Riggs Park Part 21

CHAPTER 20.

Reunion We stood in the cemetery just outside the tent top that had been raised over the newly dug grave. Jon started to guide me toward the folding chairs set up beneath the tent, but I shook my head and stayed where I was while his hand rested on my elbow, its pressure welcome through my jacket. I didn't want to get any closer to the rent-a-rabbi droning on at graveside, a short young man with a beard that looked like an affectation and a high-pitched, irritating voice. I resented his ease at eulogizing someone he didn't know, had never seen. My whole body tensed as I waited for him to segue out of his sermon into the final prayers.

An overnight rain had left the ground soggy and the air bitingly wet, with the kind of poisonous damp that seeps through the clothes and under the skin, that plants pneumonia deep into the lungs. After the stuffy funeral home, I thought being outside would be a relief. But it was worse.

Earlier in the day, Jon and I had sat in the Waxmans' kitchen still in shock, bleary from the early morning flight that had gotten us to D.C. in time for the traditional Jewish funeral, within twenty-four hours of the death. Steve's plane landed just before ours did, so Bernie collected all three of us at the airport and brought us to his house to change clothes. Sitting in the kitchen, I cupped a mug of coffee in both hands for a long time, trying to get warm. "When I saw her she seemed so healthy," I heard myself say over and over. "Or at least relatively healthy. Despite all her problems, I honestly thought she was okay."

Steve reached over and put his hand on top of mine. "I did, too. I never thought she'd die on us."

Jon had said almost nothing since we arrived. He lifted his coffee, cold by now, and swished it around in its cup.

Bernie cleared his throat. "She wasn't healthy, no matter how she seemed. We should have known that. It isn't unusual for people to have a stroke."

For a long beat, no one responded.

"When somebody's old or sick and it's not a gunshot wound or a traffic accident, n.o.body should be surprised," Jon put in, his voice dragging like a heavy weight pulled from his chest. "But so much was going on, I guess we weren't prepared."

"With all this talk of a party-" I stopped. Jon stared at the table.

"Everyone was distracted, of course we were," Steve said. "We thought things were moving along."

Sipping a cup of tea, silent as fog, Marilyn had listened to the conversation for half an hour without saying a word. But I had seen her flinch at Bernie's a.s.sertion that "she wasn't healthy, no matter how she seemed." The remark might have applied to Marilyn herself. Her post-surgery swelling was gone, her jawline smooth, her skin unwrinkled. The only real indication of illness beneath the freshly refurbished face was the dark smudges under her eyes, not quite hidden by her makeup. Yet for all that, she seemed exhausted.

I hardly dared look openly at her after Bernie's "not really healthy" remark, no matter how much I wanted to. How often, these past few weeks, had I pretended not to hear the fatigue that laced her voice? How often had I pretended she was "coming along" because I couldn't concentrate on anything but myself? She sat straighter in her chair, leaned in my direction, and whispered conspiratorially, "Thought it would be me, not Essie, didn't you?"

I was so shocked I found no words to defend myself. Marilyn chuckled. "Close your mouth, Barbara. Bugs are going to fly in." And then she said, more softly, "I forgive you."

Abruptly, Bernie stood up and said, "We better get going or we'll be late." We all rose at once as if jolted by electricity.

At the funeral home, Marcellus and Taneka were sitting in the private wing reserved for family, where we greeted them before the service started.

"Thank you for coming," Marcellus said after Jon and I offered our condolences. "Thank you both." I heard warmth in his voice I hadn't expected. "We'll talk more later. To clear up-everything." He turned to Jon. "I'm sorry this is how we had to meet, man."

"Me, too," Jon said.

Then someone else came up, and after the haste with which Marcellus turned away, I didn't think we'd really talk.

The funeral service itself was more like a PBS doc.u.mentary than a religious event, the young rabbi alternately mumbling in Hebrew and explaining in English the various parts of a Jewish service. This approach continued when we got to the cemetery.

By the time the final prayers were recited and the casket lowered and the traditional handful of soil thrown on top, I realized I'd been clenching my jaw so tightly that it hurt to open my mouth.

Marilyn and Bernie and Steve emerged from under the tent and caught up with us as the crowd dispersed. "Know any of these people?" Marilyn gestured at the retreating backs of the few white mourners headed to their cars: a middle-aged couple walking arm in arm; a youngish man opening a car door for a much older one; a hugely pregnant woman, nearly hidden by the folds of a hooded cape that must have been the only garment that still fit her, leaning on the arm of a man who guided her protectively toward the road.

"n.o.body I've ever seen before." Essie's circle of friends was an enigma, just as Essie herself had always been, a repository of intrigues and secrets-including those about Vera she had apparently taken to her grave.

"I'm sorry, Jon," Marilyn told him. "I really thought there'd be a meeting."

"I guess not," Jon said in a tone that closed the case.

After sidestepping a puddle gilded by weak sun, I turned one last time toward the tent where workers were already removing the folding chairs. "Bye, Essie," I mouthed silently. For a moment, my mind reeled back to other funerals, sadder ones-Barry Levin's, Penny's-and then to a time before any funerals at all, when Marilyn and I had viewed death as an exotic, impossible concept.

We were headed-as if the funeral thus far hadn't been bizarre enough-to what had been described as "Marcellus's church," where food and strained fellowship would be waiting.

From behind us, Marcellus's voice startled me. "Barbara and Jon, how about riding back with me." It was an order, not a request.

I climbed into the back seat of the chauffeured car between the two men. Even before the driver turned on the ignition, Marcellus began to speak, so rapidly that I wasn't sure whether he was anxious to unburden himself or simply wanted it over with.

"Number one, Vera sent Essie that videotape over a year ago. I just had it edited so you couldn't trace her. Number two, it wasn't Essie's first stroke that killed her. It was the second." He turned to me. "She had the first one a few days after your visit. She knew she was dying. She knew it wouldn't be long."

I gasped. Jon said nothing.

"I know we weren't straight with you, but it was what she wanted," Marcellus said. "She never stayed in the hospital but two days. She was home. The reason she wouldn't talk to anybody was, she couldn't talk."

"So she was never planning a party," Jon said woodenly.

"n.o.body ever said a party. She said a meeting. Listen, man, she was a proud woman. She didn't want you to think she was-" His face glistened with a thin veneer of perspiration. "n.o.body likes people to know they can't talk. That they're all crumpled up." His voice nearly broke. "She couldn't talk but she could write. She'd been in touch with Vera a long time. She wrote her about the meeting and told her what to do. It took all her energy." Again his voice grew throaty with emotion. "When you have a stroke, it wears you out. Essie knew she was dying, you know what I'm saying?"

I had no idea.

"Me and Taneka, we got that tape to you. And when Essie pa.s.sed, we did what she asked." Marcellus leaned back in his seat.

"So there's still-" Jon cleared his throat. "There's still a possibility of a meeting?"

Marcellus turned toward us again, miraculously recovered. "This is the meeting, man. Essie told Vera to come to her funeral. That pregnant woman at the cemetery? You already seen her, man. You already seen her, and you're about to see her again."

But Vera was not at the church, where a buffet had been set up in the social hall. We filled our plates, nibbled nervously, watched the door.

"It's sick, planning a meeting like this at a funeral," I said to Steve, who stuck close to me while Jon paced.

"It's quintessential Essie." He bit into a pastry. "She probably figured it was the closest she could come to being here herself. Not to mention an occasion none of us will be likely to forget."

I would have said more, but a stream of people began approaching Steve and introducing themselves, saying how much they liked his songs, sometimes asking for an autograph. Marilyn and I ended up sandwiched between a wall and the coffee urn, musing at how funeral receptions often turned cheerful, unless the deceased was young or the circ.u.mstances tragic. "Like Penny's funeral," Marilyn said.

"It was awful." Penny's funeral had provided me with my first glimpse of Jon after our breakup, and my last for another thirty years. Jon and I had made a point of staying far enough away from each other in the crowd that we wouldn't have to talk. It had been one of the most difficult days of my life.

An old lady with hearing aids in each ear pulled on my sleeve and began a monologue about having been Essie's neighbor. "Only white woman I was ever friends with," she declared. She fixed her gaze on me and then on Marilyn, as if awaiting a challenge.

"Mrs. Brown, Keisha's looking for you!" Taneka rushed toward us in a black sheath that showed off her ample curves. "Keisha thought you wandered off outside."

"That girl!" the woman said, and hastened off.

"Tough couple of weeks, huh?" Marilyn asked Taneka. "Barbara says you took real good care of Essie."

"Thanks. I tried."

"I hear you're at the University of Maryland. Have you been able to keep up with your cla.s.ses through all this?"

Taneka nodded. "When Essie couldn't talk she wrote me a note. She said no matter what happens, I d.a.m.n well better stay in school."

We all smiled at the image of Essie doing that. "What about the house?" Marilyn asked. "Will you stay there?"

"Probably for a while."

"I guess Essie will leave it to you, anyway," I said. "Or to your dad."

"Oh, the house isn't Essie's. It's Dad's. Has been for a long time."

"You mean she gave it to him?" Marilyn asked.

Taneka's vivacious tone grew measured and cool. "No, of course not. He bought it."

"Bought it?"

Taneka examined the skirt of her dress as if looking for a stain, then took a breath and looked up. "He bought it because Essie ran out of money. I don't know all the details. He bought it so she'd have some place to live."

"Oh." Trying to suppress my surprise, I spoke more to myself than to Taneka. "I guess she paid him rent."

"She did," Taneka replied shortly. "In case you're curious, her rent was a dollar a month."

"I didn't mean-" I felt the hot blush spread over my face.

"I guess he'll sell it now. Sooner or later. Too many memories. Sometimes it's better to start fresh." With less than tactful deliberateness, the girl excused herself and caught the attention of a woman pouring coffee.

Across the room, Jon was pacing back and forth in front of the entry door, a plate of uneaten food in his hand. I should go to him, I thought, but didn't move. His tense, preoccupied expression made it clear he didn't need me.

"You know what? I think I better sit down," Marilyn said, her face draining of color.

I guided her to one of the chairs lined up at the edges of the room. "I'll get you a drink." I bolted to the buffet table, grabbed a gla.s.s of water, thrust it at her. Her pallor was alarming.

"This is how it always happens. Okay one minute and zonked the next," she muttered.

"I thought you were going to start treatment."

"I was. I am. Most of the time I feel all right, just tired the way you always are after surgery."

Bernie had spotted us, was coming over.

"Listen," Marilyn said, "these little spells are nothing. It's been a long day. Don't tell him."

"Let him take you home, then. Jon and I can go with Steve."

"Are you kidding? You think I'm leaving without getting a glimpse of Vera?"

As if on cue, the door opened and inside the doorway, recognizable for the first time as she slipped off the hooded cape that had hidden her face, there she was. Jon stood an arm's length away from her, staring. In person, she looked more like Penny than she had on the tape-not her features so much as her questioning, unsure expression as she scanned the room for the face that belonged to her father. Following Marilyn's gesture that I should go, I made myself move toward Jon.

But in the end it was Marcellus who took Vera's hand and brought the young couple over to where Jon and I stood, immobilized, and made the courtly, formal introduction. "This is Vera Silverman and her husband, Ed," he told us. Then, to Vera, he said, "Vera, I want you to meet your father."

The four of us stood in the center of the room after Marcellus walked away, staring at each other like tongue-tied adolescents.

"I hardly believe this," Vera said finally.

Jon coughed, cleared his throat. "Me, either."

"We wondered when you were going to get here," I said, resorting to small talk to defuse the charged air of emotion.

"We were late because we don't know the area. It's so easy to get lost," Vera said.

Ed nodded. "We were lost and Vera was so hungry we had to stop for a snack."

"I feel like I'm eating for three or four instead of just two." Vera's face flushed, as Penny's used to do, and I noticed the pale sprinkle of powdered-over freckles on her nose.

"Twins?"

"Oh, no. Just one."

"You came from out of town?" Jon asked. "I guess you know Essie sent us a tape, edited so we couldn't figure out where you were from."

"c.u.mberland," Ed told them. "No secret." It was in western Maryland, less than three hours away.

Vera laughed. "Essie was pretty protective, wasn't she? Did you know she kept track of me from the time I was born?"

At six foot three or four, Ed hovered over his wife like an umbrella. When he took Vera's arm and guided her to a chair, Jon and I trailed them like shadows.

Settling herself the best she could, Vera looked first to Jon, then to me, careful not to let her eyes linger longer on one than the other. "I guess we better get to the point." She switched into her reporter's voice. "I always knew my mother was dead. My adoptive mother told me. But I never knew anything about my father."

"And you wanted to?" Jon asked.

"Oh, always. After I got out of college, I went through channels and got the birth certificate. The reason my mother never told me anything was because she didn't know. In the place for the father's name, it said unknown."

"I see."

"I was curious about my father because I really never had one. My adoptive parents divorced when I was three. I was one of those kids who were supposed to save the marriage but didn't."

"I'm sorry," Jon said. "I guess you could have used me to be around."

"It's okay. I turned out pretty normal." A slow grin lit Vera's face, then an out-and-out flash of merriment. "It would have been complicated, if you'd actually showed up back then."

As Jon tried to hide his embarra.s.sment, Vera patted her stomach. "Maybe it's not too late. The baby could still use a grandfather."

It was then that I stopped fearing Vera would somehow be the ghost of her mother, haunting us every time her name came up or she walked into a room. In person, Vera had more sense of humor than Penny had ever had, and none of her mother's neediness.

Jon and Vera both looked at me beseechingly, wanting to be left alone. Ed said he was going to get something to eat. An empty s.p.a.ce opened before me as some of the well-fed mourners departed for home, and, for a moment, it was as if the tumult of the room had dimmed and the faces of the guests fallen out of focus, a feeling I'd had many times when after the busyness of the day I returned, always, to the solid nub of loneliness that had been my life. I felt truly bereft.