“What’s up?” he asked in a low voice, after we’d excused our way past several old women wearing head scarves and dour expressions. We settled into a pew with the children. “You don’t want to sit with them?”
“Might get too rowdy with the k-i-d-s,” I said, only to have Aubrey proclaim, “K-I-D-S. Kids!” She looked at both of us with a beaming smile.
“Yes, kids, very good, sweetheart,” Brian said.
“Julie, hi!” I heard a stage whisper and I turned to see my neighbor, Christine Connelly, slide into the pew next to me. “Whew, I’m glad I made it—I almost didn’t find the place,” she said, breathing hard and fanning herself with a program. “This is some church, isn’t it?”
I nodded, trying to offer a welcoming smile, while regretting not choosing the seats next to Sarah and Eric. Christine sidled closer on the pew, giving me an expectant look while tucking strands of graying hair behind her ears as if desperate not to miss a word of the conversation I didn’t want to have.
“I didn’t realize you knew the Lysenkos,” I said.
“Oh, I know everybody in Sewickley,” she said, waving a little hand airily, before adding in a lower tone, “Or I know of them.” She gave me a conspiratorial look. What did it mean?
Christine always made me feel off-balance. Before I could think of a way to ask what that meant, she said, “I see you brought the kids—you don’t think all this talk about the d-e-a-d is too much for them?”
“D-E-A-D. Deed!” Aubrey proclaimed.
Before I could stop her, Christine said, “Close, sweetie, but that spells ‘dead.’”
Brian and I exchanged a look as Aubrey’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to ask something, but Christine got her question in first, for once saying the right thing. “How old are you now?”
Aubrey ducked her head shyly against her father, but held up one of her chubby little hands like a starfish, fingers splayed.
“Five?”
“Yes!” Aubrey flashed a quick smile. “But on my next birthday, I will be this many.” She held up the index finger of her left hand next to the starfish.
“My goodness, six years old!” Christine said, and then to me, “She’s clearly feeling better—so it was nothing serious?”
“Serious?”
“Her late-night fever? I saw you leaving for the emergency room that night, remember?”
Color flooded my face—I could feel the heat. I’d completely forgotten about the excuse I’d given her. Worse, Brian was listening to the conversation.
He said to me, “You were at the ER? When was this?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Everyone’s fine.” I looked past him, feigning concern. “I think Owen might have to use the bathroom—can you ask him?”
Brian looked confused, but he dutifully turned to our son as Christine chattered on, oblivious to my discomfort. “You can never be too careful with a fever,” she said. “Could have been meningitis or one of those terrible staph infections. Although you would have been better off taking her to the doctor—you pay so much more if you go to the ER.”
“Were you ever a patient of Dr. Lysenko’s?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“Julie! Really, what kind of question is that?” she said in a shocked voice, giving a flustered laugh and fanning herself again with her program.
“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with plastic surgery,” she said. “No one wants to talk about it, but everybody gets a little work done, don’t they?” Another laugh as she self-consciously touched the skin at her temples. She looked around for a moment and then down at her program. It was clear that she was now the one desperate to change the subject. “So sad about his son,” she said, tapping the program, which had a grinning photo of Viktor on the front with flowery script below it that read, “Loving son, husband, and father.” Anna Lysenko had made it clear that she came first for her son even at the end of his life. “But from what I hear things weren’t exactly happy in that marriage.”
“Really?” I tried to keep my voice and expression neutral, but I was immediately on alert. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, come now, you’re friends with his wife—I’m sure you know all about it.” She gave me an expectant look.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, darting a quick glance around to see if anyone had overheard her. “They seemed happy to me.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Christine said.
Just then Aubrey, who’d clambered up on the pew and was looking toward the back of the church, spotted Daniel entering with his mother. “Daniel!” she shouted, pointing. “There’s Daniel! Hi Dan!” Her cries echoed through the church as I pulled her down, clamping a hand gently over her mouth.
“Shh, you can’t shout in church,” I said, trying to pretend that I didn’t see Christine staring at me, waiting.
The organist saved me, playing a few heavy chords, a welcome signal that the service was about to begin. We stood as one, the noise like a startled flock rising, the sound echoing up through the painted wooden beams that crisscrossed the ceiling. A choir entered in a procession, singing a sad song in Ukrainian and then in English, the congregation stumbling through the unfamiliar notes that had been provided in the program. A bishop wearing an elaborate mushroom-shaped crown and flowing gold-embossed robes followed them. He carried a gold shepherd’s crook up the aisle, flanked by robed priests swinging metal incense balls from chains, the heavy, spicy smoke wafting over the congregation and setting off a torrent of muffled coughing. Two altar boys came next, bearing gold candlesticks with lit pillars, and then came the coffin, draped in a white cloth that had a red and gold cross embroidered on its center.
Processing slowly behind the coffin, which was wheeled on a metal stretcher by eight pallbearers, were Heather with Daniel and Anna, and then Olga, Irina, and a small group of other people I assumed were the rest of Viktor’s family. Viktor had been strikingly handsome, but perhaps his genes had come primarily from his father’s side, because Anna stuck out for all the wrong reasons in a shiny, tight black dress and heavy makeup, gold jewelry weighing down her neck and arms, and her head covered with a lace mantilla that reminded me of a Spanish bullfight.
Heather, in contrast, wore a plain black dress, the simple A-line design serving to emphasize her willowy figure, just as her blond hair pulled back in a loose chignon only highlighted her fine, long neck. The only things marring her looks were her red nose and eyes, and she clutched some tissues in one hand and held on to Daniel with the other. As I mentally applauded her acting ability, my gaze fell on Daniel, and sudden tears flooded my own eyes at the sight of this small boy walking behind his father’s coffin.
They processed up the main aisle, filing into the front pew. Viktor’s mother wept loudly as the pallbearers left the coffin at center stage in the aisle and took their seats.
“Mommy, he’s got a funny hat,” Aubrey said of the bishop, and a ripple of nervous laughter floated through the crowd around us. “Shh,” I whispered, digging in my bag for the books I’d brought to entertain her. “Here, look at these.”
There were numerous references to Viktor’s happy family life, and Christine nudged me. “Hardly, right?” she muttered, giving me a wink.
It was a relief when the service was finally over and we filed out into the cold, windy day, blinking in the hard light. I tried to lose her in the crowd, but Christine followed close on my heels. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” she said in a low voice as we watched the coffin pass by on the shoulders of the pallbearers. “But the living aren’t off-limits, right?” She gave me another wink and a little grin. “I know you have some stories to tell.” She stared at me with that same glint in her eyes.
“Sorry, Christine, I’ve got to get the kids home,” I said, giving Brian a little push. “Let’s go,” I muttered.
“What? Don’t you want to go to the wake?”