The Murderer's Daughters Part 9

The limousine pulled into the cemetery. There were even fewer people here than at the funeral home. Grandma's old-lady friends had made a million excuses as to why they weren't coming. It's too cold. My feet are killing me. The worst dampness is in March.

I hoped Grandma couldn't look down and see that hardly anyone would watch her get buried. Five counting the rabbi, but he didn't have much choice. It was his job.

The limousine slowed beside a greenish iron gate woven with Jewish stars and scrolls. We turned in to the cemetery and bounced slowly down a narrow road lined with headstones, some cl.u.s.tered together, some all alone.

"You wouldn't know it," Uncle Irving said as we drove, "but when we bought the family plot, everyone was closer than a box of crackers."

We turned left on Jerusalem Road, driving until the path stopped. The hea.r.s.e parked, and then we parked. Next, we had to bury Grandma.

"Put on your gloves," I ordered Merry. I pulled on my own clumsy wool mittens, shivering as Uncle Irving opened the heavy limousine door and let the cold cemetery air creep in.

Merry took out her stretchy red and pink striped gloves. They were too small for her, a real bottom-of-the-bag pair of gloves, but they were all she had. We wore ballerina flats Mrs. Cohen had dug up from somewhere. She'd been the one to help us get dressed, coming in special just because we were going to the funeral.

"Look," Merry whispered. "Someone else is here."

"You don't have to whisper. We're allowed to talk." I spoke loud enough for Cousin Budgie to hear, consumed by hatred of my too-good-for-us, old-lady cousin. Merry pointed at a big car, not as big as our limousine but long and dark blue. A man leaned against the hood, his arms crossed over his chest, while another stood ruler-straight next to him.

"I think it's the rabbi."

"Isn't he the rabbi?" Merry pointed to a lumpy man wearing a yarmulke and a shawl draped over his suit. He waited by an open hole, watching, nodding, as two men carried Grandma's casket. They lowered her into the hole using some sort of ropy thing.

Uncle Irving and Cousin Budgie walked toward the open grave, leaving us by the car, expecting, I supposed, that we'd follow.

"Should we go with them?" Merry's voice was soft and worried.

"I guess." I fumbled for the pocket pack of tissues given us by Mrs. Cohen.

I guided Merry slowly and carefully over the winter brown gra.s.s. A body might be anywhere. The family plot had few headstones. Empty spots waited for us. Uncle Irving had said that Merry and I, and our children and husbands, we all had future graves here. Just what I wanted, to be lying for all eternity next to stupid Cousin Budgie. We crept closer to the open grave.

"Merry? Lulu?"

I jumped at the voice.

"Daddy!" Merry dropped my hand and pulled away. She threw herself at our father. His handcuffed wrists prevented him from hugging her back, and Merry ended up slamming into his chest. He twisted into an awkward curve, resting his cheek on her wool hat, an apple red hat that Mrs. Cohen had insisted Merry wear. Even a kid could see it was inappropriate at a funeral, but I wouldn't argue with Mrs. Cohen.

"Daddy," Merry cried. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"They didn't give me time to write you." He watched me as Merry pressed close to him, staring until I kicked at the frozen ground. "Come here, Lu. Come say h.e.l.lo. It's been a long time."

Yeah. Sure has been a long time since you killed Mama.

The man with my father, his keeper or guard, whatever you'd call him, stood close behind.

"Come on," my father urged.

My teeth chattered hard enough to shake out of their sockets. I pressed my lips together so he couldn't see.

"Lulu, we don't have much time," he said, his voice as ordinary as if we were going to the movies and he was afraid we'd be late.

Merry looked at me, her eyes pleading, begging me to come over. I shuffled the short distance to where they stood, stopping just out of reach. He seemed so different. Not thin, not fat. Thicker. His body appeared hard, even in his baggy suit. His gla.s.ses made him look like Clark Kent.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Thirty-two."

Mama would have been thirty-one.

He c.o.c.ked his head and inspected me. Merry leaned against him, her head buried in his suit. "And you're thirteen," he said. "You'll be fourteen in July. Wow."

Wow. My throat filled up at the word, and I didn't know why.

I squirmed as he studied me.

"You're tall, like my father."

I tried to remember the photographs Grandma kept on top of the television.

"Your hair is nice," he said. "I like the color."

I touched a mittened hand to my hair.

"I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair," he sang. I'd forgotten what a nice voice our father had. He'd sung to me when I was little. Never children's songs. He liked to croon, not recite, he'd explain. Don't expect any "Hickory d.i.c.kory Dock" c.r.a.p from me, he'd say. At bedtime, he'd sing "Only the Lonely." When Merry was born, "Oh, Pretty Woman" had just come out, and he would go around the house singing that. Hearing Roy Orbison sing always made me think of my father. I turned off the radio whenever one of his songs came on.

"Lulu's lost her voice, huh?" my father said to Merry. Then his face changed. "Come on, girls. Let's go say good-bye."

We walked together, the cold wind stinging my nose, my father swaying a bit, maybe having a hard time keeping his balance since he was handcuffed. How did he walk with his hands locked in front of him? My hands twitched. I wanted to try it.

Cousin Budgie moved as far from us as she could, as though Daddy might reach out and stab her or something. I moved closer to my father, so close the edge of my coat touched his sleeve, and I shivered.

The rabbi chanted in a language I guessed was Hebrew. My father and Uncle Irving swayed with the words. As I listened to the foreign sounds, I wondered if I'd be allowed to lean on my father, if it was legal. Not that I wanted to.

The rabbi switched to English, and I tried hard to pay attention, but too many thoughts fought in my head.

"May you, who are the source of mercy, shelter them beneath your wings eternally, and bind their souls among the living, that they may rest in peace, and let us say: Amen."

"Amen," my father said, his head bowed.

Uncle Irving and Cousin Budgie murmured "Amen," though Budgie might have been whispering, This is so sick for all I knew.

"Amen," Merry whispered.

I wanted to say it. I wanted to be a source of mercy. I wanted Grandma to rest in peace, and maybe saying "Amen" was some special way of helping her, but I couldn't speak in front of my father. Finally, I used my right hand to scratch the word on my left arm, repeating each letter in my head.

The rabbi picked up a shovel and lifted a small piece of cold, crumbling earth. He overturned the spade and dropped the soil in Grandma's grave. Merry inhaled as the dirt hit the coffin. The rabbi pa.s.sed the shovel to Uncle Irving, who repeated the ritual and then handed the shovel off to his daughter. She dug a spoonful of dirt, and then stood holding it, looking caught and angry.

"Why are they doing that?" Merry asked my father. She rubbed her striped gloves over her chapped, wet cheeks.

The rabbi placed a bare hand on Merry's shoulder. "We do this to a.s.sist the journey of our loved one."

Merry sobbed, holding our father's arm; he could do nothing but rest his head on Merry's red hat. I grabbed the shovel from my stinking old cousin and placed the thin handle between my father's shackled hands. Side by side, we walked to the edge of Grandma's grave, Merry following. My father and I bent together, lifting up a clod of dirt and, clumsily with our four hands, guided the earth over the grave. Grandma's casket sat dark and lonely at the bottom of the hole.

As one, we overturned the shovel and watched the dirt fall on the center of the coffin.

I handed the shovel to Merry. She dug in too far and came up with an oversize shovelful. I helped her lift it, and together we covered another piece of Grandma's casket.

I'm sorry, Grandma.

"Time to go, Joey," said my father's keeper. The man had a surprisingly kind face, or maybe it was his thick-rimmed gla.s.ses. I confused gla.s.ses with kindness.

"Can't I visit with the girls a little more, Mac?" My father looked like he'd start crying any minute, making me want to pound my fist right into his chest. Merry clutched his jacket.

"Please," Merry begged. "Stay longer."

My father looked over at the guard, his eyes pleading like Merry's.

"Sorry, Joey," he said. "Time to go, buddy. Say good-bye to your dad, girls."

My father tried to lift his arms to hug us, but his handcuffs held his hands prisoner.

"I love you a million, Daddy." Merry wrapped her arms around his waist. He rested his locked hands on her head.

"I love you a trillion, sweetheart." My father caught my eye. "I love you, Lulu."

I shrugged.

"Look," he said. "Just so you know and don't feel bad later, I know you love me, too."

I stared right into his stabbing, killing eyes. "You don't know that."

"Yes, he does," Merry said, her head still buried in my father's chest.

"Lulu, I'm your father," he said. "You'll never get another one."

"I don't have a father."

"Yes, you do," Merry said. "Daddy is our father." She wouldn't let go of him, locking her arms around him.

"Come on, Joey." The guard tried to pull Merry away from our father, which made her hold on tighter.

"Don't go, Daddy," she said.

Daddy pushed Merry gently away, the fabric of his jacket stretching as she hung on. I had to end this. I put a hand on each of her arms.

"Let go," I said. "Let go, or he'll be in even worse trouble."

Merry released her grip and fell back on me.

"Sorry, baby," Daddy said to Merry. "I'm sorry."

I grabbed Merry and forced her to turn around and start walking.

"You'll be okay, baby," Daddy yelled. The guard touched my father's head as he helped him into the car.

Mama had died almost four years ago, and I didn't even remember where she was buried.

A shandeh un a charpeh.

Uncle Irving and Cousin Budgie were heading back to our limousine. We trailed behind them, ready for the drive back to Brooklyn. I turned around, stretching to see where Grandma was.

I'm sorry, Grandma.

10.

Merry December 1975 I still thought about Grandma every day, even though she'd died nine months ago.

December was almost over; in a few days it would be 1976.

Lulu and I were leaving Duffy, and I was scared.

I'd never packed before. I folded my shirt exactly as Grandma had taught me when I helped her do the laundry, crossing each sleeve across the chest and making a tidy shirt package. Then I placed it in Grandma's beat-up brown suitcase. Why Grandma had a suitcase, I had no idea. She never went anywhere until she died.

I smoothed down my bright blue poncho. The poncho had become my most treasured item of clothing the minute Mrs. Cohen gave it to me for Chanukah.

n.o.body had bothered me since they found out about Mrs. Cohen and us. It was as if we were magic all of a sudden. Even Reetha left me alone. Sometimes she even gave me this scary, sugary smile that showed all her yellow teeth, like she thought maybe I'd take her with me.

As if.

I wished I could take Janine and Crystal. We promised each other that we'd always be friends, but Lulu said don't bet on it. They're not going to take you back here after you leave, she told me. Especially since Mrs. Cohen won't be working at Duffy anymore.

I wondered how soon they would be here, Mrs. Cohen and her husband. Lulu and I didn't know what to call them, so we usually ended up referring to them as "they." Now that we'd be living with them, we needed to figure out better names.

Thinking about moving into their house made me feel like I had to pee. Questions looped through my head. How could I be good every minute? What would we do in their house? How long would the Cohens like me?

Lulu stuck her head into my room. "You ready? They'll be here soon." She marched over to my side of the dorm, dropped the paper bag she carried, and immediately began checking the stripped bed for anything I might have forgotten and inspecting each of the rickety dresser drawers.

"I'm scared," I said.

"You sure you have everything?" Lulu knelt, looked under the bed, then got up and dusted off her jeans, which were so long the fashionably shredded bottoms swept the floor. Visible iron springs squeaked as Lulu sat on the thin, bare mattress, bringing her knees to her chin and circling them with her long arms. Lulu got taller, cooler, and smarter each month, while I stayed shrimpy. I needed to grow up. I wanted to rise to the occasion of this most important moment of my life. Mrs. Cohen had to be happy that she took me. The Cohens needed to like me, to love me.

"How long do you think they'll let us stay?" I asked.