When the service was over, he got in his vehicle and he drove back, never attempting to be noticed, never seeking that to know, as my deceasedwife used to say, the real measure of generosity is would you do it and no one ever knew you did it.
His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceasedwife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold.
Fifty years later, the elderly Irish wife astounds the recently deceased black couple's grandchildren by claiming the house is really hers and they need to move out.