All that talking wore her out and she sank back on the pillows. I kissed her hand and said not to worry about me, that I was getting married to a wonderful man. I asked if she remembered Aaron and she squeezed my fingers.
I said how happy I was to talk to her like this and that I wished I had tried to explain myself to her before.
She shook her head and whispered, “I thought I had lost you, but here you are, just like my mother, your grandmother. You have her golden hands, goldene hentz, like an angel with a needle and thread.
“I was wrong to make you go. I chased you and beat you to force you, even when you were telling me you would die if I sent you away.
“I thought he would keep you safe and that Bronia would look out for you but you knew better. You knew this country would kill you. I am sorry, little Sima. My poor, poor Simmaleh.”
She sighed. Her breath slowed. When she fell asleep I let it sink in.
I had waited my whole life to hear her say those things. That she was sorry. That I was a good girl. And pretty and sweet. But it was all for Celia: the tenderness, the apology, the love. She didn’t even know I was there.
I was too sad to cry.
—
It was late when Betty came back from the party. She turned on the light and asked why I was sitting in the dark. “Did she sleep all day?”
I said yes and that I was going for a walk. I ne
eded some fresh air.
It was a beautiful, clear evening. The snow had stopped and the moon made everything look silver. I was walking a long time before I realized that I was going to Aaron’s house. From Roxbury to Brookline is a long way, five miles at least, and I took a few wrong turns on the way. It was so late by the time I got there, his house was dark except for one light in the living room. They never locked the door, so I just walked in. Aaron almost fell out of the chair.
I said, “Don’t ask. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
| 1927 |
All I felt was pain.
My mother died a few weeks later. Levine took care of the funeral the same way he took care of most things—without anyone asking him and without much in the way of thanks.
I had been to the cemetery when Myron and Lenny died, but burying Mameh was a completely different experience, like night and day. Even getting there wasn’t the same. The roads were better, so we got there in no time, and instead of three mourners, there were twenty people and a whole line of cars behind the hearse.
The biggest difference was how “normal” it seemed. Mameh was sixty-five, which wasn’t so young in 1927. Nobody was shocked. She had been sick and died at home in her own bed, so it was sad but nothing like the tragedy it had been with Celia, or Myron and Lenny.
Only Papa and Levine had been there for Celia’s funeral. That was probably because we didn’t know many people back then, but maybe it had something to do with how she died. There was so much guilt mixed in with the grief. And how do you explain a healthy young woman dying from a slip of a kitchen knife?
With the flu epidemic, everyone was afraid, and walking into a cemetery seemed like tempting fate. I went to the boys’ funeral to stand in for Betty and it’s a good thing she didn’t come. The idea of her seeing those little coffins was so awful. Just remembering it still makes me feel like crying.
Before the service for Mameh, I went to look at their graves and tried to think of my sister and nephews when they were young and healthy, but all I could remember was the blood on Celia’s hands and the look on Betty’s face when they took away her little boys. Standing by those gravestones, I didn’t get any comfort or what you’d call “closure” today. All I felt was pain.
One thing hadn’t changed: the cemetery was just as bleak as I remembered. The trees had grown and they had planted bushes, but it was January and hard to believe that anything would ever be green again.
I started to shiver when the service began. There wasn’t any wind and nobody else seemed bothered by the cold, but I could hear my teeth chattering. I had to lock my knees to keep from wobbling, and if Aaron hadn’t put his arm around me, I might have keeled over, honest to God. At least Jewish funerals are short.
When they lowered the coffin into the ground, I remember thinking, She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.
But when the first clump of dirt hit the coffin, I realized that I would never stop wanting my mother to tell me that I was all right and that’s when I started to cry.
Life is more important than death.
After we sat shiva, Papa told Betty and me that we were official mourners for a whole year, which meant we were supposed to stay away from celebrations and music or entertainment of any kind. So no parties, no going to the symphony, not even a movie.
After the first month, Betty stopped paying attention to the rules. If her boys wanted to see the new Our Gang movie, she took them and stayed to watch. “You think I’m going to leave them in a dark theater all by themselves?”
I felt like I was living “in the meantime” and I actually didn’t mind being quiet. Papa and I ate suppers upstairs with Betty and her family, then he would go to the synagogue and I usually went to my room to read. It was sort of like living in the boardinghouse.