I stood by the window to wait for Celia. I imagined the cop carrying her through the door but now her eyes would be open. Her hands would be covered with clean white bandages. Mameh would scold her for being so clumsy. Papa would take her face between his hands and kiss her forehead and I would become the sister that Celia deserved.
Celia wouldn’t have let me apologize for being late. She would have said, “An accident can happen anytime.” Nobody could forgive like Celia. She was the only person in my family who ever kissed me.
I closed my eyes and prayed, “Come home now, come home now.”
The afternoon dragged on and on. Jacob fell asleep on my bed. Myron went out to the stoop and no one tried to stop him. When it started to get dark, Papa turned on the light and stood in a corner with his prayer book while Mameh stared at the door, chewing her lips and wringing her hands. I heard the neighbors whispering on the landing, and as much as I wanted to go out there and chase them away, I was afraid to leave the window. I got it into my head that I had to stay there or Celia wouldn’t come home.
The chatter on the other side of the door stopped and Levine walked in, red-eyed and stooped, followed by Betty, who looked scared and lost, still carrying a cake box for Thanksgiving. Then the policeman who had taken Celia to the hospital came in. The front of his uniform was black with blood but his arms were empty.
He took off his hat and walked over to Papa. “Sir, I’m sorry to bring such terrible news. The doctor said your daughter lost too much blood and there was nothing they could do.”
“Sima!” Mameh fell on her knees. “My jewel!” she screamed. “She was like gold, that one. Pure gold.”
“I’m sorry,” said the policeman. “Maybe if I had gotten there sooner . . .”
“It was not your fault,” Papa said. “My daughter said how fast you were to help. I want to thank you.” Levine leaned his forehead against the wall and cried without making a sound. Betty held on to Papa.
I opened the door for the policeman, Michael Culkeen—I’ll never forget his name. He said, “Can I have a minute, miss?”
He led me past the neighbors and we walked down the block until there was no one to hear us. He took off his hat again and sighed. “I feel real bad about this, but I have to ask if you saw what happened with your own eyes. The doc says I have to make a report because of the way she had those cuts across her wrists. He said it would take a while for a person to bleed like that.”
I said it wouldn’t have happened at all if I’d gotten there earlier. I said my sister could sew the wings on a butterfly, but in the kitchen she was always cutting her fingers. I couldn’t stop talking; “She was the sweetest person you’d ever meet. This is all my fault.” I told him he should arrest me.
Officer Culkeen sighed and said, “Don’t you go blaming yourself.” He had kind blue eyes and an Irish lilt that reminded me of Rose. “It was you that gave her a fighting chance.” His next sigh turned into a groan. “I’ve been on the force just a year and I got to think it’s like the priest says: God wants the good ones with him. I shouldn’t have said anything. Your sister was such a little slip of a thing. Put me in mind of a cousin of mine,” he said. “You go back inside now. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
—
Celia was buried in a cemetery in someplace called Woburn—way outside the city. Levine made arrangements for the plot, the coffin, and a hearse. He paid for a car to take the family to the burial, too, but I stayed home with Myron and Jacob.
I couldn’t decide which was worse, watching them put Celia into the ground or not being there to see it. Either way, I was sure there was no punishment I didn’t deserve.
It wouldn’t have happened if I had been there.
That’s what I thought ab
out first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Celia would still be alive if I hadn’t been with that horrible man, if I hadn’t been such a fool.
It was my fault.
All week, neighbors and strangers walked in and out of the apartment. The men were quiet when they came for prayers before work and again in the evening. In between, women walked in and out with food and stayed to drink tea, wash dishes, and talk.
They never ran out of stupid things to say. All of them had a sister or a cousin who lost a child and never got over it. Mrs. Kampinsky had heard of a woman who dropped dead exactly one month after her son was hit by a car.
Mameh repeated the story of Celia’s accident again and again: the plans for a big meal, the knife that slipped, the policeman, the funeral in a terrible ugly place too far away to ever visit. Then she would burst into tears and scream “Ai, ai, ai,” and they would have to grab her hands to keep her from tearing her hair out. They said how sorry they were and then they raised their eyebrows behind her back. Whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.
On the last day of shiva, the men hung around afterward, eating and drinking, talking about layoffs, the price of coal, the weather—as if it didn’t make any difference that Celia was under the ground.
I hated them.
Betty and Levine took the boys for a walk and Mameh went to lie down on my bed late in the afternoon after the last cup was washed and put away. Papa fell asleep, sitting up on the sofa.
I stood at the window without seeing the color of the sky or the people on the street. Celia was dead and I had no right to think about anything else. I would keep her in my mind forever. I would stop going to Saturday Club and get a second job. I would give my parents every nickel like Celia used to. I would be a better person. I would be a different girl.
Someone knocked on the door.
Papa woke up. “It must be Gilman,” he said. “Addie, go tell him he’ll get his rent next week.”
But it wasn’t the landlord.