The Risk Pool

waiting to get in. It occurred to me then, perhaps for the first time, that what the white jewel house had meant to me as I looked at it from the hill across the highway in Myrtle Park it also meant to most of Mohawk County. And when the modest obituary in the
Mohawk Republican
announced that friends of the deceased would be received at the Ward home, it had been seen as an invitation to the entire county to tour the house they’d seen from the highway and wondered about for decades. They couldn’t have been more delighted for the opportunity without having been informed that the event was to be catered, which in fact it turned out to be.
    “I’ve got to find a phone,” Eileen said, consulting her watch when we joined the throng on the patio awaiting admittance. “I was supposed to be at work fifteen minutes ago.”
    But nobody was coming out of the Ward house, and those on the patio looked like they were settling in for a long siege. Everyonewas in excellent spirits, however, and these were not the least dampened at the prospect of having to cool their heels or by the general solemnity of the occasion. Rumors circulated that there was food inside, which seemed only right. Jack Ward had been Irish, and many took that to mean there’d be booze as well.
    “You might have worn a jacket at least,” Eileen said to my father, who was in fact the only man on the patio not wearing one. Something about the way she said it made me notice the way she herself was dressed. Normally I wouldn’t have paid any attention to the floral print dress she was wearing, except that she was standing among women more quietly and expensively dressed. My mother, even on her limited budget, had always dressed well, and I discovered that I could tell the difference between good taste and bad, at least when they conveniently rubbed shoulders for the sake of comparison. Eileen was looking at the other women too, I could tell, and the regret in her eyes, which seemed to encompass more than just the cheap dress she was wearing, made me feel sorry for her. “I wish I hadn’t let you talk me into this,” she told my father. “Do you cry at funerals?” she asked me, as if she thought she might cry herself and would have appreciated the company.
    “The way everybody’s standing around,” my father remarked, apparently oblivious to Eileen, “you’d think this place had only one door.”
    I followed, but refused to believe he actually intended to slip in the back. As we weaved our way through the swelling crowd, I overheard one man say, “There. At least
some
body’s leaving.” Blessedly, nobody followed us. Around back we found the caterer’s truck parked by the open kitchen door. We went in.
    Mrs. Petrie, the Ward cook, who had once pegged me for a thief and encouraged me to swipe parfaits from the freezer, was there, dressed in a light blue uniform that might have fit her once but didn’t any more. The kitchen looked like a battlefield, and she was sitting contentedly amid the casualties, smoking a cigarette. It was the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen, but every inch of counter space was stacked with dirty plates and large oval serving trays. From outside the kitchen came the din of conversation, and it was clear that Mrs. Petrie had retired from it. There were half a dozen serving trays on the island loaded with hors d’oeuvres and ready to go, but you could see from the woman’s posture that they were going to stay right where they were. She had not seen us come in, and it would not have mattered if she had.
    My father went up behind Mrs. Petrie and began massaging her shoulders. “Sam Hall,” she said, looking straight up at him. “I was just wondering how things could get worse.”
    “Be nice, Tilly,” my father said.
    “I
am
nice,” Mrs. Petrie said, blowing smoke up at him. “I’m the nicest person you know. I’m fifty-three and I never shot anybody yet, including my husband, who deserves it. Including her, too,” she added, gesturing toward the noise outside. “It would never occur to her that I might be having a hard time serving five hundred freeloaders all by myself.”
    “This hasn’t exactly been the best day of her life either,” my father pointed out.
    “You sure?”
    “It’s her husband …” my father began.
    “And now she’s rid of him,” Mrs. Petrie said.
    “Tilly …”
    “Sam …”
    She saw me then, and Eileen, too. “I got a ratchet jaw, don’t I,” she mumbled.
    “Mind if