*
Marcus had arranged a grand total of one funeral previously—his mother’s. She had stage-managed his father’s and as the only child, Ruth Handler’s burial fell on him. It was a thin affair. She had outlived almost all her friends. A smattering of nursing-home residents and staff attended and the service was conducted by a young rabbi who had never met her.
Alice’s funeral would have to be on an entirely different plane. She had an abundance of friends and colleagues stretched across the publishing industry and the local community. She also had a spiritual life that operated wholly separately from his. He was a non-observant Jew from South Philadelphia. She was a practicing Lutheran from Maryland. The last time he was in a Jewish temple was for his mother’s service. Alice had always been a regular churchgoer. Her involvement with her Lutheran church in Bonn had been the single factor making her posting in Germany tolerable. Now, closeted in their house in Reston, her friends rang the doorbell, bearing food and trading stories, occasionally telling him things about her that he had not known.
At the funeral home, the funeral director asked if he wanted some time alone with the open casket before the general viewings began. He knew the question was coming, but he continued to agonize right up to the second he said yes. In anticipation of the turnout, the room was the largest in the home and it swallowed up the polished casket. The black-suited man lifted the lid and gave her corpse a practiced stare while Marcus acclimated to the sight. She looked emaciated. Had his memory failed him or had she lost a great deal more weight in the past month? He wondered if the dress he chose was appropriate. She had worn it to summer parties, but it wasn’t summer now, was it? It would have been better if he had subcontracted those kinds of decisions to Alice’s sister, but he and Janie had gotten into a shouting match on his first day back. Her hairstyle was way off—she’d never had a central part—and it dawned on him that he’d neglected to send a photo to the funeral director. He wanted to touch her, but he couldn’t decide where. His hand hovered until two fingers, seemingly involuntarily, settled on her hard, cool cheek. He withdrew them in haste.
“What do you think?” the funeral director asked.
“About what?”
“How she looks.”
“She looks dead.”
“Ah, yes, indeed.” After an awkward pause he continued, “I’ll just make sure the preparations for your guests are complete. How long would you like with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll come back in five minutes. How would that be?”
He felt like he was lording over her, so he pulled up a chair from the front row, engaged her at eye level, and tried to control his fury. There was a lot to be angry about, but death itself was top of mind. What a ridiculous concept it was. You go through all the turmoil and strife to make your way in life, you survive the indignities of childhood and adolescence, you struggle through the challenges of being a productive member of society, you spin a web of relationships, and then this: you end up as a cold, inanimate slab of tissue. Alice may have believed differently, but as far as he was concerned, this was the end of the line. No soul escaping to parts unknown, no continuity, no life after, only a grand nothingness.
Then, his anger turned inward. For him, it was the apex of silliness to talk to the dead as many did, but for his own sanity, he had things to say. He started by thinking the words, but when that proved too amorphous, he opened his mouth and spoke.
“Look, I made so many mistakes that I’ve lost count. The biggest was the last one. That’s the one I’m going to have to live with. I should have been there for you. You were an exceptional woman. I wasn’t worthy. I’m sorry.”
The night before the funeral service, he got very drunk, and he dealt with the aftermath the next morning by pouring a hit into his coffee. The sanctuary at the Lutheran church in Reston was packed to the gills. He recognized maybe ten percent. As people streamed in, Alice’s boss, the executive editor of her publishing company, sidled up to him and asked if he recognized this person or that who were coming in. Apparently, some famous authors had come to pay their respects, but Marcus hadn’t heard of any of them. Janie and her husband, their children, and some of Alice’s cousins from back home populated the front row. They must have all been well prepped by Janie, because they all gave him stink eyes.
The pastor, a nice enough gentleman who knew Alice well, had conferred with Marcus earlier and had told him that in the Lutheran faith, eulogies were permitted, though not required. If Marcus liked, he would include elements of a eulogy in his sermon. It was a tempting dodge, but Marcus decided to man up and take it upon himself. When Janie found out, she was apoplectic, figuring it would be one last indignation to let the scoundrel do the honors, but there was nothing she could do.
When the time came, he climbed to the chancel and grasped the edges of the altar for stability. His head was throbbing and he was momentarily distracted by the dark red electric candle by the altar, suspended within his sightline. It was a reminder of God’s eternal presence and meant to be comforting, but in his state of mind, it struck him as a threat.
He looked down to her coffin and said, “Alice Carpenter Handler was the best person I
