Appearances

by Sondra Helene

  The weather is sunny and crisp, a beautiful day for anything but a funeral, with smells of freshly cut grass and new buds of spring. Elizabeth’s grave has already been hollowed, and her casket fits, suspended, inside. My parents sit on folding chairs next to the mountain of dirt that will close her in.

  A crowd of three hundred gathers. The rabbi leads us in the Mourner’s Kaddish, the ritual prayer for the dead. My eyes close as the casket is lowered. When it’s in place, family and friends shovel some of the dirt, a final ritual. Hearing clods of soil strike my sister’s casket makes me cringe, but the tradition is a great sign of respect signaling that we haven’t left our loved one’s burial to strangers. I lower a shovelful of dirt onto the casket, already obscured from view. When it’s Richard’s turn, Jake scoffs—Brooke and Lauren flinch. I can see that they’ve got Richard all wrong this time; my husband derives no joy from throwing dirt on my sister’s grave. I now regret having participated in my family’s hardening against Richard.

  When the casket is fully covered, we retreat to our limos.

  My aunt and uncle try to make conversation on our ride to the Gordons’ from the cemetery. My uncle tells me that my eulogy was beautiful; my aunt says all sisters should be envious of my bond with Elizabeth. I appreciate their kind words, but they don’t console me. I am chilled to the bone.

  At the Gordons’, we will sit shiva for the next seven days and nights. We will receive visitors and mourn the loss of our daughter, mother, sister, and wife. The caterers are at work in the kitchen. Richard is by my side. Elizabeth is dead.

  “Come,” I say to Richard, taking his hand and weaving through the crowd. Richard stops short, spotting Jake by the bar in the den.

  “What the hell? You want me to talk to him? You know he doesn’t want that.”

  “Just offer your condolences,” I say, and something in my eyes convinces Richard that it will be okay.

  “I’m sorry about Elizabeth,” Richard says, when we catch Jake by surprise. He extends his hand. Of course, it’s the proper thing to do, to pay respect, but my face flushes, as I now think it might have been the wrong move.

  To my relief, the men shake hands. Jake nods but doesn’t speak. I rub their shoulders and stand in the space between my husband and my sister’s husband.

  The house fills with friends attached in different ways to all of us; Alexandra, Brooke, and Lauren receive twenty-five teenagers upstairs. When a young person dies, it is a different shiva than if the deceased was an older person. The latter can be a type of celebration, but for Elizabeth’s shiva, there’s nothing we can do to erase the sense of injustice.

  I could sit with Jake in the den, but I don’t because Richard is with me. I could receive guests on the living room sofa next to my parents, or beside my brother at the kitchen table. I realize that I feel uncomfortable sitting at all, staking my flag anywhere in this family dysfunction. Richard and I will need to carve out our own space. In the meantime, I stand in the kitchen, accepting food from visitors and arranging it on the buffet: corned beef, turkey, chopped liver, and other traditional dishes.

  “There are no words, Samantha,” my friend Lynne says with glassy eyes.

  I can tell that Richard is uncomfortable by the way he fiddies with his watch, but I shelve his particular feelings for now. Harrison is here; I whisper to him that he should keep his dad company. My focus then shifts to Alexandra and how she’s faring upstairs. I check in on her and see a lot of teenage hugging, giving way to nervous laughter.

  Back downstairs, my friends lavish me with memories of Elizabeth and me moving through the community, spotted at the gym, the reservoir, the hair salon, walking through a parking lot, and Whole Foods. Their stories remind me how lucky we were to have each other. Despite the problems our relationship caused in my marriage, I wouldn’t trade a second that I had with Elizabeth. She and I packed the memories of a long life into a short one. I just wish the rift with Richard had been repaired before she died.

  I find my parents, put my hands on their shoulders, and listen to their friends’ thoughtful condolences. “It should never be this way,” our solemn, silver-haired second cousin tells my mother, and an old friend from Gloucester takes her hand. “Sorry, Rachel. I remember Elizabeth’s sweetness whenever she came to play with my Gail.” My mother weeps freshly at every comment, but my father sits with a revived strength, wearing his chai. “Cry now,” he tells my mother. “Soon you will have to be strong.”

  For the next week, the Gordons’ is filled with mourners and all their corned beef, brisket, and deli; Elizabeth’s death impacts so many people, even acquaintances. Richard attends for several hours each day, preferring sundown, when the rabbi leads the shiva service. Just like at temple, the Hebrew prayers are more meaningful to Richard than to me, even when they’re for my sister. In his own way, he pays respect to Elizabeth. At night he returns to his South End apartment when I want to be alone with Elizabeth’s memory and not have any interference.

  At the end of shiva on the seventh day, seven designated mourners—Jake, Brooke, Lauren, David, my mother, my father, and I—walk around the block with the rabbi to signify shiva’s conclusion. I prepare myself for the Gordon house to transform again: where it used to be four loved ones, it will be three. I didn’t realize how much space her cancer took up physically, in her body and in her home as well. Now that Elizabeth is gone, so, too, are the nurses, the medications, everything surrounding her illness, including my purpose.

  Later, in bed, when I have finally released shiva’s constant stream of mourners making appearances, tears wet my face. I move to the floor, lying in complete surrender on my back, letting go of everything and feeling the wood beams support me. I have no imagination for it, but if my old life has ended, what new one will begin?

  A MONTH LATER, I sit at Elizabeth’s kitchen counter to finish writing acknowledgments and thank-you notes. Hundreds of donations were made to Dana Farber, Mass General, and Beth Israel Deaconess hospitals in Elizabeth’s memory. I intend to personalize each appreciation.

  Each time, it feels unnatural to be in Elizabeth’s home without her, but I’m there to absorb any part left of my sister. Her photos, her perfume, the clothes still hanging in her closet. I write and write.

  When I need an address, I search through the invitation list Elizabeth made up for Brooke’s bat mitzvah, but it’s not alphabetical, and hunting for a particular address can be a chore. When I first found the list and was looking for Weinberg, my sister’s loopy, legible handwriting stalled my heart.

  My name is first on the page. “Mr. and Mrs. Richard Freeman.” No matter how she and Jake felt, Elizabeth always had us at the top of her list.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Richard continues to live in Boston, and we date on the weekends. He brings me flowers, takes me to our favorite restaurants, and is respectful of the time I still spend at the Gordons’. I think often of Yasmine and the advice she gave me in St. Barts. I can see how Richard and I could reconcile, but somehow I am fearful to commit.

  In June, the kids finish school and ready themselves for summer plans. Jake immerses himself in work. Kathy, the redheaded nurse, has stayed on at Jake’s request and runs the household five days a week. I can’t imagine what he’s paying her, but it’s money well spent. Now Brooke and Lauren have someone else to rely on when their father hides behind his job.

  During the week, Alexandra and I spend our time at the house I’m still calling Elizabeth’s, making dinners and entertaining my parents. We attend school events together, movies, dine out, all of us still grieving her, trying to restore life to Brooke’s and Lauren’s vacant faces. Whenever their friends visit, the teens loosen up—loud music behind a locked door—and it makes me worry less. A few of Elizabeth’s friends continue stopping by for a while with the occasional tenderloin or roast chicken, but little by little they return to their own lives, putting something new in that space that once held us and Elizabeth.

  Meanwhile, because w
hat Richard and I have going on in secret looks like a stalemate to friends, others are constantly trying to fix me up on a date. I’m torn about whether to accept these offers, but I eventually relent in order to gain more clarity on my situation.

  “Steve is a really good guy,” Robin said to me. “He belongs to Shalom Alechem, so that’s a good sign. You should at least meet.”

  Steve takes me to Stella, a new restaurant in the South End with all-white decor and a South Beach vibe. I worry about the proximity of the restaurant to Richard’s loft—I’m not sure how I would explain the date, since Richard and I are on the mend, and whatever I said, there’s no guarantee that Richard would believe me—but I relax by imagining Richard with his newspaper and Wayfarers on the shores of Nantucket.

  At six feet, Steve is a four-handicap golfer with an athletic build, divorced. I try not to pay attention to how fast he drinks or the way he splits each martini olive with his teeth. He’s not a big traveler and doesn’t collect art. Turns out the only thing we have in common, besides being Jewish, are our teenage daughters.

  By our third and last date, our daughters are still the only topic of conversation. His girls are only thirteen months apart, and while the similarity in age generally makes them close, the downside is that they fight a lot—viciously. Now that Steve and his wife have separated, though, the daughters are sweet to each other. They’ve sided with their mother in the breakup, and, according to Steve, he’s the focus of their anger.

  “I’ve always done right by them,” he insists, rolling an olive between his teeth. “Been a good provider, remembered birthdays, all those soccer games.”

  “Even people in love can’t always make it work,” I say.

  Steve seems genuinely mystified about why his wife wants a divorce. “Maybe it’s more about her and what she wants for her life. Getting a divorce doesn’t make you a bad guy,” I tell him.

  But I can already see he’s not for me, either. In my head, I’m explaining it all to Elizabeth: he’s too reserved, emotionally closed off, the kind of partner who numbs out when you need him. The facts that he’s not that good-looking and obviously not over his wife are nails in the coffin. What the hell was Robin thinking?

  The next time a friend tries to fix me up with a “hot divorced guy” with whom I “have a lot in common,” I decline.

  AFTER LEAVING THE office one night that summer, Richard stops at our house in Wellesley. I’m upstairs and hear the dogs barking. I meet him in the hallway and find him wearing a boyish grin.

  “You know what? I miss you in my bed,” Richard says, and laughs. “Come to Nantucket. We can have sex every night.”

  “Every night?” I say, laughing back.

  “It will help,” he says.

  “With my grief or with the marriage?” I ask.

  “Both,” he says, and pulls me into his arms.

  I’m concerned about leaving Brooke and Lauren, of treating myself to any time on Nantucket, even though Jake has rented another house in New Seabury. I know I’d be welcome, but they are their own family now. When I decide to take Richard up on his offer, I feel unexpected excitement. Although Richard left me two seasons ago on Nantucket over the beets, I’m hoping the island might work its good magic on us once again.

  Once, in a Japanese antique store on Charles Street, I came across a magnificent blue-and-white bowl that had been restored with a gold lacquer. When I asked the owner, she described the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with fine metals: platinum, silver, or gold. As a philosophy, kintsugi doesn’t reject breakage and repair but embraces those experiences as the history of the object. A kintsugi bowl can never be perfect but can possess great beauty. If only I had known about it when I broke a piece of my grandmother’s china, I could have it repaired the dish, incorporating my mistake into the history and beauty of the piece, rather than feeling guilty and disappointed as I swept up the shards. Now, instead of perfection, kintsugi became the test for my marriage: Could Richard and I make repairs and live with the cracks?

  The day we arrive on Nantucket, we plant ourselves on a Main Street bench to people-watch. Women stroll by, chatting and drinking lattes, some carrying Nantucket lightship baskets as purses. I’ve wanted one for years. The ones I like are not really baskets but handbags or pocketbooks specific to Nantucket. The baskets are handmade and firm, with a top made of whalebone or scrimshaw, and a handle. On-island, these bags can sell for thousands of dollars, depending on the weaver, the vintage, and the amount of ivory on the bag. I have begun to admire the style and workmanship of the craft, similar to the way one admires a coveted Hermes Kelly or Birkin bag.

  For an hour, Richard and I stroll the brick sidewalks in town and eventually stop in at Main Street Real Estate. Richard loves to talk shop with Greg, the top real estate broker on Nantucket, always looking for places to bank some of our cash.

  “Welcome back,” Greg says. “Having the year of your lives?” He doesn’t know about my sister. Greg and Richard shake hands.

  “Any big fish?” Richard asks.

  “Housing is so hot right now, everywhere. Prices are nuts,” Greg says.

  “When I think a property is overpriced one season, it looks like a deal the next,” Richard says, and chuckles.

  “If I see anything that would interest you, I’ll give you a shout,” Greg says.

  Seeing my husband in his element, confident and flush with success, always makes me compare what I’m seeing with the twenty-one-year-old Richard has told me about, the young man who lost his father while struggling to finish and finance his last year of college. Richard had no choice but to earn money—no time to mourn. It helps me realize the luxury and privileges that marriage to Richard has afforded me, right down to my grief.

  “I feel like walking the docks,” Richard says. ‘You?”

  “Mind if I wait for you here?” It’s more Richard’s thing to admire multimillion-dollar yachts. I stay in town, content to browse antique stores and clothing boutiques.

  Just as I’ve noticed a new art gallery, a female passerby overpowers me with her perfume. I recognize the jasmineapple fragrance as See By Chloé, Elizabeth’s favorite. It stops me in my tracks.

  Eventually a steady stream of people forces me along: parents pushing double-wide carriages, families eating ice cream, husbands and wives holding hands. I’m near the Hub, a revolving door for newspapers and coffee. On the message board outside, I scan notices offering babysitting and house painting. One particular flyer catches my eye: the Nantucket Writer’s Workshop, “a safe place to write through dangerous feelings.”

  My friend Lynne, to whom I have not yet had a chance to say hello, interrupts my interest. “You’re here!” she says, and gives me a hug. “Sorry, I’m sweaty. I just walked five miles.” Perspiration beads on her chest. We find spaces on a bench and sit down.

  “How are you doing?” she asks. “I haven’t seen you since . . .”

  “Not bad,” I say.

  Lynne squeezes my hand. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch. Want to join?”

  “Thanks, another time. Richard’s on the docks.”

  “Okay. You give me a call,” Lynne says, then puts her earbuds back in, continuing her athletic walk.

  For the Fourth of July, Richard and I are invited to the whaling museum for dinner and fireworks. I stand on the roof deck in my white jeans and a long, crocheted sweater from Gypsy, my favorite Nantucket boutique. I sip champagne overlooking town, watch teenagers eat pizza from Stubbys, and spy on families standing in line for artisanal ice cream. The streets are congested with red and yellow Wranglers, MINI Cooper convertibles, bicycles, and, as always, Stop&Shop grocery trucks lined up for the ferry. It’s one of the first times since Elizabeth died that I don’t feel guilty for being alive.

  The sun sets, streaking the sky with red, orange, and magenta. Throngs of people crowd the roof, and I spot my friend Joyce. She approaches me on long, shapely legs, leading another woman I’ve never met.

>   “I didn’t know you were here!” Joyce says. “This is my sister, Wendy.” I like this shorter, plainer version of Joyce and smile against my tears. My sister. Another blast. I’ll never introduce my sister again. She belongs to pictures, the past tense.

  Wendy extends her hand and smiles, but I’m overcome and walk away abruptly. Poor Joyce. She’s a summer friend and didn’t know my sister. She couldn’t have had any idea that she was ripping a scab off a wound.

  The next morning, Lynne calls.

  “You need some cheering up. I can tell,” she says. Of all my friends, Lynne is one of the few who have walked in my shoes. She lost a brother to colon cancer. When Elizabeth was diagnosed, she was the first person I called.

  “I should keep my mind occupied,” I say. “It’s not healthy to be sad all day.” I think of Richard and his work, my mother and her bridge. I even gain a flicker of understanding about Jake and his damn marathon.

  Lynne tells me that lightship basket classes are starting next week and suggests that I might want to weave my own bag. “Do you want to take the class with me?” she asks. “Usually I go alone. You’re the only friend I’d take. Frankly, I don’t want the secret to get out,” she says, and laughs.

  “I’ll make a cocktail purse,” I say, excited to try something new.

  Soon, five mornings a week, Lynne and I go to Tim Peterson’s basket-weaving shop. Six women sit in Tim’s basement every morning at a long wooden table, each working on her own project at her own pace. People chat while they weave, filling the air with families and activities, a who’s who of Nantucket: last night’s dining experience at the Pearl, whose children are working and where, and whether Surfside or Cisco Beach is best for guests. Once in a while, someone brings up a sister or a nephew or mentions that a mother is visiting, but the talk is mostly about nuclear family and friends. I don’t join in the conversation or say much of anything. Before Elizabeth got sick, did I spend too many hours focusing on extended family and neglect my own husband?