“Should I lay anything out for the seudat havra’ah?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Esther. “I told Rabbi Levy I didn’t want him to make any announcements to the congregation. No one will know to cook anything.”
Anna opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it, and shut it again.
When Esther instructed Anna to keep Gussie at home during the burial, Anna surprised her and pushed back, asking if she might attend instead. Esther hadn’t said a word in response, just looked at her long and hard. The girl had known Florence for, what, less than a week?
“Of course, I’ll stay with Gussie if you prefer,” said Anna, her eyes on the ground.
“Funerals are no place for children,” said Esther.
Rabbi Levy arrived promptly at two, bearing a pair of scissors and a spool of thick, black ribbon. Esther showed him into the living room, where he invited Joseph, Isaac, Anna, and even Gussie to stand. “We’ll perform the Kriah before we leave for the cemetery.”
Nobody argued.
“In the Torah, Jacob tore his robes when he thought his son Joseph was dead,” said the rabbi. “King David and his men did likewise when they heard about the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Job, who grieved for his children, followed in the same tradition.”
What Esther recalled about the story of Job was that his wife had gone crazy with grief over the loss of those children.
“It’s traditional for children, parents, spouses, and siblings to wear torn clothes during the week of Shiva. Since Fannie cannot participate in this rite, it would be appropriate for Isaac to bear this burden,” he said.
Isaac looked uncomfortable. Esther knew he had only the one jacket.
“Isaac will be back and forth to the hospital, visiting Fannie,” said Esther. “Let’s leave his jacket be.”
“Cut mine, please,” said Joseph, stepping forward.
Rabbi Levy took hold of Joseph’s lapel and cut a deep gouge in the thick fabric. As he did so, he sang, “Boruch ato Adonai Elohenu Melech Ho’olom dayan ha’emet.”
Scissors still in hand, the rabbi moved toward Esther.
“Not my clothes, please,” she said quietly. “I’ll take the ribbon.”
He pursed his lips in judgment but reached into his pocket to remove a small, brass safety pin. As he fastened the ribbon to her blouse, he sang the blessing once more.
Esther could feel Gussie studying her, so she was not surprised when she heard her granddaughter’s small voice: “Please may I have a ribbon, too?”
They made a small funeral party, Rabbi Levy at the wheel, Joseph beside him, and Esther and Isaac in the backseat of the rabbi’s Pontiac coupe.
The drive to Egg Harbor Township was one that Esther rarely made. Joseph’s trucks made deliveries in Pleasantville, Egg Harbor, and all the way to Cape May, but Esther rarely had reason to cross the Beach Thorofare.
When the car slowed on Black Horse Pike, Esther peered out her window and through the hemlocks that edged Beth Kehillah Cemetery. The property wasn’t large, maybe a dozen acres of land that Egg Harbor’s early Jewish settlers had consecrated when Absecon Island was little more than a railway depot with bathing houses for day-trippers from Philadelphia.
Two cars were parked near the entrance and beside them stood Abe and his son. And Stuart, who held a bouquet of flowers limp by his side, as if he’d purchased them and immediately regretted doing so. Such a goy, bringing flowers to a funeral. She tried to remind herself that he had no way to know.
Rabbi Levy pulled his car up behind Abe’s and cut the ignition. When they were all out, Abe opened the rear door of his own car, and Esther found herself confronted with Florence’s casket. She bit her lip and tasted blood.
“You’ll carry it?” Abe asked the four men. They looked at each other and nodded.
“Not him,” said Esther, pointing to Stuart.
Joseph’s eyes widened.
“What?” she asked in a slightly incredulous tone. “He’s not Jewish.”
“I hardly think it matters now,” Joseph sputtered, but not before Stuart took a large step backward and held up his hands, as if to say, No, of course not.
Neither Joseph nor Rabbi Levy was a young man, and it became obvious to Esther, some minutes later, as she watched them stumble under the weight of Florence’s casket, that Stuart might have been a useful pallbearer. At the graveside, the men lowered the casket onto the pulley system Abe had rigged across the open grave.
Rabbi Levy removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his brow. “With your permission, we’ll begin,” he said to Joseph, who looked at Esther for reassurance. She walked around the casket to the spot where her husband stood, took his hand, and nodded to Rabbi Levy, who began to read a familiar psalm. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Scattered across the cemetery were the grave markers of infants—small squares of stone, the word CHILD chiseled across their fronts. No names, no dates. More often than not, a small lamb, cut from the same stone, rested atop the tiny monuments. Esther supposed the lamb was a symbol of innocence but it also struck her that he might be good company for children who had never learned to sleep through the night.
She looked across Florence’s casket at the spot where Isaac stood. Did he notice the small markers? Wish for one for the baby he had lost? Fannie had pleaded for a burial for the child, had wanted a
