The Sixteenth of June Page 5

  “Always have to leave everything to the last minute,” her dad would say with irritation.

  June had no doubt consulted the weather ahead of time, laying her outfit on the bed. “Make sure it gets steamed,” she would have instructed, and Carol would have held up the wand of the garment steamer as it issued its great, hot billowing clouds.

  Inside the synagogue, it is warm and dark, redolent of wood. Leo steps forward to don a yarmulke, provided by the temple in what strikes her as a thoughtful gesture. The yarmulkes look like black Pringles, nesting in a concave stack.

  “Any sign of June?” Stephen asks, materializing beside her.

  “She’s probably looking for you,” Leo retorts.

  “Your mother had some calls to make,” Michael intones from behind. “Hello, by the way.” He leans in to hug his sons and to kiss Nora on the cheek. His normally bright eyes look a few notes quieter, laugh lines more visible because they are not in use.

  Michael has close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and strong, angular features. He is one of those men who cause women to look. Nora has seen it when they are out at dinner, waitresses and wives glancing at his gold wedding band with regret, then looking at June appraisingly. Men took in his black, rubberized watch in lieu of a Rolex and saw a man who had confidence without conceit.

  “We’ve been wondering about you,” Leo says pointedly to Stephen. “No one knew where you were.”

  “Ah,” Stephen replies. “Judy the Cruise Director. I forgot to sign in.”

  Leopold’s ears ignite.

  “You took the train?” Michael asks pleasantly.

  “I took the train.” Stephen wriggles his briefcase for them as though it were a prop. “Too much work. Papers to grade, research to do. If only the world stopped for death.”

  “Indeed,” Michael says.

  “Has June been a nutcase this morning?” Stephen inquires.

  “This is a busy day for your mother.” Michael straightens Stephen’s lapels, giving them a tug, perhaps more firmly than necessary. “A long day for everyone.” Here, a trace of his usual spark, his eyes musing over the day that awaits them.

  “The Dow is up,” Leo offers.

  They all turn. His eyes are focused on his phone. Michael goes to say something but stops. The comment sits in the air like a fart.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Nora blurts out.

  “Thank you,” Michael replies. “It was kind of you to come.”

  They make their way down to the front of the room. There are pews, just like at a church, and Nora registers this beneath the lash of self-chastisement (“I’m so sorry for your loss?” Really? That was the best you could do?) hissing in her brain.

  “She’s probably on the phone with the caterer,” Stephen mutters at Nora’s elbow. “Instructing them to churn the butter by hand.”

  Nora smiles. “Party planning until the very last second. The devil is in the details.”

  “That it is.”

  “I’m worried I don’t match,” she confesses as they sit down.

  “Mourning is no time for vanity. You show respect by not being particular in your dress.”

  Nora takes this in and wonders if it is a tenet of Judaism or one of Stephen’s aphorisms. I should make a collection of his sayings, she thinks to herself. Though she isn’t sure his words have done much to reassure her, particularly when she sees June coming down the aisle.

  June is resplendent, even in grief—her blond hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup flawless and just so. She air-kisses her sons and nods at Nora, glancing over her outfit before taking a seat next to Michael. She wears a chic pantsuit, the jacket fitted; there is no doubt as to its inky shade of black. Stephen’s asceticism dissolves before its glory.

  The rabbi enters the room and Nora watches the rows of yarmulkes pivot. Conversations come to false conclusions and the background hum quiets. Leo is in the midst of showing Michael his new phone, the Palm he just purchased at Best Buy. “Cingular,” he says. “I wanted to show you the other night. But, you know, the timing.”

  “Right,” Michael replies, his eyes on the rabbi.

  The rabbi makes his way around the coffin. It is hard to believe Grandma Portman is inside. A closed coffin, thankfully, though how do Michael and June know it’s the right one? Had they been shown the body before the service, the rabbi opening the latches like a sommelier presenting a fine wine?

  A prayer commences in Hebrew. Stephen follows along on her left while Leo remains silent on her right. Nora has been acutely aware of Michael these past few days. But it occurs to her that if what Leo said about the visits was true, it is Stephen who grieves the most.

  A week from now it sprouts open, she should tell him. A month from now and you’re dealing with it like it’s the first time. The box you put the person in holds nothing. You end up carrying them around with you.

  Meanwhile, people share their silly notions. “Time helps,” they say. “I know exactly,” they say. The polite response—the only response—is to pretend such words have meaning. Feign gratitude, if you can muster it.

  At the end of lessons, the moms sometimes grab Nora’s hand to examine the ring. “Are you so excited?” they gush. She can see the visions of bridal shops and calligraphic flourishes pass before their eyes. She can see them remember their own excitement. It gets transmitted through the grip on her forearm, the pressure too firm. Meanwhile, her students say nothing about death, nothing about marriage, their eyes darting up to hers only briefly before retreating to their sheet music. And for that, she is grateful.

  Growing up, Nora never daydreamed about her wedding. She was never one of those girls. Even when she performed at weddings in college, she didn’t give them any thought. There was that lovely one where she did the Bach cantata in the family’s backyard, sheltered by the trees. Still, she didn’t think any of it would apply to her—that she would be on the other side of things one day, hiring rather than being hired.

  Not that it matters much. June will commandeer the planning, slowly wresting it from her. There are probably clipboards and files waiting in her office, organized in meticulous rows. “We’ll release doves in honor of your mother,” June will say. “Or perhaps sound a silver bell in remembrance. What do you think, Nora?”

  They sit back down in the pews. Nora adjusts her skirt and realizes that Stephen was right. Gray, black. Who cares?

  The rabbi pats his pocket for his bifocals with a distracted air, an accountant about to review forms. She realizes, before he begins, that he will do a bad job. He probably has a template on his laptop, “Deceased, Female,” and simply fills in the name. Copy, paste, print.

  “Hannah Portman was a woman who loved art,” he begins. He seems surprised by the words, pausing over them, as though reading from a novel, the strange book of someone’s life. Nora feels Stephen stiffen beside her. “She was actively engaged in the community. She loved her family deeply. This was clear to those who knew her.” The rabbi scratches his nose with a gnarled finger, its knuckles oversize with age.

  “She is survived by her son, Michael, her daughter, Shannon, and five grandchildren.” Leo snickers over the gaffe. Nora nudges him to be quiet.

  Stephen is sitting very still, his hands clasped. He had never talked with Nora about his grandmother, but maybe the rabbi is getting it all wrong, each word a wound. Michael and June and Sharon might not have known how Hannah Portman spent her days—if she read books or played bridge. If she gossiped with a group of friends or kept to herself. “My grandson is engaged!” she might have said. “A lovely girl. Used to sing opera.”

  Maybe Grandma Portman did love art, or maybe that was an embellishment from the rabbi. Michael and June might have hinted at it, suggesting he mention it. They probably wanted to imagine Grandma Portman at a museum, gazing reverently at a painting. No one wanted to think about life’s banality at
its end. No one in a eulogy ever said, “She watched TV with the volume on too loud. Wheel of Fortune was her favorite.”

  Nora got the impression that Grandma Portman had been dumped off at the nursing home, unwanted furniture shoved into storage. “You’re living a life of leisure there,” Michael had teased. Meanwhile, he and June grumbled about the bill. “You’d think Sharon could at least offer,” June once said hotly.

  Glancing around the synagogue, Nora realizes there are no floral arrangements—no enormous bouquets of lilies gathered in remembrance. No programs placed at intervals along the pews. Maybe no one gets an elaborate funeral. She imagines June shrugging: “Why put on an event for someone who can’t appreciate it?”

  Nora shifts in the pew. She remembers how Grandma Portman used to sit alone on the couch during the rare family gatherings. Once, at Yom Kippur, Nora had braved that upholstered island and joined her. Nora’s tentative “How are you, Mrs. Portman?” had been met with a lightly accented “Oh, fine, dear. Just fine.” Then they had watched the room in silence, sitting as though before a play—June zipping around, making the final adjustments, Michael selecting jazz on the audio system. Leo finally called out, looking for her, and Nora tried to hide her relief as she slipped away.

  No, she hadn’t gotten the impression that Hannah Portman was a woman who loved art. She didn’t seem especially grandmotherly either. It was hard to imagine her knitting baby bootees, cooing over a bassinet. She seemed like a woman who had perhaps seen too much. A woman exhausted by the long life she’d led.

  Perhaps Grandma Portman had felt out of place at Delancey, uncomfortable around the bold, expensive artwork on the walls, the intricate rugs. Looking at June—too tall, too thin, too made-up—she might have wondered why Michael hadn’t ended up with a sweet dental hygienist, a Moira or a Debbie. A nice Jewish girl who would pump out kids and bake cakes. Grandma Portman might have imagined them together in the kitchen, sharing recipes, laughter, prayers. When she thought ahead to old age, she probably never imagined such silence.

  Nora never stopped to think about why Grandma Portman sat there, withdrawn. What if she dreaded their too-perfect get-­togethers? Maybe she longed for the return to the nursing home, where she could finally relax. She’d call up a friend so that they could watch Wheel of Fortune together, clucking sympathetically when the black bankrupt sign hit. They would trade stories about the strange creatures their children had become—their modern, complicated lives.

  Nora should have made more of an effort with her. She should have confessed her unease that day, sitting down next to her. “I’m always worried I’ll spill something on this couch,” she could have said. “And, my God, the rugs.”

  Maybe Hannah Portman would have stirred from her reverie and looked at her anew, this bushy-haired girl who could do more than sing. “I didn’t grow up like this,” Nora could have added, because Hannah Portman might have just assumed she had. Those Yale kids, such snobs.

  Accustomed to being ignored, Grandma Portman might have enjoyed having an audience. “In my time . . . ,” she might have started, because wasn’t that what old people were supposed to say? Yet Nora has never heard anyone actually say it.

  Grandma Portman could have recounted a story from when Michael was young, a boy in Brookline. How she watched for him through the window, waiting for him to come home from school, the plate of cookies already out. And then looked on as he did his homework, clutching his pencil too tight. So smart, she might have said. Even then, you could tell.

  They might have taken a liking to each other, she and Grandma Portman. The two of them were the only ones who did not zig and zag, but watched it all from a remove.

  Maybe that was why Stephen had visited her—because they both felt like outsiders. Maybe no one feels as if they belong in this family, even the people in it.

  Nora should have made some fractional effort with her. Who knows what it might have yielded? Instead she had ignored her, too caught up in her own troubles. She’d made a snide joke about how Hannah Portman resembled a taxidermied animal. And she had said it to the person who loved her most.

  She feels for Stephen’s arm beside her, touches it. I am the one who’s stuffed and fake, she wants to tell him. She thinks of his weekly visits to the woman they had all ignored and feels a swell of feeling for her friend. I’m so sorry. If she could say it in Hebrew she would. May peace find you, Stephen.

  His hand folds down, finds hers. And here you must comfort me, she thinks. On top of it all, you must comfort me.

  Five

  Leo reaches for a white paper plate, using his thumbnail to separate it from the stack. People stand in groups around him in the synagogue’s basement. The burial had taken less time than he imagined. Who knew funerals were so fast? This business of death is efficient.

  But this is the type of thinking that would make Nora and Stephen wince. They think he is a heathen for not dabbing his eyes and staring off in regret. Only a barbarian consults his watch at a funeral. Only a barbarian is tempted by the food.

  The buffet table bisects the room. Black trays with clear plastic lids display their contents: smoked fish, pasta salad, sandwiches. A catering company probably has an in with the synagogue. Shivah trays. So good, you will die. Leo disguises his laugh by coughing into his shoulder. Aunt Sharon must have made the arrangements. His mom had glanced at the table, her lips pursed in disapproval.

  Leo reaches for a sandwich, a cross-section of turkey and lettuce and tomato speared with a toothpick, green plastic wrap on its end. Is it decorative? For safety? Did that little bit of green protect you from the toothpick’s point? He contemplates this, about to take a bite, when he feels himself being watched. He looks up. What? he thinks, as Nora meets his eye accusingly.

  Nora’s eyes flash their code. Memo to Leo: Be the hero. Don’t eat the hero. He drops the sandwich like a dog.

  The morning has been filled with such rebukes. How Stephen and Nora carried on at the cemetery! Murmuring to each other, eyes lowered. Their gestures composed a ballet, a great performance of propriety. Meanwhile, he watched as Nora tugged at her outfit during the service, so anxious to get everything right. Arms crossed? No, better straight. She darted nervous looks at June, attempting to mirror her movements. And what was so respectful about that? The dead don’t care if we slouch. But there Stephen and Nora stand, so upright and stiff, too pious for food.

  Leo has given in to their small demands, not minding the way anyone else in his position might. Whether you stand straight or talk in a hushed voice at a funeral is meaningless. But not causing a scene? That, as they say in the MasterCard ads, is priceless.

  The dead probably want us to do whatever we think offends them. Eat, cough, laugh. The dead probably long for such acts. All those stirrings and scratchings—glorious when you can no longer do them. These are the fidgets and falterings of what it means to be human. When we are most ourselves, our faulty selves, and finally relent.

  “Go ahead,” the dead might say. “Let one rip.”

  In the far corner, Nora and Stephen stand huddled together. Their friendship bobs between them like a current, keeping Leo at bay.

  He feels a tap at his arm. Magnified eyes under oversize glasses, and what can only be a wig, sitting at an angle that is just slightly off.

  “A sad day,” the woman remarks.

  “Thank you for coming,” he replies, holding out his hand. “Leopold.”

  The old lady comes up to his elbow. She takes his hand using just her fingers, the pressure nonexistent.

  “Oh, I know who you are. I saw pictures.” She shows no sign of relinquishing his hand, and he has the strange feeling of having loaned it to her.

  “You’re from Pine Grove?”

  She nods. “A couple of us came over. The shuttle made a special trip.”

  Perhaps at a certain age, he reflects, you dispense with names.

&nb
sp; “But where is Stephen?” She peers around the room.

  Leo gestures with his free hand and she follows his gaze. Stephen and Nora have been joined by another old-timer, a fluff of white hair over a stick of a body, like a Q-tip.

  “There he is!” A smile breaks out across her face. Her lips are frosted pink, a horror against her yellow teeth. “A wonderful grandson, to visit so often.”

  “Right,” Leo mutters.

  “I don’t mean it that way. You kids are busy with your own lives. She knew that.” The woman brushes away the thought. She has pink polish on her nails, which appear large and rounded, like coins. “It’s just that those visits meant a lot to her. She kept to herself, you know. But when Stephen was there, she’d light up. A kind soul, your brother.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Well. Our condolences for your loss.” The woman pauses, nods. “She will be missed.” With that she begins shuffling down the buffet.

  Leo feels the faint trace of her fingers, his hand finally released. “Our condolences,” she had said. Was she speaking for the lot of them, a bingo club or mah-jongg group? Was she their ambassador? Or had she once been married, her husband now gone but still causing her to default into an automatic we after so many decades together? Maybe she was the resident busybody at the nursing home, the one who kept tabs on everyone and attended the funerals. Grandma Portman had probably frowned at her pink lipstick and nails, her ridiculous lopsided wig.

  Grandma Portman was impassive. Leo couldn’t tell if she enjoyed seeing them at Delancey or if she didn’t want to be there. He wouldn’t have been offended if it were the latter; he simply wanted to know, either way. It was her inscrutability that bothered him.

  Stephen probably knew the answer. Who visited a nursing home like that? Monthly would be one thing, but weekly! Stephen probably wanted to live out there, where his old-man wardrobe of cardigan sweaters and houndstooth blazers would fit right in.