If You Lived Here
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dana sachs
who made it seem so easy
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Acknowledgments About the Author
Other Books by Dana
Sachs Credits
’d guess that
Marinos have been burying Rivenbarks for seventy years. I can’t compare funeral customs here in Wilmington, North Carolina, with funeral customs anywhere else, but I can tell you that Rivenbarks
usually ask for the minister from First Baptist, flowers from Will Rehder, and an open bar. Sometimes they read Psalm 23 and sometimes they read Psalm 121. It’s hard to know what they’ll request for a burial like this one, though, because there’s nothing routine about the death of a child. This afternoon, on the first really beautiful day of spring, four-year-old Oscar Rivenbark fell from the third branch of the magnolia tree in his backyard. The ambulance managed to get him to the emergency room within about fifteen minutes, but he died before the paramedics could wheel him in.
My husband, Martin, and I run Marino and Sons, the biggest funeral home in the area. Between the two of us, we have over forty years of experience. Still, we struggle when a child dies. Outsiders probably imagine that my world is all catastrophe, but most of our cases come from heart attacks, hospice, and Brightmore, a retirement community a few miles away. It’s not like there’s a fatal car accident after every prom.
I get the news of the accident from the police blotter, so I’m prepared when the boy’s aunt, Gracie Rivenbark, makes the first call to our office at about five. I click open the calendar on my desktop and ask, in a voice that sounds both competent and sympathetic, “When would Tara and Mark like to come in?” I try to get the parents involved as soon as possible. I’m here to help them with their grieving, and grieving starts at the moment of death.
Gracie says, “Hold on.” Behind her, I hear the murmur of various voices, a volley of muffled questions, silence, then a few more moments of tortured debate. Sudden death produces a kind of bafflement in people. It confuses and startles them. They forget where they are, their name, the year. And then, five minutes later, they can become extremely lucid. In my dealings with the bereaved, I never rush them.
“Would tomorrow afternoon work?” Gracie asks. “Around two?” “That’s fine,” I say. This case demands particular sensitivity, not just
because the boy was young, but because his parents are young as well. Even Aunt Gracie seems to be conducting this business for the first time, ever. When you bury old people, you often deal with other old people, and they’re likely to have organized a funeral before. As gently as possible, I tell her, “I’ll need them to bring in a few things when they come.”
Gracie says, “A few things?”
“An outfit. Something he might have worn to church, or even something he loved to play in.” Gracie confers again with her relatives. The door to my office squeaks open and I look up to see my husband, Martin, slip inside. He’s wet haired and red faced from the gym and he’s holding today’s mail. He doesn’t know what’s happened yet. When he looks at me, I squinch my eyes shut, then open them again, signaling, This is a bad one. I scrawl “Rivenbark—4 ys. old” on a notepad. After a lifetime in this business, Martin doesn’t respond to news of death in any obvious way. His flinches are microscopic: a twitch at his mouth; an alteration in his breath; the slow, slow blink of his eyes. Cases like this one have always been hard on him, and they seem to have gotten harder lately. I dread the thought of what’s ahead for us.
“Why do you need clothes?” Gracie asks.
“Well,” I explain, “we’ll need something for the burial.” Martin sits down in the armchair, starts to go through the mail, then abandons it on his lap. Even the new issue of the
Atlantic Monthly
fails to interest him. He watches me. Martin’s fifty-four this year, twelve years older than I am. His parents and grandparents were all morticians and he started going out on retrievals in his early teens. In comparison, I’m fairly new at it. I got my license a few years after I married him, so that’s not even twenty years. I impress Martin, though, because the sadness never really gets me down. It came as a surprise to both of us, actually, that I could marry into this business and adapt so well. How could you know, when you’re a kid, that you have the perfect personality to become a mortician?
Gracie Rivenbark says, “I’ll go through the closet this evening.” “That’ll be fine,” I tell her. “And, we’ll need a couple of pictures, too,
in case the family wants to make a display for the service.” “A display,” Gracie murmurs.
“And his Social Security number.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounds light and wispy. I’ve got to get the poor thing off the phone.
I make my final point. “And Tara and Mark should feel free to bring their other children to the meeting, too.”
Gracie says, “I’ll tell them.”
And then, in the background, I hear sobbing. It is desperate, rhythmic, utterly bereft. I hold the phone in my hand, listening, staring into my husband’s eyes.
At that moment, I forget myself. “Is that Tara?” I whisper. Gracie says, “Yes.”
Martin’s head falls back against his chair. I close my eyes. It’s been months since we have buried a child and in that time my own life has changed significantly. The sound of an anguished parent affects me more deeply now. I suppose that’s because I’m about to become a mother myself.
Martin and I have tried for years to have a baby. At forty-two, it feels as if my chances of giving birth are about as likely as my chances of winning
the U.S. Open. There comes a point in your life when your expectations about your future have to shift a little and so, a few years ago, I began to consider adoption. It wasn’t an easy route to follow. Martin already has two sons from his first marriage. Abe and Theo were five and four, respectively, when Martin and his first wife, Janet, divorced. Over the years, his attitude toward starting a new family has ranged from overt anxiety to a kind of acquiescence that looks like defeat. The prospect of adopting complicated his emotions even more because he wondered if he could love an adopted child as much as he loves the boys he has already. Eventually, he did agree, but he’s never gotten very involved in the process. At worst, I think he tries to pretend it isn’t happening. At best, he acts like an easily distracted sports fan, watching my race for a baby from a comfortable seat in the stands. I’d like him to be wild with excitement, like I am, but I don’t complain. Lots of dads take a while to come around. It will mean even more when he does, finally, fall in love with our baby.
I’ve had a lot of low moments over the past few years, but, for the first time in my life, motherhood actually seems imminent. Eight months ago, we received our referral, for a little Slovakian girl named Sonya. She’s one year old now, fatherless, and was left at an orphanage by her mother. Eight months ago, I couldn’t locate Slovakia on a map. Now, I know Slovakian emigration law as intimately as I know the procedures for filling out death certificates here at home. I’ve completed every single form for our girl, and I have nothing left to do but wait until it’s time to go and get her. Every morning I wake up and wonder, Is today the day I’ll get the call? When, earlier today, I received a voice mail message from our case-worker, Carolyn Burns, I saved it and played it back for Martin, twice. “Could you call me?” she asked. “As soon as you have a chance?”
But it’s five-fifteen already and I haven’t been able to reach her. After I hang up the phone with Gracie Rivenbark, I call the county coroner’s office to find out when the boy’s body will be released. Martin has gone downstairs to check with Bennet, who does most of our embalming, about a schedule for the next few days. After a few minutes, though, he wanders back in. Taking his seat in the armchair, he picks up his
Atlantic Monthly
and opens it. He’s been sluggish like this for months, accomplishing exactly the amount of work that’s necessary, but very little more. It’s a subtle change. He looks as healthy and confident as ever, but tough cases—and the death of a four-year-old would certainly count as that— have become especially hard on him. At times, he will simply retreat, lingering in places he rarely used to linger at all: bed, the bathtub, my office. He will limit his contact with clients and spend a lot of his evenings out on our porch, drinking tea and reading, or just staring at the sky. I guess it scares me, a little.
“I’m checking the inventory for caskets,” I announce, squinting at my screen. We don’t keep more than a couple of child-size models at any given time, but I can see that we have a two-and a three-footer in stock. Luckily, neither is pink—one is white and one is blue. I say, “We might not have to special-order.”
Martin asks, “Did you hear back from Carolyn Burns yet?”