Mary and Alvin Ch. 27

"Like Charlotte."

"That's right," Mary said.

Bonita shrugged. "I'm never going to go away," she said.

The room was mostly full. A young woman in blue suit walked to the front of the room, raised a violin and began playing. Alvin closed his eyes and listened. The music was mournful but somehow uplifting.

Mary squeezed his hand. He opened his eyes and saw Danni and the rest of her family entering from a door near the front of the sanctuary. Danni ran her hand across the top of her mother's closed casket as she walked past it.

When the family had taken their seats in the front row, the violinist finished playing and Rabbi Gold thanked her. He mounted the podium and welcomed the assemblage in English, then bowed his head and began softly chanting in Hebrew. A few people joined him. When he finished, he kept his head bowed and the congregation sat in silence.

After a moment, the rabbi began his eulogy. Alvin realized that, as long as he had known Danni, he had learned very little about her family. He listened as the rabbi talked about Miriam Ortega; her love for her family, her commitment to her community, her devotion to her faith, and he struggled with his emotions. He wished that he could ask her how a loving mother could turn her back on her own child.

The rabbi finished his eulogy and the congregation stood and began to chant in unison, reciting a Hebrew prayer. Despite knowing none of the words, Alvin understood the emotion it conveyed. He looked down at Bonita, who was gazing around the sanctuary in wide eyed wonder. She had been given the middle name Maria, a version of Miriam. But they would never meet. That he could not understand.

When the prayer ended, the family exited by the door they had entered through. The pallbearers stepped forward and carried the casket up the center aisle and out to the waiting hearse.

"Can we go see Mama Danni now?" Bonita asked.

"Not yet, baby," Jennifer told her, "We have to go to the cemetery."

When they had returned to the car and moved into position to join the funeral procession, Alvin reached into the bag of Jessica's cookies and handed one to Jenifer and one to Bonita. Mary shook her head when he held one out to her.

"It doesn't seem right, eating cookies in a funeral procession," she said.

Alvin shrugged and ate a second cookie. The line of cars began to move, and they made their way to the cemetery.

The ceremony at the graveside was simple. The mourners gathered, with the family seated and everyone else standing. The pallbearers carried the casket from the hearse, pausing several times on the way. Alvin liked that, he understood that they were sending a symbolic message of reluctance to carry out their task.

The casket was lowered into the grave and Rabbi Gold said a prayer. The congregation joined in, then stood in silence when they had finished the recitation. An elderly man stepped forward and walked slowly to the mound of dirt that lay alongside the grave. Rabbi Gold handed him a shovel. The man turned the shovel over and lifted a small amount of dirt on the back of the blade. He dropped it into the grave and then handed it to the next person in the queue that had formed behind him. One by one, each mourner shoveled dirt on to the coffin. Mary remembered that Alvin and Tim had taken up shovels at their Uncle Harry's funeral. There was something about the gesture that seemed natural and right. She stepped into the line and took her turn, and doing so filled her with a sense of solidarity with everyone else who had gathered there.

Jennifer and Alvin each took a turn, then Alvin laced arms with his wife and daughter and they walked back to the car, Bonita strutting alongside them. Mary retrieved the bag of cookies, and they finished them off while they waited for Danni.

"So, now you want a cookie," Alvin grinned.

"Now, it feels earned," she replied.

When the last mourner had passed the grave, Rabbi Gold walked up to Bernardo and helped him from his seat. He put an arm around him and the two men walked off a short distance, speaking softly.

Danni stood up, along with her brothers and sisters. She hesitated, unsure what she should do. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see Aldo standing behind her.

"Danielle, I, well, I am glad you came." He forced a half smile.

"Will you come to the house?" Silvia asked.

"I...I'm not sure," Danni shrugged. "I am not sure I am welcome."

From the expressions on their faces, none of her brothers or sisters knew, either. But Irina stepped in front of her and opened her arms. Danni hugged her, and felt someone press against her back. She turned her head and saw that it was Tobias. Silvia and Natalia came forward and wrapped their arms around her as well. Finally, Aldo, then Rafael, joined them. Danni suddenly felt weak. Her knees buckled beneath her and only the embrace of her brothers and sisters kept her from falling. In the arms of her family, Danni finally wept.

***

"Mama Danni! Mama Danni!" Bonita called as she saw Danni approaching the car. She wiggled out of Alvin's arms and ran to her mother.

Danni scooped her up and carried her the last few steps.

"Everything alright?" Alvin asked.

"I suppose so," she said. "I'm not sure how I feel, besides exhausted."

Mary looked past Danni. "Honey, turn around," she said softly.

Danni turned and saw her father walking toward them. He stopped a few feet away, holding his hands together behind his back and shifting his weight from foot to foot. He nodded to Alvin and to Mary. When he made eye contact with Jennifer, he quickly looked away.

"Thank you all for coming," he said, "When do you return to Maine?"

"We should go soon," Danielle said. "Jennifer can't leave the farm long. And of course Alvin and Mary want to get back, they have a little girl of their own, and things they need to attend to."

"I need you to stay here, Danielle, for the shiva."

Danni was startled at his words. "I did not think you believed that women belong in the minyan," she said.

Bernardo shrugged. "We get older, we think differently on some things." He looked her in the eyes. "I am perhaps not the medieval fool you think me to be."

"But, I can't father, we must go."

"They must go, but you can stay. It is your duty to your mother. I will drive you home next week myself."

"Really?"

"We have much to talk about. Being a deputy, living on a farm..." He looked at Jennifer. "...your family."

He reached out and touched Bonita's cheek. "Maybe this girl can show me around."

"We got alpacas," Bonita told him.

"Alpacas on a farm, I never heard of such a thing. Will you introduce me to them?"

Bonita nodded, "And the pigs," she said.

"The pigs," Bernardo shrugged, "not so much."

***

A light rain began to fall as Alvin drove through the outskirts of Boston, and traffic slowed to a crawl.

Jennifer sat in the back seat with Bonita. Staring out the window she asked, "Do you guys ever wonder what happens after we die? I've never really given it a lot of thought."

"I always figured that what happens is just going to happen," Alvin said, "so there wasn't much point in being too concerned with it."

"I liked the way that they handled it. You know, the Jewish way. It's made me think. I'm going to talk to Danni when she gets back. Being Jewish kind of seems like a whole religion based on the idea of hard tellin' not knowin'."

Mary reached into her bag and pulled out her copy of Rachel's book. She flipped through the pages, looking for a passage she had read the night before.

Jennifer poked her father's shoulder. "What if I converted to Judaism?"

"Would I have to take you out and buy you ice cream?"

"You're not as funny as you think you are, Daddy."

"I've been telling him that for years," Mary muttered. She found the page she had been looking for. "I want to read you guys something from Rachel's book. I'm sorry about spoilers, but, well, I want you to listen to it, I think it speaks to how I feel. The princess, Marwyn, is bereaved because Alfond, the sailor, is lost at sea and presumed drowned..."

"Hold on, hold on," Jennifer exclaimed, "The princess is named Marwyn and the sailor is Alvern?"

"Alfond," Mary corrected her.

"You're shitting me." She laughed, "She better have put me in her book, too."

"I don't think so, but it's only the first in a series."

"I better talk to her."

"Maybe Marwyn will meet a tribe of alpaca riding Amazons or something," Alvin interjected.

"I better be the Alpacazon queen, then."

"At least she didn't friggin' drown you."

"You two, hush," Mary said. "I'm serious, I want to read this to you."

They both quieted down and Mary read from the book.

Marwyn stood at the wall on the turret of the tallest tower in the castle. She looked out across the harbor to the open sea. She had often taken in this view, the dance of the white capped waves, the blue depths beyond, the ribbons of cloud on the most distant horizon; all these had been soothing to her soul. But now, the sea had changed. It was no longer a place of peace, it was an adversary that had taken away her love, her comfort, the joy of her life. She could not understand why such a thing should be. How could he be gone forever? She contemplated the fact that she would someday be gone as well. It made no sense to her. What was the purpose of his life, of hers, of the lives of all the people in the city below her, if in the end, they would just to one day be gone? No, she thought, there is meaning, there is purpose. There is not just endless emptiness. She knew it to be true. She could not see the purpose, but neither could she see the far lands across the great sea, and she knew they were there, she had held her lover's hand and walked their shores.

It was quiet in the car. Everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts as the traffic began to move again. They left Massachusetts and crossed the narrow neck of New Hampshire. The great iron bridge over the Piscatiqua loomed before them. They crossed it and were back in Maine.

The clouds parted and a golden late afternoon light suffused the countryside. The only sound in the car was Bonita's voice, softly murmuring.

"Are you singing, sweetie," Jennifer asked.

"I am singing Papa's song."

"What is Papa's song?"

"The banana man song." She sang louder. "Come mister tappy man tappy my banana. Daytime comes and I want to go home."

Alvin sang in a comically low, gruff voice," "Day, me say Day-ay-o..."

"Daytime comes and I want to go home!" Bonita answered, almost shouting.

Jennifer laughed and stroked her daughter's hair. "We will be home pretty soon, honey pie."

Bonita looked at her and gave an emphatic nod.

"Alright then," she said.

***

After Alvin had dropped her off, Danielle Ortega stood and looked up at the house where she had grown up, the home she had left more than a decade earlier. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment, then walked up to the porch. A bowl of water stood on a metal stand next to the door. She dipped her fingers into it, the symbolic washing away of death. She dried her hands on the towel that hung from the side of the stand and opened the door. Touching her fingers to the mezuzah, she stepped inside.

The entry hall looked as it always had, except for the black cloth draped over the mirror above the side table. She walked into the living room and saw a few distant relatives she could only faintly remember, and several people she did not know at all.

Her sisters, Natalia and Irina, stood by the dining room table. She went to them, and they each silently hugged her.

"Come, Danielle, eat with us," Natalia implored, "It has been so long..." She began to sniff back tears.

Danni touched her arm. "In a bit, Nat." She looked into the family room, where the furniture had been pushed back and a circle of wooden chairs had been formed in the center of the room.

"Oh, alright," her sister said. "We will be here."

Danni walked into the family room and looked at the circle of mourners. Her father sat next to Rabbi Gold. On the rabbi's other side, her brother Tobias was deep in prayer. Her other brothers were in the circle, along with Rafael's wife. Her mother's two brothers and her sister Silvia and her husband completed the circle. There were ten people, the required minyan.

The rabbi looked up at Danni. He stood and gestured for her to take his seat. "I could use a bite," he whispered to her as he passed.

Danni sat down next to her father. She lowered her head and rested her hands in her lap. She pushed the image of the frail unconscious woman from her mind and conjured a picture of her mother as she had known her years ago, her dark hair flowing, her olive skin luminous.

She felt someone take her hand and opened her eyes to see Tobias looking at her with tears in the corners of his eyes. She squeezed his hand. She was his big sister after all, it was her duty to offer him what comfort she could. She felt something brush her other arm, and turned her head to look at her father. He picked up her hand, raised it to his chest and held it to his heart. He reached his other hand to Aldo, who took it and extended his to Rafael. One by one, each member of the minyan clasped hands. When the circle was complete, they raised their voices in unison and began to recite Kaddish, the prayer of mourning.