“Is that an iPod?” he asks.
“Actually, it’s an iPhone.”
“It plays music.”
“It does.”
“Any music you want?”
“Any music you put on it.”
Yakov nods solemnly.
“Do you want to see it?”
“Yes, please.”
I hand him the phone. “Slide the bar,” I say. “You have to put in the pass code. It’s five-six-two-two.” Yakov looks up at me. “It’s okay,” I say. “I trust you.”
He cradles the phone in his left hand, carefully wipes his right hand on the side of his pants, then presses his little index finger on the touch pad: 5-6-2-2. The screen opens and he stares at it.
“The music is here?” he asks, pointing to the iPod icon.
“Yup,” I say. “You’ve used one of these before.”
“Mommy showed me,” he says.
“Oh really? Your mother had one?”
“It was a secret,” says Yakov. He presses the iPod icon and up pops a list of my music. He uses his finger to scroll slowly down, then back up again. Finally, he hands it back.
“You’re from the newspaper,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“My mommy is dead,” he says, lifting his eyes to me. “Did you know that?”
“I did know. I’m so sorry.”
Yakov shakes his head. “She wasn’t sick.”
“Sick?”
“Tatti says Mommy was sick. He said she was very, very sick. He said we might get sick, too. But she wasn’t sick.”
I don’t know how to respond. Sick could mean a million things.
“Tatti says he is going to send us to the mountains with Meema Miriam and Feter Heshy,” Yakov says, his eyes on the sidewalk. Tatti, does that mean father? I think.
“Oh? Do you like the mountains?”
He shakes his head. His nose and fingers are red again. I wish somebody would dress this kid better. Maybe when his mom was alive.
“You better go inside,” I say. “You look very cold. You don’t want to get sick.”
Yakov looks up at me. Oops.
“I mean… catch a cold.” Yakov stays where he is. I rip a page out of my notebook and write my name and phone number on it. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”
The boy takes the paper. “Do you know what happened to my mommy?”
“I don’t,” I say. “But I’m going to try to find out.”
Yakov nods again. He looks at the piece of paper, like he’s trying to decide if he should fold it or not.
“Bubby Mendelssohn had cancer before she died. But I asked Tatti if Mommy had cancer, and he said no. And she didn’t smell bad like Bubby. And Meema Tova, she coughed all the time before she died. She had a… she was connected to a tank. To breathe.” He pauses. “If you find out what happened, will you tell me?”
“I will,” I say. “I promise.”
“Mommy used to tell me lots of things. But nobody tells me anything now.”
I see an opening. “What kind of things did she tell you?”
“Last summer she took me to Coney Island and we rode the roller coaster. She told me that she rode it every week, but that it was a secret.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
Yakov looks down. “I didn’t want to. But Tatti said it was my duty, as a man, to help Mommy get well. He said if I didn’t tell, she could get more sick. He already knew, though. He said, ‘Has Mommy been to Coney Island?’ What’s so bad about Coney Island!” Yakov starts to cry. I look around. On the other side of the street, two young mothers push strollers. They gawk at us. I gawk back.
I kneel down and look up at Yakov. “I don’t think there’s anything bad about Coney Island.”
“Me neither!” he wails.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll find out what happened to your mommy.”
“Stupid Coney Island! I hate Coney Island!”
“Hey,” I say, trying to calm him down. I stand up and push open the back gate. “Let’s go in here.” Yakov follows. I close the gate behind us. Yakov’s face is a snotty mess. I give him a tissue from my pocket. It’s probably been used, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“Yakov!”
Miriam is suddenly standing three feet from us. “Oh,” I say, startled. “I’m sorry. Yakov seemed very upset…” I should not be there, obviously.
Miriam says something in Yiddish and Yakov runs inside. I brace for her to scream at me to leave, but she doesn’t. Instead she motions for me to come with her toward the door to the garage. She is shivering, but she doesn’t seem uncomfortable. The first time I saw her, Miriam had a wrap covering her head. Today, she is hatless, with a wig a little like Malka’s, except that Miriam’s is parted in the middle. The hairline is a little too low on her forehead, and the part is about half an inch from the center of her nose. The dichotomy between her plain, shapeless clothes and the smooth shine of her hair is a little jarring. The hair has bounce, but Miriam’s face is leaden, her small gray eyes rimmed in red with puffy purple bags beneath them.
She sees me looking and raises her hand to her head, a little bashful.
“The children are very upset,” she says.
“Of course,” I say. “How are you?”
Miriam looks surprised that I asked. “It is very hard. Rivka and I were born on the same day. Her mother worked as a secretary in my father’s business and when she got sick my father paid for the hospital bills. After she died, he helped with Rivka’s upbringing. She lived with us for several years before she and Aron married.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say again. Rivka Mendelssohn was motherless. “How old was Rivka when her mother died?”
“We were very young. Five years old, perhaps?”
“I lost my mother young, too,” I say. I can’t help it. I feel like I can tell her. I feel like somehow she’ll understand.
“Oh!” she says, putting her hand on my arm. She’s not dressed for the cold. “Losing a mother is…” She shakes her head, trying to come up with a word, and I think, exactly, it is…? Miriam-like Chaya-seems like a fragile woman. Was Rivka fragile, too? Was she easy prey? At the funeral home, Malka said Rivka was not easy to kill. Miriam, I think, might be easier. Could she be next?
“I wanted to thank you for speaking with me yesterday. I really appreciate your time,” I say.
Miriam smiles weakly.
“Do you have any idea what could have happened?” I ask, my voice low, like, you can tell me. “Do you feel safe?”
“Me?”
I nod.
“No, no,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s answering my first or second question. I have to be better about doubling up on questions.
“I wonder if you know if Rivka was… unhappy,” I ask. She looks puzzled. “Because I spoke with a woman who said…”
“A woman?”
“Just, a woman at the funeral.” Another thing I have to be careful of, revealing sources. “I didn’t actually get her name.”
Miriam’s face, if it’s possible, becomes sadder. Her chin sinks closer to her neck and she closes her eyes, almost wincing. “There is so much talking,” she whispers. “That is how the women are. Their children, they are not enough. Their husbands, they are not enough. They are always talking.”
“What kind of talking?”
Miriam shakes her head. “Horrible things. Lies. That is what killed her. The lies.”
I bring my voice down very low. “What were they saying?”
Miriam puts her finger to her lips. I wait, but she doesn’t continue.
“Have you spoken to the police?” I ask her.
“No. I have nothing to say. I do not gossip.”
“You never know what might help,” I say. “Sometimes little stuff, like the last time you saw her. Or, where she liked to go, that sort of thing.” I’m kind of talking out of my ass here. I’ve never been privy to a murder investigation that wasn’t on Law & Order. I want to ask again if she’s safe, but I stop myself because I wouldn’t know what I’d say if she said no.