by J. J. Gesher
He’d met Elsie standing on line at the bank in Brent. They were both in their fifties. She was a kindergarten teacher and a widow with a grown son. Mo was lonely. They had ten wonderful years together, until cancer took her away. Mo kept in touch with her son, a history professor at some fancy university in Boston, but he hadn’t seen him in years.
As Mo puttered around the room, pulling a fresh bar of soap and a clean towel from a box under the bed, he prattled on. “After Rosie’s mother—that’s my sister—passed, Rosie wanted me to live in the house. Keep it nice. Now that she’s back in town, she wants help with the boy. I’m pretty good with kids. Never had any of my own.”
Mo handed the drifter the toiletries. He mouthed his directions slowly, loudly, hoping that he’d be understood.
“You get yourself cleaned up, have a decent night’s sleep. I’ll get you something to eat. But tomorrow, you gotta move on. Go home.”
The man nodded. He tried a smile, but his mouth did not cooperate. To Mo, it looked like his face was contorted in pain. The simplest form of courtesy—a smile—seemed toxic to this man’s very being.
“You need anything else?”
The man stood silently.
“You can’t stay here after tonight. This is only for one night,” he repeated, holding up his finger.
As Mo closed the door of the caretaker’s room, he wondered why the man didn’t respond. He wasn’t deaf—he reacted to commands. Perhaps he was mute.
Whatever the reason, Mo figured he was genuinely troubled.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning Mo was up before Rosie, preparing a large breakfast. Rosie came into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. Langston was engrossed in the back of his cereal box. Rosie wondered what new delight he could find in the back of the same cereal box day after day. He should have had it memorized by now, right down to the ingredients.
“I won’t be home till nine. Back-to-school night. You two can fend for yourselves,” Rosie said.
She noticed that Mo was cooking eggs sunny-side up.
“You eating eggs with the yolks?”
“I’m making eggs with some yellow in ’em.”
“The doctor said that’s not good for you.”
“Yes, he did. I guess we won’t tell him.” Mo winked at Langston. He continued to put the plate together without comment. Rosie sipped her coffee and watched Mo put butter and jelly on the toast. She turned to Langston.
“Stop messing around and eat your breakfast.”
“I’ll think I’ll eat mine while I fix that shaky pew down front,” Mo said.
He took an extra shirt from the back of the chair, put it on over his T-shirt, and left with the plate.
Rosie watched him cross the street to the church, not sure what to make of Mo’s strange behavior this morning.
“Langston, you about ready to go? I can’t be late.”
Jacob made the cot in the caretaker’s room and hung his wet towel on a hook on the wall. His hair was damp and his face was clean, but he wore the same grimy shirt and pants. He sat on the cot, staring at a crack in the wall. The minuscule fault started in the corner of the room and traveled toward the floor, dissipating halfway through its journey. Jacob wondered whether the crack would eventually go in a different direction than what was obvious. He kept tracing the crack’s route.
There was a soft knock and Mo entered.
“Not a bad bed, huh?” Mo paused hopefully, waiting for a reply. “I brought you something to eat.”
Jacob took the plate.
“I brought you a clean shirt, too.”
Mo peeled off his outer shirt and gave it to Jacob.
“You can eat, change, and head back to wherever you came from. Is that clear?”
He mimed eating. “You eat.” He pointed to the shirt. “You change.” Then he pointed to the door. “And then you go. I’ve got chores to do,” he said as he left the room.
Jacob ate the eggs in silence. He tried to keep his mind blank, but the sound of an engine backfiring somewhere in the neighborhood startled him. He saw another image—this one of a wall of black smoke moving toward him. His heart raced. He held his hands in front of his face, as if he could protect himself from the images that were sure to follow. Jacob willed himself to throw the switch of blankness. He stopped the flashback. After a few moments, his pulse returned to normal, and he picked up the plate and licked off the lingering yolk.
Mo’s morning was dedicated to garden maintenance. He plucked the spent blossoms off the yellow mums, trimmed the bushes and hedges, and watered the flowerbed in front of the church. Jacob emerged into the bright light with Mo’s old button-down hanging on his thin frame. Jacob fingered the shirt and forced a weak smile. Without stubble, his face looked boyish and innocent. Mo turned off the water and picked up a broom.
“Ever notice how some jobs never get done? Like laundry or food shoppin’ or this sweepin’? You do ’em, and then you do ’em again. I guess it passes the time.”
Mo pointed with the head of the broom. “The bus station is straight through town. Stay on this road.”
Mo returned to sweeping the church steps, which were covered with fall leaves. The strange man stood and stared. When Mo leaned the broom against the wall and wiped his face with a well-worn handkerchief, Jacob reached for the broom.
“Okay, buddy. You want to finish here? It ain’t my favorite job. I’m happy to hand it off.”
Jacob began to sweep. Mo disappeared into the church mumbling about stocking paper in the bathrooms.
Jacob swept methodically from corner to corner, gathering the debris in neat piles. A snapshot injected its way into his mind’s eye: Sarah collecting colored leaves to decorate the upright piano in their crowded living room.
Sarah, the youngest, had loved to watch Jacob at the piano. When she appeared at his side, he’d quickly change from blues chords to something childlike and lighthearted. He’d appeal to her inner musician with a simple, repetitive melody. He never tired of looking at her enormous blue eyes, upturned nose, and rosebud mouth. Even at four, she had a delightful sense of humor, and it gave Jacob great pleasure to make her laugh.
She loved The Itsy Bitsy Spider. For each note, he’d sing the accompanying syllable:
The it-sy- bit-sy spi-der
went up the wa-ter spout
Then he’d solemnly nod to Sarah who, with great theatricality, would hit the accent note and throw her head back in open-throated celebration.
On the nearby sofa, the older children would be playing a version of Name That Tune. Yossi would pound out the rhythm of a familiar song on Miriam’s back, and then they’d switch roles. Whoever guessed quickest won. All well and good if the pounding remained gentle, but it seldom did. They were only eleven months apart and in each other’s business all the time. Competition was constant. Julia was always pulling them apart or trying to distract them from their manufactured confrontations.
Julia.
The memory pierced him. He bit inside his cheek until he recognized the distinctive taste of blood. The pain allowed him to wipe the vision of his family away and keep sweeping.
A half hour later, Mo came out to check on the drifter. He watched him creating neat piles of leaves. Mo rubbed his head, trying to make sense of this bizarre man.
“It occurs to me that you might have missed today’s bus. You can stay for a bit downstairs—but you got to stay out of sight.”
Mo gestured to the house across the street. “I live over there with my niece and her little boy. If Rosie finds out I let you stay here, she’ll chew my head off.”
Jacob looked up from the broom. There was kindness in the old man’s voice. “There’s some cookies in the pantry left over from the senior citizens’ meeting. That’ll have to do for now.”
Mo was puzzled by the stranger’s behavior: He knew how to clean himself and shave and sweep things into neat piles, but he grimaced and blinked and scowled like a madman. Mo sucked his back tooth,
the one that always snagged food. He waited for the man to look at him. Maybe he was mentally ill.
Mo grew uncomfortable with the silence and jabbered on, “Listen…about Rosie. She’s a good egg—kind and funny. A terrific mom, too. But she’s got an extra layer of shell on her. I guess you could say she’s more like a hard-boiled egg. She married a piece-of-shit husband. I told her he was trouble, but she told me to mind my own business. She kinda built up this wall that makes her come off meanish.”
Mo gently reached out to stop the man’s sweeping and looked him in the eye. “Remember—stay out of sight.”
CHAPTER 12
After Jacob disappeared, Hava tried to resume some kind of routine to fill the long hours between waking and sleeping. She mostly busied herself with Naomi’s household, as her daughter was entering the last weeks of an emotional and difficult pregnancy. In the weeks after the explosion, Naomi almost lost the baby. The doctors said stress was a factor. In order to protect her daughter’s half-ripened child, Hava held her own raging grief at bay. Now it remained as a constant lump in her throat, as if she had overstuffed a bottle with cotton and couldn’t get the cap back on.
Hava shopped and cooked for Naomi and played with the older children. As she had done since she was a young mother, she attended the rebbetzin’s shiur, a weekly women’s lesson on the Torah taught by the rabbi’s wife. But she could not keep her mind on the discussion and found her thoughts wandering through the window to the tops of the trees. She kept her phone in her pocket or by her side, hoping to hear from Jacob, fearing she’d hear something terrible from the detective in charge of the investigation.
She nearly jumped out of her skin each time the phone rang. This time it was Barbara, Julia’s mother, asking to meet for coffee. They had never developed a relationship beyond family events, although they’d supported each other through that horrific first week of mourning, They were cordial and considerate but nothing more. Barbara had been a career woman, a corporate lawyer, and Hava felt unsophisticated and out of step with the times when Barbara was around. She sensed that Barbara had never felt comfortable with her either.
The two bereaved grandmothers met at a coffee shop near Jacob’s house. Hava had arrived early, and Barbara came in, pale, out of breath. They both ordered hot tea. After small talk and tears, Barbara got down to business. Why didn’t Jacob answer her calls?
Hava had been hiding Jacob’s absence from everyone but Naomi. She told people he came back after shiva but wanted to remain in seclusion. Hava thought that would be the best way to handle his disappearance, to protect herself and her son from the judgment of their community. No one needed to know that he’d been missing for two weeks, and that she was out of her mind with worry.
“People handle grief in different ways. He’s not ready to talk to anyone.”
“We are not ‘anyone.’ We are family.”
Hava felt the heat rise in her cheeks. There was no way to explain his absence unless she embellished the lie.
Barbara shredded a napkin. “Please, Hava, he’s all we have. Our entire future.”
Hava sensed that Barbara resented her. An act of violence had obliterated Barbara’s future. Julia had been her only child, and the grandchildren her only immediate family. Hava still had her daughter and her growing brood. Naomi’s pregnancy promised the distraction of new life.
She cut Barbara off. She knew she was being cruel, but the tightening of her throat threatened to release all of her emotions. “Don’t take it personally. Jacob will call you when he’s ready.”
Once again, she found herself hiding the truth and making excuses for her son. She remembered Jacob’s difficult time, his final year in yeshiva. He stayed out late, his clothes had a foul, earthy smell, and he was always asking her for money. When he was home—if he came home at all—he seemed depressed, not her curious, energetic son.
She didn’t want to share her fears with anyone in the community, so she went to the public library to research his behavior. The librarian pointed out some useful websites. Jacob certainly wasn’t the only teenage boy who went through a rough patch. Was this normal teenage rebellion, or could it be something more?
Her meanderings in adolescent psychology led her to a link about drug and alcohol use in teens. The behavior seemed to describe Jacob, but how could that be? He was a good boy, an outstanding student, and a caring human being. She knew from gossip that there were cases of substance abuse among the Orthodox. It was a shonda, a disgrace on the family, to have such a child. She didn’t dare share her worries with her husband. He’d always been so critical of Jacob—she feared her suspicions would cause a blowup. Hava didn’t confront Jacob either, largely because she was afraid of the truth. Whatever the problem was, with love and time and God’s help, her son would return to himself.
So here she was again, lying to protect Jacob. If she revealed to Barbara that Jacob was missing, she would have to acknowledge her own fears. If Jacob was dead, then she too would have a different future. If he was alive, he could heal and marry again and make more children.
Hava made an excuse. She looked at her phone. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I have to pick up Naomi’s daughter from preschool.”
As she reached the door of the coffee shop, Hava had a change of heart. How could she be so unkind? Julia’s parents deserved honesty. If she’d learned anything from Jacob’s drug abuse, she needed to set aside her guilt and share the truth. She returned to Barbara, her sister in grief, and pulled her chair close.
“Jacob is missing,” she confided, “and I have no idea if he’s dead or alive.”
CHAPTER 13
Rosie buttoned her jacket as she crossed the street to church. The evenings were finally starting to cool off, and night was coming earlier. She smelled the wet gravel after a brief afternoon rain. Choir practice was demanding, but it was also the best part of her week. She felt an air of anticipation as she saw cars pull into the parking lot. Younger folks gave rides to those who didn’t have transportation. Some of the old-timers had trouble walking, so they leaned on the more vigorous as they navigated the front steps. Their bodies might be breaking down, but their voices were still strong, and their sense of community, even stronger. They called out to each other in greeting. There was a camaraderie on Tuesday nights that Rosie couldn’t find anywhere else. When a song came together in rhythm and harmony, she felt complete.
Mr. Day, the wiry, animated choir director, chatted with his accompanist, an elderly gentleman who softly practiced his chords as they looked over the sheet music for the evening’s selections. Rosie took her seat with the sopranos and opened her music folder. She noticed that Edmond had already found a spot among the men. When he tried to catch her eye, she pretended to be preoccupied with the buckle on her watch. With the exception of the wedding band that was now gathering dust in her dresser, that watch was the only piece of jewelry Robert had given her. She kept meaning to get a new one, but Langston called it “Daddy’s watch,” so she kept wearing it.
All those years in Birmingham, Rosie had suppressed her religious feelings. During her marriage, she’d turned away from tradition. Robert didn’t grow up in the church, and he never felt comfortable when she dragged him along. But now, back in her childhood home, she again felt the strong pull of faith, and that faith compelled her toward First Baptist—and the choir. When she sang, serenity washed over her, bringing purpose to her harried life.
Mr. Day began rehearsal, “All right folks, let’s stretch our muscles.” He blew a pitch pipe, and the group matched the note, starting low then moving slowly up the scale. This was a regular drill. After a few moments of humming, he moved to lip trilling, again starting with a low tone and moving higher.
Mr. Day stopped in front of Edmond. “Relax your lips and control the sound from your diaphragm. Your lips should vibrate as the air passes over them.”
Edmond imitated Mr. Day’s exaggerated sounds. The effort made him look ridiculous. When the others laughed in good
-natured teasing, Rosie laughed too loudly.
In those first few days, Jacob acclimated to his new surroundings. First Baptist was a simple structure, and he quickly learned its ways. There was a chapel that held three hundred people, a dais with a podium, a platform with folding chairs for the choir, and three throne-like, velvet-covered seats. There was a social hall with a well-worn upright piano and a small kitchen. If he walked through the social hall, he’d arrive at two small classrooms and the pastor’s office. There was an alcove above the chapel for the electrical panel and the organ pipes. The tiny basement held his small caretaker’s room and a storage closet. On weekdays the building was quiet, with only the pastor and Mo coming and going. In the afternoons and evenings, there was more activity—meetings, youth group, Bible study.
Jacob was asleep in the caretaker’s room. He couldn’t shake the exhaustion, nor did he want to. He slept whenever he wasn’t doing chores for Mo. Sometimes, he’d wake up with a feeling of calm. More often, his dreams left him in a cold sweat, with his heart racing and weakness in his limbs. Either way, the images from the dreams—the people, the places—were irretrievable when he woke. The only image that was claimable was that of blue eyes—Sarah’s innocent, wide eyes, with a fringe of black lashes. The eyes frightened and comforted him at the same time. He wanted to see those eyes when he slept, but also dreaded the vision.
The sounds of rehearsal—piano, vocal warm-up, scales—invaded the room. Jacob was pulled into consciousness by sound. Singing. Music. He strained to hear the voices. Although he didn’t recognize the melody, the rhythm and plaintive tones took him back to the Brooklyn basement where Lenny had taught him to appreciate the blues.