She thought of her children’s reactions and braced herself for their questions, their resistance to her request that they all assemble in Westchester for the unveiling of the mosaic. There would be excuses, protests. Their children’s schedules, the pressure of their work, logistic difficulties. She anticipated their objections, summoned her own gentle arguments and sat down at the phone, a gin-and-tonic in hand, although the glass remained full as she spoke to Lisa. She did not take even a sip when she spoke first to Denis and then to Peter. In the morning, after her conversation with Sarah, she carried it into the kitchen and poured it into the sink before returning to her studio to begin the grouting, still surprised by her children’s swift quiescence, the unanimity of their response. They had agreed at once to the date she had set, to the tentative ceremony she proposed.
“Of course we want to be there when you unveil that mosaic,” each of them had said in turn. “June is fine,” they each assured her. School would be over, summer not yet begun. It gave them enough time to arrange their schedules, to make plans. No problem.
She sighed in relief. Her apprehension had been premature. She had, she observed to herself ruefully as she mixed the grout, once more misjudged her sons and daughters. She had learned a great deal since Neil’s death but clearly not enough.
The brothers and sisters talked to each other, placing their calls late in the evening when children were sleeping. They spoke in the cadences of their shared childhoods, their voices confident and then uncertain, briefly strident with half-remembered rivalries and then gentler as they realized that all sibling competitions were over. They were grown men and women. Their father was dead and their mother, they each knew, was about to tell them how she intended to live out the rest of her life.
“She changed so much this year,” Lisa said to Sarah, glancing at the clock.
It was twilight in Israel where her Sarah was nursing Noam. She smiled down at her son, delighting anew in his name…Noam meant pleasantness. The name had suited their father, as it surely would suit his grandson.
It was morning in Philadelphia where Genia sat on Lisa’s lap and toyed with the phone cord while David shaved. Always the happy intimacy of such moments startled her and always she thought of how she owed them to her mother. What if Elaine had not called David? The thought caused her to shiver.
“No,” Sarah disagreed. “I don’t think she changed. I think she became who she always was.”
Lisa puzzled over her sister’s words, pressed her cheek to Genia’s head, inhaled the sweetness of her daughter’s newly washed hair.
“What do you think she’s decided?” Sarah asked.
“What do you think?”
They were on familiar turf now, playing the odds, offering each other alternatives but never relinquishing their claims, their familiar girlhood jousting effortlessly resumed.
“She worked so well while she was staying with us,” Sarah said. “And she enjoyed the children and the landscape so much. I think she found a kind of peace here. It wouldn’t surprise me if she decided to settle in Jerusalem.”
“Can you see her accepting your kind of orthodoxy?” Lisa’s voice was harsher than she intended.
“She wouldn’t live in our community, of course,” Sarah admitted. She did not tell her sister of Elaine’s outburst at the seder table, of her own recognition that the beliefs she and Moshe shared would be forever alien to her mother. But now, at last, they understood each other, understood and acknowledged even that which they could not accept.
“But nearby, perhaps. Nearby. People live on many different levels in Israel.” Her voice trailed off into a wistfulness that both saddened and irritated Lisa.
“Actually, I have the feeling she might opt for somewhere not too far from Philadelphia, close to us and close enough to New York so that she could pop over to the museums, to Mimi’s gallery, to have lunch with Serena. She has a special bond with Genia,” Lisa said carefully.
“As she does with Leora,” Sarah retorted. “Uh-oh, we’re doing it again,” she said. “Playing who does Mommy love best?”
“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” Lisa agreed and the sisters laughed, ease restored, doubts still unresolved.
Denis and Peter talked, the long-legged brothers restlessly roaming their homes as they spoke, shifting their cell phones from ear to ear, Denis filling a wineglass, Peter activating and then deactivating his e-mail.
“Mom loved New Mexico,” Denis said. “She fit in so easily with the artist community here. And the climate’s terrific for her.”
“You know she and Lauren really bonded during her stay here,” Peter countered. “And Lauren thinks she kind of has something going with Herb—you know, Lauren’s dad.”
Denis was silent for a moment.
“Yeah. I remember. He came to the gallery opening in Santa Fe. A great guy.”
“They’re good together,” Peter said. “Not that anyone could ever replace Dad for her. But you know—they share the same grandchildren—”
“You win on that score. Andrew and I have no children to use as bargaining chips.” Denis’s voice was caustic.
“Hey, Denis—I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“I know. Sorry. I’m too sensitive.”
Regret in one tone, resentment in the other. An uneasy hang-up and a quick call back.
“Look, whatever she decides, we’ll be happy for her,” Denis said. “The way she’s happy for us—whatever we decide.”
“Maybe she hasn’t decided anything at all.” But Peter’s voice was doubtful and Denis remained silent.
Of course, their mother had come to a decision. A letter from her real estate broker lay on his desk. A fair price had been set for the house and there was considerable interest in the property.
The brothers talked to their sisters. The sisters to their husbands. Denis talked to Andrew. Their speculations intensified. They asked cautious questions, knowing that there were no answers to be had.
Sarah dreamed of her childhood in their sprawling home and awakened weeping because the garden was stripped bare of all flowers, her mother’s herb beds disintegrated into dust. The children of strangers slept in the room she and Lisa had shared, a man and a woman whom she did not recognize sat in her parents’ chairs at either side of the fireplace.
Lisa made dinner for David, preparing a cassoulet her mother had always cooked only for their father but when Genia wakened, she carried the child into the dining room and Genia sat on her lap as they ate. She would not replicate those intimate dinners her parents had shared. She thought of the candles that had flickered gently on a table set for two, of the scent of new-cut flowers in the pale blue bowl her mother had crafted.
“Too many memories in that house,” she told David.
“Memories move with you,” David replied gently. “Especially the good ones.”
Peter and Lauren invited Herb Glasser to join them on their trip to New York. A calculated invitation which did not surprise him.
“Actually, I’ve thought about it but I want to run it past Elaine,” he said.
A day later he told them that Elaine had thought it was an excellent idea and Peter and Lauren glanced at each other and nodded, pleased that their hesitant complicity had prevailed.
Denis spoke to Andrew about the hikes he and his father had taken on wintry days and of how they had returned home to the welcoming warmth of the softly lit living room where a low fire blazed and his mother sat listening to music. What would happen to those two chairs that faced each other when the house was sold? he wondered and Andrew smiled indulgently.
“Perhaps we’ll inherit them, you and I,” he teased.
“I want those chairs,” he said and the solemnity of his own tone surprised him.
By early June the work on the mosaic was completed. It would be installed in the portico of the new hospice wing of the hospital and Elaine accompanied Jack Newnham there one afternoon. They stood in silence, inhaling the aroma of the early blooming li
lacs in the small Japanese garden that rimmed the newly constructed annex. She saw that sunlight sprayed the wall, bathing it in a gossamer radiance. If the mosaic was properly angled, those rays would burnish her enamel tiles and dance across the subtle glazes.
“We’re planning to put a stone bench just opposite the mosaic,” Jack said. “We’d like visitors to take a few minutes to sit there and study it, to understand it.”
She nodded. She had, since the idea seized her and throughout the long months of working on it, seen her mosaic as a tribute to life, to Neil’s life, a visual message of continuity. Perhaps it would bring comfort to those heart-sick visitors to the dying to know that lives were remembered, that vanished days were treasured, that families survived sorrow and loss and emerged into new seasons of joy and togetherness. She thought with pleasure of the circular tile she had fashioned with a microstylus for the center of the mosaic—Neil’s grandchildren gathered in a circle, the older children surrounding Noam and Genia, the grandson and granddaughter welcomed to the family after his death.
“Thank you for giving me such a meaningful location for the memorial mural,” Elaine told Jack Newnham. “He loved this hospital. He loved being a doctor.”
“We miss him, you know,” he said softly. “We miss you, too.”
“But I’m here,” she reminded him gently and took his hand in her own. “And, in a way, so is Neil.”
Days later, she supervised the workmen who carefully cemented the mosaic into place. She herself affixed the small bronze plaque, its simple calligraphy of her own hand, its message lifted from her heart. In Memory of Neil Gordon: Healer of Souls. Beloved Husband. Cherished Father and Grandfather. The Bonds of Love Are Stronger Than Death.
She hurried home then. Her family would be arriving within a few days. There were arrangements to be made, borrowed futons and camp beds to be set up in the finished basement where the older children would sleep. Her grandchildren, the cousins plucked from their Jerusalem and California homes thrust into sharing and thus, she hoped, into friendship. She anticipated their awkwardness with each other. She prayed for their laughter. A neighbor lent her a crib for Noam and a trundle bed for Genia was set up in David and Lisa’s room. Lisa had suggested that her family could go to a neighboring hotel but Elaine had been insistent that everyone stay in the house.
“It’s important to me,” she had said and they had not argued.
She drove back and forth to the artisan bakery, the organic farm, the butcher, the supermarket. For the first time in a year and half her refrigerator and freezer would be fully stocked. She looked with pleasure at the overflowing shelves and with even greater pleasure she began to cook, juggling her oversize pots, her huge casserole dishes, her food processor whirring as both her ovens slowly warmed and the fragrance of a spice-infused, simmering soup wafted through the room. She thought, wistfully, but without real regret, that she had always loved this kitchen.
And then her children arrived, family by family drifting in throughout the day. The tensions of their journeys, the apprehensiveness they had shared over the weeks, melted in the joy of their reunion. Sisters and brothers embraced. Peter threw his arms about Andrew’s shoulders. Lisa cuddled Noam and when Genia, bewildered by the sudden rush of talk and laughter, burst into tears, Moshe wiped her eyes and spoke to her with great gentleness. Elaine showed Herb Glasser who had, after all, insisted upon staying at a hotel, around the house. He lingered in her studio and quickly left Neil’s study. When they returned to the living room he carefully avoided Neil’s chair but sat beside Lauren on the sofa.
Elaine rushed about, offering drinks, setting out platters of sandwiches, huge bowls of salad.
“The big dinner, the real dinner, will be tomorrow evening,” she told them. “After.”
After. The word hung heavily in the air. After the dedication of the mosaic. After she had told them of her decision.
They asked no questions. Tomorrow would come soon enough. For now, they were safe in the home of their childhood, all of them together, bonded by memory and their shared history. They smiled as the older children played the board games that had been theirs. There were still two deeds missing from the Monopoly game and they laughed at the substitute cards their father had fashioned. Colonel Mustard had vanished from the Clue box during a quarrel on a wintry afternoon and Elaine had crafted a new game piece, a twisted yellow bit of ceramic. They tried to remember the quarrel. Someone had cheated but they could not remember who.
“Denis,” Andrew guessed. “Now and then he cheats at Scrabble.”
“Only at desperate moments,” Denis rejoined and they all laughed.
Elaine, seated in the kitchen opposite Herb Glasser, delighted in the sound of their laughter and then, almost immediately was seized by a spasm of sadness that caused her hands to tremble, her eyes to fill.
Herb refilled her coffee cup.
“It comes and goes,” he said softly. “You think you are fine, that you are reconciled and then suddenly it hits you.”
She nodded, grateful for his gentle recognition of her pain. He was a man who understood loss, a man who grieved still for a beloved wife, who dreamed still of a cherished son whose boyhood had ended in death.
“I am fine,” she said. “I am reconciled. Most of the time.”
“Most of the time is pretty good. It took me a long time to get to ‘most of the time.’ But you should get some rest. Tomorrow will be a difficult day.”
“And tomorrow evening even more difficult.”
Together, they rose from the table. Briefly, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She lifted her face to his and briefly, gently, his lips brushed hers and his fingers threaded their way through the tangled thickness of her silver-spattered hair.
She remained in the kitchen as he said goodbye.
“Drive carefully, Dad,” she heard Peter say and it occurred to her that Peter had never called Lauren’s father “Dad” while Neil was alive.
“Don’t worry,” Herb replied. “I don’t want you kids worrying about me.”
Elaine smiled. Neil would have liked Herb Glasser.
It had been Jack Newnham’s suggestion that the dedication ceremony be held in the late afternoon.
“There will be people who want to come after their shifts are over,” he had explained. “Hospital staff. Nurses. Other doctors.”
Reluctantly, she had agreed. Initially she had wanted to invite only family and close friends, but Neil had belonged to a community of colleagues, men and women who had worked with him for many years. They had shared his hopes and ideas and they, too, felt his loss. She had supposed that some few of them would scavenge time from their busy schedules for the brief ceremony but she was unprepared for the small crowd that awaited them when they arrived at the hospital.
“So many people,” she murmured to Lisa.
“A lot of people loved Dad,” Lisa said softly.
“Let me fix your scarf.”
Deftly Sarah adjusted the folds of the long paisley scarf that draped her mother’s simple black dress and Lisa tucked a vagrant silver tendril into one of the tortoiseshell combs that held Elaine’s thick hair back from her face. Elaine smiled. How swiftly adult daughters assumed maternal gestures, offered affection with touch and tone, roles reversed. It would be easy, she thought, to spend the rest of her life submitting to their ministrations.
“Elaine.”
Lizzie Simmons, Neil’s longtime secretary, embraced her.
“Lizzie. How wonderful of you to come.”
“How could I not have come?” Lizzie asked and rejoined the small group of nurses, some still wearing the soothing pale green uniforms that Neil had introduced to the psychiatric floor. “Color counts,” he had said. He was, after all, an artist’s husband.
As though by tacit agreement, Neil’s family assembled on the left, his children’s hands linked, his older grandchildren smiling shyly, struggling against the impulse to dash across the lawn of the Japanese garden and lift
their faces to the gentle spring wind. His colleagues gathered on the right in uneasy groupings, their faces solemn, their voices low, their smiles of greeting hesitant. Friends from the neighborhood and the synagogue drifted in. The rabbi who had officiated at Neil’s funeral stood alone and briefly Elaine wondered if she should have asked him to speak and was immediately glad that she had not. This was not, after all, a memorial service. This was a celebration of Neil’s life.
Serena and Mimi Armstrong arrived together, both of them wearing dresses of lemon-yellow linen, a coincidence which caused Elaine to smile in spite of herself. They stood beside the two grave-eyed men and the three women, one young, the other two middle-aged, who averted their eyes from her glance. She did not recognize them but she knew, intuitively, that they had been Neil’s patients, men and women whose confidences he had kept, who had felt his kindness, benefited from his wisdom and had come to honor his memory. She smiled at them and they nodded, a silent mutuality of recognition.
At last Jack Newnham approached her, offered her his arm and they walked to wall of the portico where a gauze-like veil had been draped over the mosaic. Leora and Renée, wearing identical white dresses and pink sandals, trailed after them, each holding a pink carnation. They smiled shyly. Neil’s granddaughters from afar who would long remember his gentle affection and an afternoon saturated with sunlight and memories.
Jack spoke briefly.
“Neil Gordon was our friend and our colleague,” he said. “In life his presence was felt in so many areas of this hospital where he initiated a cutting-edge program of psychiatric intervention. He left us a remarkable legacy of compassion and kindness. And now Elaine, his wife, with her wisdom and talent, insures that his presence in these precincts of healing will endure. She has gifted us with a visual tribute to Dr. Neil Gordon’s wonderful and useful life.”
Open Doors Page 36
