ichs and uchs. But that he got my favorite Jell-O flavor. ‘What kind?’ I probably said and he said ‘Onion Jell-O.’ No, this is too dumb.” “You can’t stop now,” Eva says, “and it’s new.” “I said ‘But this is lime,’ and showed him the lime picture on the Jell-O box and he said ‘No, that’s a very old onion, which turns green inside like a lime. Cut any old onion in half and you’ll see how green it is.’ I didn’t know what a real green onion was then. If I did I’m sure I would have said, just to try to be a match for him, ‘But a green onion is a very young one.’ And I’m sure he would have said to that ‘Well this a prematurely old green onion — something happened to it in its youth. In its salad days, we could say,’ and have to explain what that meant since I wouldn’t have known about that too. And then given several ridiculous but sort of sensible reasons why the green onion became prematurely old. Green onion disease or fell in love with a leek who thought he was too young for her, etcetera. Anyway, I said Is that true, Mommy?’ about the old onion turning green like a lime, and she shook her head and I said ‘She says it’s not true.’ And he said ‘No, she’s shaking her head, all right, but on Sunday’—maybe I made him sound too anti-Jewishy before, and at a Jewish cemetery too. He isn’t; he wasn’t. I’m sure.” “You didn’t sweetheart,” Denise says. “He sounds fine. Go on, finish.” “‘But on Sundays,’ he said, ‘when you shake your head it means yes, and when you nod it means no. I’m surprised, you being such an intelligent girl, you didn’t know that.’ Is that true, Mommy?’ I asked and you shook your head and he said ‘You see? She’s shaking her head. So what I said’s true.’ That’s all. Story’s over. I knew—” “No, it was fine,” Denise says. “Lively, revealing; just right.” “It was flat, stilted, long-winded. I didn’t catch him. I never catch him. Too much made up.” “Can I go now?” Eva says. “It’s getting late and maybe too cold for all of you and I’m a little tired from standing,” Jerry says. “Sit on the grass, Uncle Jerry.” “You can’t sit on the grass.” “Give her a minute,” Denise says; “we’ll all button up our coats.” “I wish I could have got to know him,” Eva says. “I think I knew a little of him. I remember him playing peekaboo with me. I think I remember that and also him holding my hand. This one,” showing the right. “And him feeding me. I’m in that special baby’s chair attached to a table, he’s sitting beside me with a book opened for me and saying ‘You eat, I read,’ and I think I’m saying ‘Bunny, bunny’ in the way you said I did,” to Denise. “Maybe that’s remembering more than there was. But I do remember once lying beside him on the bed in my parents’ room while he was watching the news and he put his arm around me and I rested my head on his chest and I think I was holding the bottle by the nipple between my teeth and he kissed the top of my head many times. Milk in the bottle and he was propped up against pillows and maybe only kissed me once or twice. But that one I remember a lot. I can’t remember anything else right now except through the photos of him with me and what other people have said about him over and over again till it’s maybe become what I think I saw. Or was that Olivia’s idea? She always gets there first.” “Do not.” “Anyway, what else, since I don’t think I’ve said anything yet. I like the man Mom married next but I never felt he was my father. I can say that without hurting your feelings, can’t I, Mom? Well, too late. Of course I’m glad you married Eric and it was nice of him to adopt us and that you love him real well, as you say. The truth is, I’m not telling the truth. I think I felt I had to say those things because we’re standing here, something of him must be around in the air or underneath, and I’m superstitious and maybe a little scared. The truth is, Eric to me is my father and my real actual father, Howard, is like a ghost, a nobody, a shadow. Really, most like a shadow. A shadow holding my hand, a shadow feeding and kissing me. An apparition, I mean. See it but not feel it. That must be old stuff. I can never be original. Olivia can. Not that I don’t admire her for it. I do, it’s wonderful, I’m envious in the most generous way. ‘My sister,’ I say, ‘she’s great.’ So what do I have to say after all my eagerness to speak? And because it is getting chilly and poor Uncle Jerry looks both bored and tired.” “Just a bit tired, sweetie.” “I’ve nothing to say. All this time, and with an all-ears audience, and nothing. If I’ve one thing to say it’s I wish he hadn’t died so soon. If I’ve two, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t combine one and two into one, it’s I wish he had taken care of himself better so he wouldn’t have died so soon. I don’t know what that would have meant.” “Entailed,” Olivia says. “And you shouldn’t think he was at fault. He might have ran himself too hard, but what he got ran in his family, and he did reach fifty. Maybe we’ll get what he got and not reach forty.” “Romantic nonsense,” Denise says. “Just get checkups and don’t think it.” “Then the two of you should have had me sooner, so I could have had the experiences with him Olivia did. And the photos. And you should have pushed them too, Ollie, saying ‘Sister, I want a baby sister, baby baby sister,’ but saying it so many times and in such a loud whiny voice that they would have started me sooner rather than listen to you anymore. Three years sooner, even two, I’ll take two. I’ll take one. I would have come out something the same. We look alike, Olivia and I, just as all of Uncle Jerry’s kids and us look alike, so I probably would have been a slightly different looking person with the same name. An inch shorter or taller. I mean, when I’m fully grown. I’ll take taller. I’ll take prettier. I’ll take Olivia’s complexion and hair and nose and frailer legs. I’ll take anything to have definite memories of me with him. Mine, I mean. A quotient — that’s the right word, right? — dumber or smarter. I’ll take smarter, but if dumber, then not so much so. Meaning, where it’d incapacitate me. And I wouldn’t take sickness either. Throwing up a dozen more times than I’d normally do over fifty years, fine, but nothing life-lasting or short-living like Howard’s sister Mira.” “Vera,” Jerry says. “Right over here. I’m going to ask you all at the end to put a small stone on her monument just so she doesn’t feel ignored. Dad’s too, if we can find that many, though I doubt it would bother him, and he’s probably sleeping through all this or thinking we’re all such sentimental fools. Your Uncle Alex’s is only a cenotaph, so we don’t have to worry about his feelings unless this is where he decided to settle, and why wouldn’t he? So his too, but by then we’ll probably have to share a single stone. But is that all, Eva? I’m not rushing, simply asking you, but also shivering a bit, as I’d like to say something too.” “All. You didn’t like what I said, right?” “No no, sweetie.” “Not bright, too shallow, nothing from inside.” “No, it was smart, something, not shallow; felt, so very nice indeed. And what’s the difference? If anybody wasn’t a speaker it was your father. He’d appreciate someone trying to find the right words and failing at it. And his daughter? You can bet, not that failing’s what you did, but he distrusted people who didn’t hem and haw. But — Howard, on your sixtieth birthday, and are we supposed to believe that? My stringbean kid brother, the boy I ignored for his first twenty years? But you see the respect, I’d say love, you have from all those who were so very close to you. As you can also see, I’m not that hot at this either — and Mom, who’s all right. Still hanging in there, drinking, smoking, coffeeing, reading without glasses and pretending to hear, a little more lined but still a beauty, was a trifle too, what was the word Eva used? frail, to undergo today. But she said to give you her love, and even confessed to me that you were her favorite after Alex of the boys, but she also said she had to admit that Alex had the advantage in that department of having a natural sweet disposition since birth, compared to us, and dying young and being the first boy to go. But — let’s see. I shouldn’t go on at length, for one who complained about the cold, so just may your soul rest in peace, if it hasn’t been, and continue to for eternity, if it has, if that doesn’t seem too deathlike a fate. That’s all I can say, and I think everyone here shares those sentiments, besides joining with Mom in sending our strongest expressions of love,” and breaks down. “Amen,” Denise says and puts her hands on the backs of her children who are hugging Jerry, was looking at Howard’s stone so didn’t see if he’d beckoned to them in some way first or they came to him on their own.