in New York.”
Daniel said, “What do you want to do, Iris? There’s a synagogue in Bangor, so there must be a Jewish cemetery. We could bury her there. Or we could take her home.”
“First of all, when have you ever cared about Jewish law?” Iris said. “And second of all, we
are
home.” It didn’t matter that her own mother was born in the same hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue where Iris showed up twenty-nine years later. It didn’t matter that, except for her four years as an undergraduate at Swarthmore, and the two she spent at Oxford getting her master’s degree, Iris had spent her entire life living in the same twenty blocks of Manhattan, first in a modest two-bedroom apartment with an extravagant view of Central Park, then with Daniel on West 78th Street, and finally, for the past twenty years, in a spacious apartment on the Columbia faculty’s Gold Coast, Riverside Drive. Iris knew that to most people she seemed like a quintessential New Yorker: a Jew, and a professor of comparative literature with an acerbic wit and a short temper. Not, she knew, the typical biography of the Red Hook native. But Maine was her home, and that of her daughters, too, despite the fact that they’d been raised as city girls, Riverside Park their playground and their backyard, despite the fact that by the time they were in third grade, they knew the phone number for Empire Szechuan by heart.
“There are as many Hewinses in the Red Hook graveyard as there are Tetherlys or Stoddards. Becca belongs here,” Iris said. “Dad, don’t you think that would be better? We should bury Becca here.”
“I can’t say,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. “This is for you and Daniel to decide.”
The thought, unbidden, came to Iris that her father had not alwaysbeen so retiring when it came to decisions about Becca. It had been he, after all, who had given her permission to abandon her musical career, he who had said that Becca was correct in her assessment of her own abilities. “We’ll bury Becca here,” Iris said, firmly. “With my family, and with John. I don’t believe in that ‘consecrated land’ business. I’m sure the rabbi who did the wedding won’t mind if we bury her here, with her family.”
“Whatever you want,” Daniel said.
“That’s what I want,” Iris said. “We’ll have the funerals together. I’ll talk to Jane.”
Daniel asked, “Do you want me to come?”
This would be, Iris thought, the first time she and Jane would interact not as employer and employee, nor as mothers of the wedding couple, nor in the crazed fog of that first hour after the accident. This was the first moment of their new relationship. Was there a Yiddish word for this new relationship, she wondered bitterly. Did
machetunim
apply when the points of contact were dead?
“I’ll take care of it myself,” Iris said.
VI
At six o’clock in the morning on the second day after the accident, Jane unlocked the door to the Unitarian church and hesitated on the topmost step, steeling herself against what she knew awaited her inside. The wide oak door seemed heavier than usual as she put her shoulder to it, and for a moment she felt an unfamiliar and intolerable lassitude. Then she shook it off, set her jaw, and shoved the door open. As she had expected, the church had not been cleaned. In the past, at the behest of the sexton, the ladies of the congregation would have assumed that responsibility, but now those willing to carry out the chore were too old, and the younger women, while happy enough to arrange flowers for the pulpit on a Sunday, were less inclined to get on their knees and polish the wooden pews. The small congregation could no longer afford a sexton’s salary, and so instead had hired Jane’s cleaning service to maintain the church for a nominal fee. It was her job, and she saw nothing undue or surprising in the fact that today, of all days, no one had thought to relieve her of it.
She had forgotten about the
Daniel said, “What do you want to do, Iris? There’s a synagogue in Bangor, so there must be a Jewish cemetery. We could bury her there. Or we could take her home.”
“First of all, when have you ever cared about Jewish law?” Iris said. “And second of all, we
are
home.” It didn’t matter that her own mother was born in the same hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue where Iris showed up twenty-nine years later. It didn’t matter that, except for her four years as an undergraduate at Swarthmore, and the two she spent at Oxford getting her master’s degree, Iris had spent her entire life living in the same twenty blocks of Manhattan, first in a modest two-bedroom apartment with an extravagant view of Central Park, then with Daniel on West 78th Street, and finally, for the past twenty years, in a spacious apartment on the Columbia faculty’s Gold Coast, Riverside Drive. Iris knew that to most people she seemed like a quintessential New Yorker: a Jew, and a professor of comparative literature with an acerbic wit and a short temper. Not, she knew, the typical biography of the Red Hook native. But Maine was her home, and that of her daughters, too, despite the fact that they’d been raised as city girls, Riverside Park their playground and their backyard, despite the fact that by the time they were in third grade, they knew the phone number for Empire Szechuan by heart.
“There are as many Hewinses in the Red Hook graveyard as there are Tetherlys or Stoddards. Becca belongs here,” Iris said. “Dad, don’t you think that would be better? We should bury Becca here.”
“I can’t say,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. “This is for you and Daniel to decide.”
The thought, unbidden, came to Iris that her father had not alwaysbeen so retiring when it came to decisions about Becca. It had been he, after all, who had given her permission to abandon her musical career, he who had said that Becca was correct in her assessment of her own abilities. “We’ll bury Becca here,” Iris said, firmly. “With my family, and with John. I don’t believe in that ‘consecrated land’ business. I’m sure the rabbi who did the wedding won’t mind if we bury her here, with her family.”
“Whatever you want,” Daniel said.
“That’s what I want,” Iris said. “We’ll have the funerals together. I’ll talk to Jane.”
Daniel asked, “Do you want me to come?”
This would be, Iris thought, the first time she and Jane would interact not as employer and employee, nor as mothers of the wedding couple, nor in the crazed fog of that first hour after the accident. This was the first moment of their new relationship. Was there a Yiddish word for this new relationship, she wondered bitterly. Did
machetunim
apply when the points of contact were dead?
“I’ll take care of it myself,” Iris said.
VI
At six o’clock in the morning on the second day after the accident, Jane unlocked the door to the Unitarian church and hesitated on the topmost step, steeling herself against what she knew awaited her inside. The wide oak door seemed heavier than usual as she put her shoulder to it, and for a moment she felt an unfamiliar and intolerable lassitude. Then she shook it off, set her jaw, and shoved the door open. As she had expected, the church had not been cleaned. In the past, at the behest of the sexton, the ladies of the congregation would have assumed that responsibility, but now those willing to carry out the chore were too old, and the younger women, while happy enough to arrange flowers for the pulpit on a Sunday, were less inclined to get on their knees and polish the wooden pews. The small congregation could no longer afford a sexton’s salary, and so instead had hired Jane’s cleaning service to maintain the church for a nominal fee. It was her job, and she saw nothing undue or surprising in the fact that today, of all days, no one had thought to relieve her of it.
She had forgotten about the
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