Gone

by Lisa McMann

  “Thank you. Anyone else?”

  Cabel nudges Janie. She pokes him back.

  And then, and then.

  Dorothea says, “I want to say something.”

  Janie freaks out inside.

  The rabbi nods, and Dorothea takes a few unsteady steps to where she can turn around and face the crowd.

  What is she going to say? Janie glances at Cabe, sees his eyes are worried too.

  Dorothea’s thin voice isn’t easy to hear in this wide-open space.

  At least, it isn’t until she starts yelling.

  “Henry was the father of Janie, here. The only man I ever loved. But he left me after I quit school for him, and my parents wouldn’t let me back home. He was crazy and a horrible person. He ruined my life, and I’m glad he’s dead!” With that, Dorothea fumbles at the zipper of her purse.

  “Dear God,” Cabe whispers.

  The small crowd is completely shocked into silence. Janie rushes over and guides her mother back to the spot where they were standing. She feels her face boiling and red. Sweat drips down her back. She purposely averts her eyes from the guests. Mortified.

  It doesn’t help that Dorothea manages to get her purse open and makes only a small effort to hide that she’s taking a swig from the flask.

  Rabbi Greenbaum hastens to speak.

  Cabe rests his hand on the small of Janie’s back to comfort her. He looks down at the ground and Janie can see the amused look on his face. She feels like stomping on his foot. And pushing her mother into the grave hole. Wonders what sort of sitcom that would turn this scene into.

  Janie looks up and catches the rabbi’s attention. “May I say something?” she asks.

  “Of course,” Rabbi Greenbaum says, although he looks uncertain.

  Janie stays where she’s standing and just looks at the casket. “I’ve known my father for one week,” she says. “I’ve never seen him move, never looked him in the eye. But in that short time, I found out a lot about him. He kept to himself, didn’t bother anybody, just lived the life he was given the best way he knew how.

  “He wasn’t crazy,” she continues.

  “Was too,” Dorothea mutters.

  “He wasn’t crazy,” Janie repeats, ignoring her mother, “he just had an unusual problem that is really hard to explain to anybody who doesn’t understand it.” Her voice catches. She looks at her mother. “I think, and I’ll always believe, that Henry Feingold was a good person. And I am not at all glad he’s dead.” Janie’s lip quivers. It’s like the numbness is suddenly wearing off. “I wish I had him back so I could get to know him.” Tears trickle down her face.

  When it is clear that Janie has said all that she has to say, the rabbi leads Kaddish, a prayer. Then he smiles and beckons Janie to come around the other side of the grave, guiding her to the pile of dirt. Cabel takes Dorothea by the arm and follows. There are several shovels on the ground. They each pick one up.

  Janie takes a heaping shovelful of dirt and holds it over the hole in the ground. A trickle of dirt slips off and hits the casket below. She can hardly bear to turn the shovel. The rabbi murmurs something about returning to dust, and finally she turns the shovel over. The thud of the dirt on the wood hurts her stomach.

  Dorothea does the same, her arms shaking, and Cabel does it too, and slowly each member of the small crowd takes a shovelful of dirt and releases it into the hole. They continue to fill it.

  And that’s when Dorothea loses it.

  She falls to her knees, almost as if she’s just now realized the truth of it. “Henry!” she cries. Her sobs turn to deep shudders. Janie just stands next to her, unable to help. Unwilling to try to stop it.

  Such a mess. Janie can see it now, all the guys at the department talking about Janie’s mother the drunk, the one who ruined a funeral, the one who fucked around and had an illegitimate daughter and isn’t fit to do much of anything but be an embarrassment. She shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks as she gets more dirt.

  It doesn’t matter anyway.

  When they are finished, the mound of fresh earth tamped off, Janie knows she has to face the guests. Cabel gets Dorothea to the car.

  Janie lays her shovel on the ground. She straightens again and Captain is there.

  Captain embraces Janie. Holds her. “You did well,” she says. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Janie says, tears flowing fresh again. This isn’t the first time Janie’s cried on Captain’s shoulder. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be.” Captain’s voice is firm—it’s a command. For Janie, it’s nice to have somebody else running the show for a moment, at least. A relief. Captain pats Janie’s back. “Will you be sitting shivah?”

  Janie pulls away to look at her. “I don’t think so. What’s that, again?”

  Captain smiles. “It’s a time of mourning. It’s usually a week, but whatever you decide.”

  Janie shakes her head. “We . . . I don’t . . . I didn’t even know I was half-Jewish until last week. We don’t practice or anything.”

  Captain nods. Takes her hand. “Come by my office when you’re ready. No hurry, okay? I think we need to have a talk.”

  Janie nods. “Yeah, we do.”

  Captain squeezes Janie’s hand and Janie greets the guys from the department. Janie wants to try to explain, apologize for her mother’s behavior, but the guys don’t let her get a word in about it. They offer condolences and by the end, they’re making Janie laugh. Just like always.

  It feels good.

  Cathy remains by the grave until the guys have left, and then she approaches Janie. “Thank you for the note.”

  “He’d be glad to know you came, I think,” Janie says.

  “I dropped off a couple more boxes. They’re sitting outside on his step. You want me to return to sender?”

  Janie thinks for a moment. “Nah,” she says. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll probably have something that needs to go out tomorrow, then, so . . . ” Janie doesn’t want to explain here. She’ll have all the time in the world to talk to Cathy next week.

  “Just request a pickup like you did last time on the Internet, okay? I’ll be sure to get them.” Cathy looks at her watch. “I got to get back to work. You take care. I’m real sorry.”

  “I think you knew him best of anyone, Cathy. I’m sorry too.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, thanks.” Cathy looks down. She turns and walks to her truck.

  Charlie and Megan embrace Janie in a group hug. “You gonna be all right, kiddo?” Charlie asks.

  “Sure, she is,” Megan says. “She’s tough as nails. But we’re here for you if you need us, right?”

  Janie nods gratefully, thanking them.

  And then Carrie and Stu are there, offering comfort. Stu’s wearing the same shirt and outdated tie that he wore to the senior prom, and it makes Janie smile, remembering. So much has happened since then.

  “I can’t believe how many people came,” Janie says. “Thank you. It means a lot.”

  Carrie grabs Janie’s hand and squeezes it. “Of course we’d come, you idiot.”

  Janie smiles and squeezes back. “Hey,” she says, “where’s your ring?” and then she stops, worried.

  Carrie grins and grabs Stu’s hand with her free one. “No worries. We decided that we weren’t quite ready for that, so I gave it back. He’s keeping it safe, aren’t you, honey?”

  “Very,” Stu says. “Thing was freaking expensive.”

  Janie grins. “I’m glad you guys are doing okay. Thanks again for coming, and Carrie—thanks for all you did.”

  “Most entertaining funeral I’ve ever been to,” Carrie says.

  Stu and Carrie wave good-bye and walk through the grass to Ethel, swinging hands. Janie watches them go. “Yeah,” she says. “Way to go, Carebear.”

  Janie goes over to the strangers who remain in a small group, talking quietly. “Thank you very much for all you’ve done,” Janie says.

  One speaks f
or all of them. “No thanks necessary. It’s an honor to care for the bodies of the deceased. Our sincerest condolences, my dear.”

  “I—thanks. Er . . . ” Janie blushes. She looks around and spies the rabbi. Goes to say good-bye. Afterward, seeing no one else, Janie makes her way to the car.

  “Not one single flower!” Dorothea is saying. “What kind of funeral is that?”

  Cabel pats the woman on the hand. “Jews don’t believe in cutting down a living thing to honor the dead, Ms. Hannagan. They don’t do cut flowers.”

  Janie closes the door and leans her head back on the seat. It’s nicely cool inside. “How d’you know that, Cabe?” she asks. “Ask-a-rabbi-dot-com?”

  Cabel lifts his chin slightly and puts the car into drive. “Maybe.”

  4:15 p.m.

  When there’s a knock at the screen door, Janie rouses herself from a nap on the couch, her mother safely tucked away in her room. She fluffs her hair and grabs her glasses.

  It’s Rabinowitz.

  “Hi. Come in,” Janie says, surprised.

  He’s carrying a box in one hand and a basket of fruit in the other. He brings them inside and puts them on the kitchen counter. “This is to help sweeten your sorrow,” he says.

  Janie is overcome. “Thank you.” The words seem too small to express what she is feeling.

  He smiles and excuses himself. “I’m still on duty but I wanted to drop them off. I’m sorry for your loss, Janie.” He waves and ducks out the door.

  All of the nice.

  All of it.

  It only makes it harder.

  4:28 p.m.

  Lies back down on the couch, full of cake.

  Thinks about what happens next.

  Knows that soon she’ll say good-bye to Cabe forever.

  And that?

  Despite the benefits,

  Will be the hardest thing she’s ever done.

  6:04 p.m.

  She walks up Henry’s bumpy driveway, backpack on her back, carrying a suitcase and a bag of clothes. Two forlorn boxes rest in front of the door. Janie goes inside to deposit her stuff and then pulls the boxes inside.

  She rips open the first box and pulls out a baby’s snowsuit. Goes over the ancient computer and turns it on. Rifles through the notebook that contains the order log, then opens the file drawer under the table. Repackages the snowsuit and writes the address on the box.

  Janie opens the second box. Pulls out a bubble-wrapped package.

  A snow globe.

  It’s not listed as an item that needs to be shipped out.

  It’s for Cathy, she’s sure.

  Paris. Janie shakes the globe and watches the golden, glittery snow swirling about the gray plastic Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.

  How stunningly tacky.

  Yet totally full of a certain sort of special.

  Janie smiles, wraps it up again and puts it back in the box. Writes on the box with a black marker:

  TO CATHY, ONE LAST GIFT.

  FROM HENRY.

  Janie finishes her father’s business and then she searches, and finds, the ancient rental agreement. Discovers that Henry’s been month-to-month since 1987, just mailing in a check faithfully so it arrives by the first of each month. It’ll be easy continuing on from here.

  Oh, she’ll let the landlord know Henry passed on. But she’ll make it very tempting for the landlord to accept Janie as the new tenant. She can even pay the first year in advance if she has to.

  She shuts down the computer.

  Pulls the sheets off the bed and puts them in the little old washing machine. Decides she’s going to clean up the place and sleep here tonight.

  Here, in her new home.

  It’s such a freaking huge relief.

  MEMORIES

  8:43 p.m. Still the funeral day.

  The first evening in her new place. Isolation, day one.

  Laundry done, house dusted, sandwich eaten, grocery list made, Janie sits on her new bed with Henry’s shoe box full of memories.

  Inside:

  • fourteen letters from Dottie

  • five unopened letters to Dottie from Henry, marked “Return to Sender”

  • a small, tarnished medal from a high school cross-country team

  • a class ring

  • two envelopes containing photographs

  • a loonie and a silver dollar

  • nine paper clips

  • an old driver’s license

  • and a folded piece of paper

  Gingerly, Janie takes the photographs out of the envelopes and looks through them. Snapshots of Dorothea—tons of them. Photos of the two of them, laughing. Having fun. Kissing and lying together on the beach, blissful smiles on their faces. On the big gray rocks by Lake Michigan, a sign in the background that says “Navy Pier.” They look good together. Dorothea is pretty, especially when she smiles. Unbelievable.

  Janie also recognizes the living room in the pictures. Henry with his feet propped up on the same coffee table, the same old curtains on the windows, Dorothea stretched out on the same old crappy couch, although it all looks nearly new in the photos. Everything’s the same. Janie looks again at the photos of the happy couple.

  Well, maybe not everything is the same.

  Janie puts the photos in chronological order according to the red digital time stamp marked on the corner of each picture, and she imagines the courtship. The whirlwind summer of 1986 where they worked together at Lou’s in Chicago, then there’s a break from photos in the fall—that must have been the time they were separated, Dottie in high school and Henry at U of M. Janie peeks at the letters in the shoe box from Dorothea and sees the mail stamps on each opened envelope—all were marked from August 27 through October of that year. Fourteen handwritten letters in two months, Janie thinks. That’s love.

  The second group of photos begin in mid-November of 1986 and the last photo is stamped April 1, 1987. April Fool’s Day. Go figure. Janie does the math backward from her birthday, January 9, 1988. That’s about right, she thinks. Nine months before would have been April 9, 1987. Not much time went by after the last photo before they made a baby, and then it was splitsville.

  She fingers the letters, extremely curious. Over-whelmingly curious. Dead freaking curious. She even picks up the first one and runs her index finger along the fold of the letter inside the envelope. But then she puts it down.

  It’s like the letters are sacred or something.

  That, and eww. There’s probably something gross written inside. It would be almost as bad as getting sucked into her mother’s sex dream. Ick and yuck. Blurgh. Once you read something, you can’t erase it from your brain.

  Janie puts the letters and the photographs back into the box. She picks up the loonie and wonders how long it’s been since her father visited Canada. Smiling, she sets the loonie back down next to the silver dollar and picks up the cross-country medal. She turns it over in her fingers, holding it close to her face and squinting so she can see all the little nooks and crevasses. “I’m a runner too,” she says softly. “Just a different kind. The road kind.” She holds the medal close and then she pins it on her backpack.

  Next, Janie looks at the driver’s license. It was his first one, expired long ago. His photo is hilarious and his signature is a boyish version of the one that Janie has seen around the house.

  And then Janie picks up the class ring. 1985 is engraved on one side, and LHS is on the other. There’s a tiny engraving of a runner below the letters. The ring is gold with a ruby stone and it’s beautiful. Janie imagines it on Henry’s finger, and then she goes back to the photographs and spies it there, on his right hand. Janie slips it on her own finger. It’s way too big. But it fits her thumb. She takes it off and puts it back in the box.

  Then picks it up again.

  Puts it on her thumb.

  Likes how it feels there.

  11:10 p.m.

  After going through everything but the letters once more, Janie finds the fol
ded-up piece of paper with words printed on it. Opens it.

  MORTON’S FORK

  1889, in ref. to John Morton (c.1420–1500), archbishop of Canterbury, who levied forced loans under Henry VII by arguing the obviously rich could afford to pay and the obviously poor were obviously living frugally and thus had savings and could pay too.

  Source: American Psychological Association (APA):

  morton’s fork. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/morton’s_fork

  Janie reads it again. Remembers the bookmark in the book, and the one online. Remembers what the note from Miss Stubin said, about Henry wanting Janie to consider Morton’s Fork.

  “Yeah, I get it already, Henry. You had a choice. I know.” She has considered it—about a million times. She’s known it since before she even knew Henry existed. Poor Henry didn’t have Miss Stubin’s green notebook. Didn’t even know the real choice. “I’m way ahead of you, man,” she says.

  Janie knows which choice sounds like the better one to her. Or she wouldn’t be here.

  She crumples up the paper and tosses it in the trash can.

  She gives a last glance at the letters. And lets them be.

  Turns out the light.

  Tosses and turns, knowing that tomorrow, she’s got a lot of hard explaining to do.

  6:11 a.m.

  She dreams.

  Henry stands on a giant rock in the middle of rapids at the top of waterfall.

  His hair turns into a hive of hornets. They buzz around angrily.

  If he falls in, the hornets might go away, but he’ll die falling down the waterfall.

  If he stays on the rock, he’ll be stung to death.

  Janie watches him. On one bank stands Death, his long black cloak unmoving in the breeze. On the other bank is old Martha Stubin in her wheelchair. Blind, gnarled.

  Henry flattens himself on the rock and tries to wash the hornets out of his hair. That only makes them furious. They begin to sting him, and he cries out, slapping at them, futile to stop them. Finally, he falls off the rock and soars over the waterfall. Plunging to his death.