Spirit of the Place (9781101617021) (43 page)

Public Works had sanded and salted Washington, sort of. It worked okay from Second to Fourth, where the grade was a little downhill, but after the parade crossed the dip at Fourth where the bones of the old stone bridge lay buried, the path was uphill, and there was much slipping and sliding. The horses had the hardest time, their iron shoes uneasy on the ice. The wagon slid here and there, the flower-strewn casket sliding too, bouncing against the wooden slats on either side of the wagon bed with an ominous
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
so that everyone began to fear that sooner or later they would get to see dear old Bill one more time, popping out of the smashed coffin and sliding back down the middle of Washington Street toward the river, as if he wanted to put in one final morning at the office.

But no. The parade made it up Washington and went left on Cemetery past the hospital, the ranks of nurses, orderlies, and candy stripers, in white and green and peppermint uniforms, crisp and bright in the glancing sunlight, standing tall, many of them weeping. They would miss this roly-poly man who always seemed to be present, chuckling to himself at the latest folly of human beings—and somehow turning that chuckle into compassion. Something, Orville thought, seeing it all, that I've failed to do this year.

Finally they turned into the Fish and Game Club Road and then into the cemetery bordered by what Orville had always known as “The Artificial”—an artificial small pond. They walked up to the highest hill. Soon, everyone was gathered around a hole in the ground in the shadow of a granite obelisk featuring what else but a whale in relief and the chiseled name
STARBUCK
. Sure enough, here were however many generations of Starbucks it had taken to get from 1783 to 1984. The plot faced east toward Nantucket, a long way away even as the crow flies across the rolling, stream-stitched land tended by the farmers Bill had tended, land that bunched up into the Taconics before they themselves bunched up into the Berkshires. The air was so cold you could see a long time.

The burial ceremony was brief. Prayers were said. The Quaker hymn that ended with “turning, turning, we come down right” was sung. Tears were shed as Bill was lowered into the ground. Orville was dry-eyed, feeling more somber than sad. He had already said good-bye. Dirt was thrown. Pebbles danced on the coffin lid. Flowers were strewn. Guns were fired into the air at an acute angle. The sun went behind a cloud, the wind whipped up. As
“
Taps” was played, Cray tugged on Orville's jacket.

“I gotta poop.”

“Really?”

“Bad.”

“Okay.” He whispered to Amy, “Cray's gotta poop. Back in a few minutes.”

But it was hard to find a place, and it took a long time. When they walked back up the path to the cemetery everyone was gone, including Amy. Where was she? Should they leave and walk back downtown? Wait for her here?

Cray was impatient. Orville scanned the cemetery, from the rippling pond cradled by the yellowing willows around to the newer part. Nothing. He started walking back down the hill, and soon got a little lost, except for knowing most of the names on the headstones.

I've treated a lot of these families this year, he thought. I know who they came from, who they've left behind. Nowhere else in my life and my travels have I felt that kind of depth. No, not depth exactly, more a longitude and latitude, a people's history of this place.

He thought he heard something and cocked his head toward the sound. There, on top of a hill, in silhouette against the low sun, were two figures, one small, one large. They were gesturing and shouting, but they were downwind and their words were carried away from him. The small shape started sliding on the ice down the hill toward him and Cray, whirling on its butt, throwing its arms around. Amy! She was red-cheeked and screaming happily and plowed into Cray, knocking him down, to his great delight, so that the two of them spun on the ice together a few yards until they stopped.

“Who's up there?” Orville asked Amy.

“Mom. She wants us to follow her.”

“Why?”

“Got a present for you, a like going-away thingee. C'mon.” She held out her hand.

“Is her car over there?”

“Yeah, she's got her car.”

He saw that Penny was gesturing them vigorously to meet her around the other side of the hill, to the left. He took Cray's hand. It was bare. “Hey, where are your gloves?”

“Lost 'em,” he screamed proudly. “You'n me are in double trouble with Mom now!”

The kids didn't want to go on the road around the hill but straight up it. The three of them started up the slope toward where Penny had been. Slipping and sliding, sometimes Amy or Cray holding Orville up, sometimes Orville, standing, lifting them up, all the time falling, rolling back, laughing. Only by falling and getting up and leaning on each other at the right time and even on their bellies for a while with shared clawing fingerholds, did they make it to the top. All the way up they were laughing 'til the tears came at who fell how and who dragged who down and who picked who up. Orville took a few hard falls. As they neared the top he was sore and cold and breathing hard. Kids have a lower center of gravity, he thought, less far to fall. With us grownups, so much always seems to hang on so little.

Penny was no longer at the crest of the hill but way down below. The feathers of her hat were a lone spot of color in all the bluish white.

“Let's slide!” Amy cried, sitting down and pulling Cray down with her. Orville lost his footing and went down too. The kids pushed off. He followed, whirling around, losing his bearings, loving the losing. They tried to steer toward Penny and her hat. In a sweet instant the three of them were lying there looking up at her, laughing hard.

“Hi, Pen!” Orville cried excitedly. “What's up?”

“Look.” She pointed to a tombstone into which was chiseled
SELMA ARIEL FLEISHER ROSE
. Beside it was a stone for
SOLOMON ROSE
.

“I come here every time I'm at the cemetery,” she said. “I talk to her. Amy does, too. I don't talk to Dad. I mean, I never really could. You've never been here, have you?”

“Not since Dad.” He got up, first knees, then one foot, then feet.

They stood side by side staring at the matching stones, each a polished pink granite. Hebrew letters straggled across. Orville looked down at the red-haired little boy beside him, focusing in on how all this death would affect Cray.

His father is lying dead somewhere, below ground. And I'm about to disappear too. Take care. For the boy's sake.

“Okay, everybody,” Penny said with high purpose. “Now we take a stone and put it on top of whichever tombstone we want. Then we say something to that person.”

“Why can't we do both people?” Amy asked. “Both Grandma and Poppa?”

“Fine,” Penny said tersely. “You can do both.”

“But where are the stones?” Cray asked, looking around the ice field. “They're all under the ice.”

“I brought stones,” said Penny, reaching into her purse. She took out a plastic bag in which there were smooth round stones, which she placed in their open palms. “Four stones. One for each of us.”

Penny and Cray tried to place their stones on the top ridges of the tombstones—Penny on Selma, Cray on Sol—but the ice-film wouldn't let them stay. They kept slipping off, dropping down onto the icy ground, popping up and skittering away like live beings.

“They won't stay!” cried Cray.

“We'll chisel little hollows for them,” Orville said, “little homes.” He took out his Swiss Army knife, chose the chiseling blade, and started hacking away at ice coating the top of the tombstones, carving out four neat resting places for the stones—three for Selma, one for Sol.

They all placed their stones. The stones stayed.

“Now,” Penny said, “we talk to them.”

“Penny, I'm not sure that's such a good idea—” Orville began, trying to indicate the presence of Cray.

“Me first!” cried Amy.

“No, me, me!” cried Cray, louder.

“Okay, Cray,” Amy said, “go ahead.”

Cray just stood there, not knowing what to say. “I don't wanna anymore.” He slid behind Orville's back, holding onto the man's pant legs.

“Penny, I really mean it, that's enough. Cray doesn't want to.”

“Okay, then,” Amy said, “I'll go next.”

“Wait.” Orville bent down and whispered in Cray's ear. “You wanna leave? You and me can go if you want. Really. We don't have to stay.”

Cray looked down at his feet, then up at Orville, then at Amy. “I wanna stay.”

“Okay. But anytime you want to leave, you tell me and we're outta here.”

“'Kay,” said Amy. “My turn.” She closed her eyes and considered.

The wind whipped them savagely.

“Darling,” Penny said, “it's really cold, and if you could hurry up a lit—”

“Grandma Selma, I love you and miss you. I'm doing good in school and theater. I'm gonna miss Orvy. He leaves tomorrow morning. See you soon.” She paused. “Not
soon
soon, I hope, not in Heaven, but see you in my mind's eye, like you really are. Wait, no—not
are,
but like you really
were!
I want to end with a quote from
The Merchant of Venice.
I played Portia—‘a wonderful, pint-sized Portia'
The Crier
said.” She looked up and spoke to the sky—making Orville wonder if she, too, had been secretly seeing Selma up there. “‘That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.' I will always love you, Grandma. Forever.”

Penny looked to Orville. He gestured to her to go ahead.

“Mom,” she said, “it's good to be here again. Amy, as you heard, is doing great. Milt's doing, well . . . Milt's doing Milt. He just came back from Hong Kong this morning, imagine? Something to do with what he calls
PC
s, personal computers. Milton Plotkin, Hong
Kong? Me? I could lose a few pounds but . . . We're happy Orvy's finally made up his mind to go—I mean, he's better off in Italy, and our stress level will fall with him gone. Um, I mean, we'll miss him terribly, but
bon voyage!
Now. Going through my stuff I found this letter you wrote. When you were at home recovering from your brain surgery. Orvy's never seen it.”

Inwardly Orville groaned. Another letter? He looked up, thinking he'd see her. Nope. He got more concerned for Cray. The boy was standing in front of him, and Orville put both arms around him. Selma might say
anything.

Penny dug into her purse but didn't come up with the letter. She dug and dug, and finally bent down and emptied her purse out on the ground where Sol lay, so that the lipstick tubes and BMW keys as big as mice and wallets and sugar-free candies and Mars Bars and pill bottles spilled out onto the ice covering him. No letter.

“Try your pocket, Mom.”

Penny tried. “Found it!”

“I'm freezing!” Amy said. “Hurry up. I'll pick up your things while you read.”

Penny read.

Dear children,

When I was in the hospital after my surgery I wasn't sure I wanted to live. When your father brought me home, as Hayley and he helped me upstairs into the house, my hair gone and me wearing a turban and veil covering the dead half of my face, that first day, Penny, you saw me and I saw the shock in your eyes, and that was hard, but the hardest was when Orvy saw me—I could only make him out dimly through the veil and my one good eye—I saw his horror, as if instead of seeing his mom who had left as a beautiful woman many weeks before he saw a monster and he took one look and ran out of the house and didn't come home 'til after dark. Do you know what it's like to see your child be disgusted and terrified by your
looks?
I could have given up then and not ever gone out again. I could have just been a cripple. I sat in the bathroom in front of the mirror and asked, “Why God, why should I live, after what they did to me, after my looks have been destroyed?” I cried and cried. And then God said to me, “Selma, you have to live for the children, and for their children.” So, I lived for you. I sat in the bathroom day after day moving my shoulder so my face would move a little—they transplanted a nerve they said might take, grow a millimeter a month, and I'd be able to blink my eye, and smile my smile, half a smile, anyway. (Good surgeons,
bad
men.) And I turned my attention to trying to do good for others, and for our poor neglected little town Sol brought me to against my will for the toy store. I lived for you two.

I hope now you live for me. I was about love. I never was all that good at it, I mean love, but I tried my best. Maybe love is just not giving up on people?

All my love my dears,
Your mother

Penny's voice shook. Tears ran down her cheeks. She folded the letter and held on to it.

Orville was moved by Penny's sorrow. But his focus was on Cray, on what the boy would make of all this. He felt sad at what Selma had gone through, sure, but his heart was closed.

The irony, he thought, is that her convincing me that I'm selfish and coldhearted forced me to be that to her. With her, I acted like the most selfish person in the world. But not with others, no. I wasn't as bad with them. Not a monster, no. Selma's contempt produced the very thing she was contemptuous of. She blasted me with the worst of herself and got the worst of me back. Maybe I can't be open to this letter of hers because of all her other letters?

But seeing his sister in pain, knowing that she was stuck for the rest of her life with a real
schlemozzle
of a husband in this neglected backwater, got to him. He put his arm around her shoulders. To his surprise, she stopped crying and pulled away.