we got all those cars from the auction."

"Gianni didn't tell me you borrowed money from him again," she said.

Several seconds of silence passed.

"I don't know what to tell you," Vinny said. "I guess he didn't want you to worry."

Laura huffed a laugh, then more silence, followed by, "How much?"

"We borrowed a hundred, but we've paid twenty or thirty, I think."

"A hundred
thousand
?" she asked in disbelief.

"Seventy or eighty now."

"How much do we owe the IRS?"

Vinny and Joey both made sounds that let her know it was bad news. "A lot," Vinny said. "We kept thinking it would get better, but we spent the last few years robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"How much do we have tied up in the business?" she asked.

"We ran the numbers. We think we'll be able to pay the IRS in full and only owe Frankie sixty. I figured we'd just split the responsibility since that's how it's always been. That means you'll owe him about thirty." He paused, but then continued. "These numbers are just an estimate."

"So, not only do I have no business, but now you're telling me I'm
indebted
to someone with nothing to show for it?"

"I'm sorry, Laura, but there's really no other time to talk about this," Vinny said. "We need to start wrapping things up right away."

"I can't
owe
someone thirty thousand dollars," Laura said, using the same, stunned tone of voice. "I can't even pay the mortgage if the business doesn't exist, let alone pay Frankie back for money I didn't even know we borrowed."

"That's exactly why we need to have this conversation, Laura," Joey said. "I'm leaving tomorrow, but I wanted to help you get started listing the house and making arrangements to come back home."

A whole minute of silence followed by a screeching chair and then Laura saying, "Don't touch me," with a sob.

I literally couldn't move, and even if I could, I knew there was nothing I could do to help her. I barely cracked my eyes open, and could see their outlines from across two rooms. It looked like Joey was standing next to Laura and Vinny was a few feet from them. I closed my eyes again because they were too heavy to keep open.

"I have a life here, Joey. I am not moving back to New York."

"You can't pay for this life, Laura."

"I already talked to Frankie," Vinny said. "You know he's into real estate. He said he's got an apartment in the city that's vacant right now."

"I never said I was moving!" she said angrily. "Are
you
moving back?" she asked Vinny.

"No, but Linda and I have the day care business, and we're—"

"What makes you think you can make plans for me to move across the country without even consulting me?" Her tone was extremely angry and sounded like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

"You don't really have a choice," Vinny said sadly. "You owe on your house and your car, and there's just no way to keep them."

Another minute of silence passed. I heard movement, but I didn't peek.

"I can't believe he left me with
nothing
," she said. "Less than nothing!" She sighed. "So I'm supposed to sell everything I own and move to New York where I'll be living in one of Frankie's apartments?"

"Yes."

"The same Frankie that I also mysteriously owe thirty thousand dollars?"

"There's nothing mysterious about it," Joey said. "Gianni borrowed that money, and Vinny's only responsible for half."

"It might not be thirty," Vinny said, "That's just an estimate."

"Frankie's doing you a favor, Laura," Joey said. "His place isn't far from the apartment. He said you can clean it in exchange for rent."

"Like an indentured servant," she said, frustrated.

"You don't have any other choice," Joey said. "Maggie and I can't do anything to help, or we would. We do our best to get by. We have one thinking about college and the other in braces. Frankie's our best option here. He loved Gianni and the boys. He's doing you a favor with this offer."

I heard her crying, and my body just shut down as a way of dealing with the bitter sadness that now gripped me. I drifted in and out of delirious sleep for a while. I heard her yelling in an angry tone that God had forsaken her, and I stirred and vaguely wondered if I was dreaming. I peeked into the kitchen to see that Joey was holding Laura, who was crying.

The next time I woke up the room was empty. I was covered by a blanket that hadn't been there before I fell asleep, but I didn't remember anyone giving it to me. My eyes still burned and ached from shedding so many tears, and I figured it hadn't been that long since I fell asleep. I peered at the little clock on the cable box, but it was blurry and I quickly gave up trying to see it.

I didn't care what time it was. It was the saddest day of my life, and it couldn't be over fast enough. I stayed there with my eyes closed, wishing I'd wake up to find out that this was all a big nightmare. I was relatively sure that before I went to sleep I heard Laura say she had to move away. I wasn't ready to give her up. Losing Anthony was a crippling blow that was only softened by the fact that I had Laura.

My mom wasn't ready to have children when she got pregnant with me. She left me with her parents, who were functioning alcoholics. They provided a decent enough place for me to live, but my grandma died a few years ago, and my grandpa's gone downhill since then. The VA put him in an assisted living facility and he recognizes me less and less each time I go in.

I'd never heard from my mom. My grandma told me a little about her, saying she thought she lived in Detroit. I knew her name and could probably try to get in touch, but I never had. All this to say, Anthony and his beautiful family were basically all I had, and now they were gone.

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