The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg Page A

candy and I came home crying, and he went out for hours looking for some boy dressed as a skeleton. I remembered the first quilt show I had at a gallery, how he had come to the opening and walked up to everyone there, saying quietly, “Hi, how are you, I’m her father; she’s my daughter; isn’t she something?”
    My chest heaved and a whimpering sound escaped that under other circumstances might have embarrassed me. But now, I didn’t care about anything except the fact that my father had died and I had not been ready. I had not been done with him. I wanted him to come back for just half an hour, so I could say what I had saved up for another time. For later.
    I thought, There was a
tag
tied to his toe.
    I thought, His clothes were not folded and put on the shelf inside the metal locker, they were tossed onto the bottom of it, and his blue shirt was turned inside out.
    I thought, His glasses were on the otherwise empty nightstand, and his wallet was in the otherwise empty drawer, only I thought of it this way: His little glasses. His little wallet.
    I thought, He didn’t know, he had no idea, he was only trying to eat his tasteless hospital dinner thinking that tomorrow night he’d be home to watch television with my mother in the family room, his simple evening pleasure. And then his cup had fallen, and coffee had run from the side of his mouth, and despite everything they tried he was gone.
    I squeezed Pete’s hand tighter. I thought,
Don’t ever leave me, let me go first.
From the corner of my eye I saw the knees of my children. They were so old now, not really children anymore.
Stop that,
I wanted to tell them.
Hold still.

13
    AT MY PARENTS’—NOW MY MOTHER’S—HOUSE, THE living room was crowded with people who had come over after the funeral. I’d met so many strangers who knew my father, had talked to so many friends and relatives I’d known since I was a child, that I’d actually gotten hoarse. I went into the TV room, needing a break, and found Anthony sitting in my father’s leather recliner, his knee bouncing wildly.
    “Hi,” I said.
    “Hi.” He didn’t look at me. His knee slowed, stopped.
    I sat in my mother’s blue velvet club chair. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”
    He shrugged.
    “It’s hard, huh?” I said. “Hard to realize that one minute he was just—”
    “It’s not that!”
    “Oh.” I sat still, waiting.
    He looked at me, then quickly wiped a tear away. “It’s not that he died. People
die.
It’s
.

.

.

this.
I mean, I think it’s really gross, what’s going on out there. People just . . . chewing their dumb sandwiches and drinking and laughing. It’s not a party! How come nobody’s talking about Grandpa?”
    “Well, some people are. Here and there. Some people are. But I think I know how you feel. When Great-grandma died, there was a lunch in the church basement after her funeral, and I remember looking around, thinking, This could be anything
but
a funeral.”
    “Exactly.” He looked over at me. “A celebration for someone graduating high school or something. A birthday.”
    “Yes. But I see it differently. I think what this is, is people just needing to do something, to keep going and not be alone. You know? What if these people didn’t come back here? Then Grandma would be by herself. And she—”
    “She wouldn’t be alone! We’re here!”
    “Well, yes. We’re here now. But we aren’t going to be staying here. These people all live nearby.”
    The knee again. And then Anthony reached for the remote. “There’s a good baseball game on. Why don’t I just watch it?” He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Okay?”
    I didn’t know if he was serious or not. “I suppose you could.”
    “I don’t want to watch a game!”
    “You could, though, and there would be nothing wrong with it. People . . . they have to find their own ways. Everybody has a different method of coping with grief, and no one way is better than another. You might
need
to