Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Acknowledgments
Sample Chapter from CHEMISTRY LESSONS
Buy the Book
Find Your Story
Fall in Love with a Great Book!
About the Author
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Copyright © 2021 by Meredith Goldstein
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhbooks.com
“Little Words,” copyright 1928, renewed © 1956 by Dorothy Parker; and “Sanctuary,” copyright 1931, renewed © 1959 by Dorothy Parker; from The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, edited by Marion Meade. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration © 2021 by Maggie Enterrios
Cover design by Celeste Knudsen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
ISBN: 978-1-328-77010-3
eISBN 978-0-358-53180-7
v1.0221
For Jessica Douglas-Perez, who makes the best things bloom
Chapter 1
We’re the only two Jews—accompanied by one agnostic Christian—in Walsh’s Funeral Home, a very Irish Catholic business near Hoppy’s Liquor Store in Framingham.
My uncle Seth, my best friend, Chris, and I sit on one side of a stony gray conference table staring at the same horrendous thing: the massive crucifix hanging on the wall across from us.
“It’s frightening,” I whisper, because it is.
The cross, with Jesus pinned to it, has to be four feet tall and just as wide. Jesus’s miserable face looks like it’s made of porcelain. There are tiny cracks on his forehead, spreading like spiderwebs just under his thorny crown. Blood is coming from his eyes.
“Jeeeee-sus,” Uncle Seth says, his own face sour as he narrows his eyes to examine Jesus’s anguished expression.
“Indeed, it is,” I say.
“He could not look more . . . unpleasant,” Seth adds, waving his hand toward the sculpture.
“He’s having a very bad day,” I say, and Seth smirks at my understatement.
Seth’s graying black hair sticks up in all directions. My uncle is the coolest person in my family, now that Grandma Sheryl is dead. He usually looks New York sleek, like a distinguished man in an advertisement for a watch, but right now he’s red-eyed and messy, and so am I. I know from a recent trip to the funeral home bathroom that my cat eyeliner has spread across my face and is inching its way to my ears. I can smell my own armpits. There are hospital cafeteria blueberry muffin crumbs stuck between my teeth.
We’re doing the best we can. We just lost our matriarch, the best person in the world.
Chris shifts in his seat next to me. Our commentary about Jesus has made him uncomfortable. He taps his foot on the floor before he responds.
“They can’t make a crucifix where Jesus is, like, smiling,” he says, keeping his voice just above a whisper. “He’s literally dying on the cross.”
Chris, whose family helped found the new Black church off Route 9, isn’t sure what he believes anymore, but he knows the rules of Christianity and still tries to follow them when he can. He lives in the kind of house where you say grace before eating yogurt. He does not take the Lord’s name in vain.
His mother, Grace Burke, is a tall woman with flawless dark brown skin and the world’s highest cheekbones, which she passed down to her sons. She loves to remind me, like every few weeks, that Jesus was a Jew, and that when the “time comes” (by this, I like to assume, she means the alien apocalypse), I, too, will be saved. I tell her this is good to know.
Seth nods his acquiescence on the Jesus point but continues. “Okay, fine, he’s being crucified, it’s horrible, I get it, but who wants to look at this in a funeral home, of all places? It’s so bleak.”
“It’s exactly where Christian people want to look at something like this,” Chris—whose name is literally Christian—explains. “For somebody like my mom, a crucifix is a comfort. She believes it’s a reminder that Jesus died to save us.”
“I get that,” I volunteer, “but I don’t like that this particular Jesus has a body made of so many different materials. His face is clearly breakable, but his stomach is, like, plastic. His fingers are made of fabric. He’s . . . Franken-Jesus.”
Seth erupts, letting out an exhausted cackle. “Good line, Lor. You should write that down and use it for something.”
And with that—even on what is probably one of the worst days of my life—I am floating. I am a ray of light. I am a genius.
Uncle Seth has written two novels and teaches creative writing to college students at some of the best schools in New York. He doesn’t just throw out compliments, so when he likes my work, it makes me feel invincible. Like I can see my future. It looks a lot like his life, hopefully.
“Franken-Jesus,” I repeat as I text it to myself so I don’t forget.
“Let’s try to keep it down,” Chris says, noticing that people are walking by the door. “There are grieving families looking at coffins in the next room.”
It’s true. When we entered Walsh’s Funeral Home, the three of us huddled together as if we were embarking on a haunted house tour, we passed a room full of coffins, with sad-looking families perusing them in rows. Most of the coffins had brownish wood with a soft satin interior—but there was one shiny white one with silver trim that reminded me of the cheesy white limos some kids rent for prom. I imagined that it might have fluorescent lights inside. Maybe when you close the lid of the white party coffin, it plays EDM.
I grin, hearing the coffin beats in my head, but I keep that thought to myself. I don’t want to say anything else that will make Chris uncomfortable. There are crucifixes here, which means this is his world, not mine.
I take a closer look at him to see how he’s holding up, and I can’t help but notice his perfect ears. I would like to trace them with my finger.
I shake my head, as if the action will knock every forbidden thought I have about my best friend out of my system, and I focus on Uncle Seth instead. I can’t figure out how he is related to my mom, let alone that he is her twin brother. They look the same, I guess. They have curly dark hair that’s turning white at the same speed. They’re both compact and fit.
But they couldn’t be more opposite in every way that counts. Seth is hilarious and talented and dedicated to his one passion. He has the world’s most perfect relationship with his partner, the very dashing—and very British—Ethan. Seth travels the world and sends me a keychain from every place he visits.
Meanwhile, my mom is, as Grandma Sheryl used to say, still searching for her rudder. She goes from job to job, claiming that each one is her destiny. She is a life coach who pretty much reads only self-help books, and she preaches about them to everyone around her. She’s on her sixth boyfriend in five years, and goes all in with every single one of them.
She’s
so messy as a parent that she’s not even here right now. Her own mother died more than twenty-four hours ago, and somehow she’s still trying to figure out how she’ll get from Maryland to Massachusetts. It’s only eight hours away, and there are a zillion flights between Baltimore and Boston. Also, she has a car. This isn’t that difficult.
Seth reads my mind and tries to soothe my anger. “Five bucks says Becca arrives tonight. In a matter of hours,” he says, then tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear. He gives me a sad smile.
“Ten says we don’t even see her today,” I tell him. “It’s okay,” I add. “You’re doing a very good job.”
Seth exhales.
“I know you probably have a lot of questions right now about what happens next,” Seth says.
Chris’s foot starts tapping as fast as a rabbit’s. We both know this has been coming.
I’ve been living with Grandma Sheryl instead of with my mother since the start of high school. After Mom changed jobs and cities for the zillionth time, everyone agreed (albeit reluctantly, on my mom’s part) that living with Grandma would give me stability. Mom would visit on weekends when she could. Honestly, letting me go is the best decision she’s ever made.
But now, without Grandma Sheryl, where will I live? I have one more year left of high school, the most important one of all. I don’t want to leave this place that has become home.
Seth watches me panic. I’m doing the thing where I pull on my eyebrows.
“Don’t think about it now,” he says. “It’s not a question for today.” He tries to change the subject. “How did you get so tall? As of this visit, you could absolutely take me in a fight.”
I laugh because it’s true. I am five foot nine now, which makes me as tall as Chris and about an inch taller than my uncle. Four inches taller than my mom, his twin, and I look nothing like either of them.
I’m blond and so pale that sometimes you can see the veins in my forehead. Also, I am not an athlete. Grandma Sheryl always said I was “full-figured—like the statue of a goddess!” but all that means is I can’t go anywhere without a high-quality bra, and that if something is on a high shelf, I can usually reach it.
Based on what’s available on the internet, I know I look more like my father, who works in sales, lives in Florida, and recently ran a 5K to benefit a colitis foundation. Good for him.
The door to the room swings open all the way, and the man who enters must be Mr. Walsh.
The owner of Walsh’s Funeral Home looks exactly the way I thought he would, based on our phone call: pasty white skin, dull white hair, an ill-fitting suit, a chin that blends into his neck. He wears a shamrock pin on his lapel.
“You must be the Seltzers,” he says, wearing a sympathetic smile that must be plastered on his face all day in this kind of job. “Can I get anyone anything? Water? We have some individually wrapped bags of pretzels.”
“No, thank you,” Uncle Seth says. “I’m Seth Seltzer. This is my niece, Lori, and her friend, Chris.”
Mr. Walsh shakes our hands, his eyes stopping at my purplish hair, which is in a messy bun. I did not intend to dye my hair purple, but what was “russet red” on the box turned out to be eggplant on me. The color won’t wash out, and now my roots are coming in light blond again. Just a few hours before she died, Grandma Sheryl said that my head was beginning to remind her of a blackberry ice cream cone. That made me kind of like it.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Lori,” Mr. Walsh says, giving me the warmest smile and then turning to Seth. “I had such a lovely talk with your niece on the phone. It sounds like her grandmother—your mother—was a wonderful woman.”
“She was,” Seth says, his voice cracking.
“It also sounds like she was a voracious reader with quite a green thumb!” Mr. Walsh adds.
Seth looks too heartbroken to confirm this. He’s barely nodding, so I come to his rescue.
“She was a retired English teacher who liked to garden,” I say. “After she retired, it was all books and plants.”
“Well, those are two wonderful things,” Mr. Walsh responds.
He takes the seat across from us at the table, his body obscuring Jesus’s so it now looks like he’s the one on the crucifix. He places a laminated spiral notebook on the table, and it reminds me of a Cheesecake Factory menu. On the cover it says AFTERLIFE in all capital letters over a picture of a harp.
The harp is surrounded by shamrocks.
“You guys really like shamrocks,” I say, and Seth bites his lip, trying not to laugh.
“Sorry,” I add to Mr. Walsh, knowing that he probably thinks I’m making fun of him. I truly was just noticing that they do really like shamrocks here. The sign out front has a shamrock in place of the apostrophe in Walsh’s.
Sometimes I sound sarcastic when I don’t mean to be.
“This catalogue outlines our array of services,” Mr. Walsh says after a nod, and he opens the binder to the second page, where there’s a cheesy cartoon drawing of an old man rowing a boat by himself.
Chris and I make eye contact as soon as we see it, and I can tell that he wants to redraw the picture on the spot. He’s the best artist I know, and he illustrates everything I write. Our thing is fantasy and sci-fi, and we’re the cofounders and editors of the N-Files, a short-story journal that comes out four times a year. We write our own stuff and accept submissions from other students.
Chris says he draws my ideas, but often it’s the other way around. I’ll come up with some story about sentient robots, or a population of superintelligent gnomes who spend their days undoing stupid decisions made by humans, but his illustrations wind up being so good that I end up rewriting the whole thing to match his vision. It’s our process.
My best friend could make major improvements to the drawing of this man in the catalogue rowing himself into the afterlife. I can see Chris mapping out the work in his head, his eyebrows moving up and down with every new idea. His long fingers twitch, as if he’s trying to stop himself from reaching for the pen I know is in his backpack. His self-restraint is adorable.
I am so horribly in love with Chris that I want to crawl into a coffin.
As if he’s reading my mind, Mr. Walsh flips to the next page in the binder, which shows dozens of photographs of coffins, most of which are similar to the ones we saw in the front room of the funeral home. Each image has a price next to it—most of the coffins are $1,500 or more—and I silently thank Grandma Sheryl for bypassing this option. It seems like a waste, and it would stress me out to have to choose one of these boxes.
With another flip we’re at a page that has pictures of white doves. Living, breathing, flying doves. Apparently you can have “doves of peace” released at your loved one’s funeral.
One of the images shows a white middle-aged blond woman with a sensible haircut who is standing in a cemetery in the middle of a bunch of tombstones. She’s holding her hands open, and two doves are flying right out of them. She looks delighted by the experience; she’s actually beaming. I imagine her exclaiming, “My spouse is dead! But look at these fucking birds!”
My eyes go wide at the price next to the picture.
“Um—is it eight hundred dollars per dove, or does that money cover, like, multiple doves?” I ask, and Seth swallows a laugh. He thinks I’m just messing around, but a small part of me is desperate to release some doves in Grandma Sheryl’s honor.
“Usually there are two for that price,” Mr. Walsh says without looking up.
He knows we’re not here to spend $800 on doves. He knows we’re not even going to have a funeral.
“You said you plan to scatter Sheryl’s remains?” he asks, trying to move this along.
We all nod.
“Well, like I said on the phone, Miss Seltzer, we can help you with that.” Mr. Walsh smiles at me reassuringly. “Let me tell you how cremation works.”
Chapter 2
This all started a week ago when Grandma Sheryl had some chest pains, which turned out t
o be a mild heart attack. Not the biggest deal, a nurse assured me, even though it sounded very scary. People have mild heart attacks and are just fine, she said. Now we could monitor her. It was better to know there was a problem.
Seth took a train from New York City to our Massachusetts suburb as soon as it happened, and the minute he got there, things felt manageable. Grandma needed to be in the hospital for a few days, so he took over at home. We went to Whole Foods and bought all these fancy groceries Grandma and I would never have had in the house. At night, after spending time with Grandma in the hospital all day, Seth and I watched TV and talked about our writing.
I felt terrible that Grandma was in the hospital, but having Seth in the house, all to myself, made the whole thing feel like one big sleepover party. In pajamas, over a plate of mochi ice cream, he told me he was ready to write his third book. I asked for details, but he said it was too early to talk about it.
“I’d like to write something literary . . . but more commercial, you know?” he told me just a few nights ago after he’d had a glass of wine.
I didn’t know what he meant, but I wanted him to keep talking to me as if I were one of his writer friends, so I nodded.
My mom did offer to come up, but I told her that we had it under control. I was annoyed because she seemed relieved to be off the hook.
“Please let me know if anything changes,” she said. “Seth promised he’d keep me posted. Make sure he does.”
“Okay, Mom,” I’d said.
Grandma was getting better by the day, becoming less sluggish and more of her usual feisty self. And then she was moved out of the ICU into a regular hospital room, which made things feel less urgent.
Seth even booked his train ticket back to New York. He planned to leave a few days after Grandma came home. Everything would be back to normal just in time for me to start senior year.
But then, twelve hours before she was supposed to be released, Grandma had gone into cardiac arrest and died. It happened just after two a.m. on Friday. Which I guess is technically still today. What a blur.
Things That Grow Page 1
