Reverend Shales rose on his tiptoes, thundering now, and the chairs rocked on a tide of Amen and Yes, Lord. Elizabeth saw the straight, lean back of Dr. Hill and hoped that it was rigid with outraged love and the knowledge that Mrs. Hill was not in this place, not even held temporarily in that mauve pearlized casket.
“For those who don’t live right, fornicators, adulterers, liars, thieves, gossips, the impure, the immoral, the amoral, those who refuse to give their hearts to the Lord and those, even worse, who gave their hearts to the Lord and turned their backs on Him — backsliders and disbelievers — they will burn forever in a lake of fire. Because, be not deceived, brothers and sisters, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.…”
The organ came in on cue and everyone stood, up as the lady in grey sang again, sang the only hymn Mrs. Hill had ever sung, in her cracked, phlegmy voice. She sang it so often Elizabeth learned the words and hummed along, not wanting to intrude or do the wrong thing, until Mrs. Hill called her into her bedroom one evening and said, “Sing,” and they had sat up together in Mrs. Hill’s bed, their hands in a pile and night falling fast, singing “ ‘Why should I feel discouraged, why do the shadows come, / why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home, / when Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is he, / for his eye is on the sparrow and I know he’s watching me, / and I know he’s watching me-e-e-e,’ ” and Mrs. Hill touched Elizabeth’s face with paper-dry fingertips and said, “You’re the sparrow, girl”; and Elizabeth thought that this was family, dirty dishes and unappreciated treasures, the low friendly buzz of TV and two stiff fingers tapping her cheek, a full embrace of all-believing, all-hoping, all-enduring love in the face of deceit and pretense and the unchangeable past and the inevitable end.
Back at the house, the church ladies bustled and clucked and spread cloths over flat surfaces and laid out a ruby-red ham, banquet platters of fried chicken, roasting pans of macaroni and cheese, three-bean salad, warm greens with sliding grey-pink chunks of fatback, two coconut cakes, a chess pie, and one towering, lightly sweating lemon meringue pie. They arranged and rearranged in a serious way, serious about the food and serious about grief (of which there was not much and even Elizabeth could tell that Dr. Hill, refusing to sit down, calmly sipping a cup of tea, was not the kind of mourner the Stewardesses warmed up to), and serious about their role.
Gus Lester uncovered the chicken and sliced the ham in a proprietary way, and when Elizabeth came through to the table, they locked eyes.
Elizabeth said, “Hello, Mr. Lester.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I was wondering if I could have Huddie’s address,” and saw in his face the open wish to do her harm.
Dr. Hill came out of the bedroom holding a neat paper-bag package.
“Here, Elizabeth, this is for you.” She shoved the package into Elizabeth’s hands, and Elizabeth turned it over a few times, wanting to shake it for a clue about the contents, certain that funeral protocol could not be the same as birthday protocol.
“You can open it now if you want. It’s those spoons of hers.”
How many? Elizabeth wondered, and took out the nine spoons and thought that if Dr. Hill did not cry at her mother’s funeral, Elizabeth certainly had no business weeping over spoons she’d tried to steal and the hundreds of cups of tea they’d had and the way in which even Huddie, banished forever, was closer to Elizabeth now than Mrs. Hill would ever be.
“Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome. You were very good to my mother and I know that having you around—”
The Stewardesses swarmed around Dr. Hill with plates of food she would have to eat and names of people she would have to thank warmly. They carried her across the room to Reverend Shales and put her in the chair next to him, staying close enough to make an exit impossible. Vivian Hill waved to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth took one last walk through Mrs. Hill’s bedroom. The hatboxes were gone.
* * *
Elizabeth’s father — who did not understand children, who had not understood his wife except to see clearly that he was not the man she should have married, who could not understand how his kindnesses were so often misinterpreted, who would not understand anything at all about love until his third wife’s dyed red hair, big Jewish behind, and wide white hands knocked him into the best part of himself — understood loss. He had grown up comfortably in Brownsville; they had no boarders, they had a small parlor and two bedrooms, and he was allowed to finish high school, during the daytime. He had had a much easier life than his closest friend, Myron Flaverman, whose father cut cloth.
His own father, as reliable as a clock, stopped to pick up the Forward one day at Saratoga and Sutter, as he always did, and a blue Franklin from New Jersey jumped the curb and drove right through the newsstand.
Sol wore his father’s clothes, sold fruit for Meyer Shimmelweiss, and slept on the couch for four years to make room for two Slovenian cousins, but he went to college. By subway, at night, dripping sweat into cheap, tight shoes, awash in his late father’s wool trousers. But he did go, graduating from City College three days after his mother’s death, one day before her tiny funeral.
Tucson, June 16, 1970
My dear Elizabeth,
Your mother told me about your friend Mrs. Hill’s death. I wish I knew the right words, not to make you feel better, but to let you know that this — DEATH — is part of life. I recall that you felt very close to her. I remember you were always over there, when your mother and I were divorcing.
I hope she was a good friend to you, and a comfort. I’m sure you took good care of her. You will remember her and keep her alive within you, and I believe that she is also remembering you, something about which your mother and I disagree. As you know, she does not believe in an afterlife.
Your mother told me that you’re not planning to attend your high school graduation. I’ll come if you change your mind.
If you wish to visit me, I will send you a ticket. Please use this for flowers for Mrs. Hill or a donation to her favorite charity.
With love,
Your father
Elizabeth put the check in her jewelry box until she could figure out what to do with it.
May God forgive me.
Max said this every morning, drinking a beer in the bathroom. Clearly, his life would get much better or much worse very soon. He’d been planning a strategy for weeks. He sent her a bouquet of pink and yellow calla lilies with a note of condolence. He sent a funny postcard of a woman scolding a cat, saying “And you call yourself a dog,” and signed it Max Stone. He called when he thought her mother might be gone and said, “I’d like a chance to say good-bye before you go off.”
She said she’d meet him for coffee. He wouldn’t talk about getting back together right away. He wouldn’t say “share.” It sounded too much like what he really wanted, a life forever together. Maybe he’d mention that if she was planning to be around for the summer he was thinking of renting a small place for himself, since Greta and the boys would be away. Maybe she’d like to stay there with him. Maybe he could get two places, across the hall from each other. Maybe he’d just beg her to spend the summer with him, give him two months before she went off to college and found her next romance, her next bareback-riding hero, her future husband. There was something to be said for frank and honest groveling.