Ruby did not look like a morbid child. She was dressed in pink and sparkles and frayed denim like every other little girl in the airport.
“I don’t think so. I think they give them shots or something.”
“Cora’s scared of dead things. But I don’t see why. They’re dead. I don’t mind them. I like to know that things happened before I came along. I don’t know why, but I do.”
The purple camouflage suitcase appeared on the belt.
“Maybe it helps you realize that things will come along after you, too.”
“I think I’m too young to think that.”
*
They found the rib cage first. Ruby dusted off the dirt with a paintbrush, following the curves that outlined the commanding chest. The mighty horse’s legs seemed to be galloping even now. The students were silent when they saw all of him, a bas-relief of bones rising from the sandy soil.
Ruby lit a candle for him when they got back to the house. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash,” she said. She shrugged. “That’s all I know of that one by heart. You’re supposed to have ten people, and I’m sure you’re not supposed to say it for a horse, but I don’t care. And I say it every night for Grandpa.” She looked at them defiantly.
Molly wiped away a few tears. She did not sleep that night. Her mother was right, it was too soon after Aaron’s death to dig up a body. Ruby was fine. It was Molly who had nightmares.
“You were crying in your sleep,” Freddie said. “I couldn’t wake you.”
Molly didn’t want to talk about it. And she certainly didn’t want to talk about her bad dreams to Ruby, who looked as chipper as ever when they went into the kitchen. She had helped herself to a large bowl of the neon-colored cereal her parents forbade her.
“Guess what my father said to his ex-girlfriend,” Freddie said. She read aloud from an email sent by Green Garden: “‘Thou wouldst eat thine dead vomit up and howlst to get it.’”
Ruby looked up happily from her cereal bowl. “Dead vomit! Can I meet him?”
They went to Santa Anita. Molly and Ruby sat in the backseat, Freddie and her father in the front. Ruby nudged Molly, then pointed to the back of the father’s head and the back of the daughter’s head. They were shaped identically.
“Molly and her students and Ruby dug up a racehorse and moved him to Santa Anita, Dad.”
“Your friends always were peculiar.”
“We didn’t move him, actually. Just dug him up. Not too many opportunities to dig things up in Los Angeles. It’s great experience for the students.”
“Students?” Duncan said. “Students of what? Grave-robbing?” He chuckled. Then, “Don’t go digging me up, you girls.” Then, “Where are the flowers?”
“What flowers?”
“For your mother. I always bring flowers.”
“Dad, we are not going to the cemetery. We’re going to the track.”
“Yeah? Why didn’t you say so?”
They ate pastrami sandwiches and bet ten dollars on a horse named Madeira My Dear, who won.
Freddie’s father made Ruby promise to go to the track with him again. “You bring luck.”
“I’m not superstitious.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I am.”
35
The thought of an outing excited Joy. The brick buildings glowed, genial and rosy in the sun. What a beautiful day and she’d woken up feeling strong. Oh, this was very nice! She began the search for her wallet, her bags, her sunglasses, her gloves.
She bought a tuna-fish sandwich and a ginger ale at the little deli on the corner and watched the man behind the counter wrap the sandwich in white paper, then cut it diagonally. That was nice, too. She liked her sandwiches cut diagonally. This is what she would do when she retired. Go on outings with tuna-fish sandwiches cut on the bias. You couldn’t do that in an assisted-living facility, not like this, spontaneously. You probably had to check out at the desk, sign an attendance sheet, get permission, like the loony bin.
She didn’t have to ask anyone for anything.
She carried her brown bag out to the street and the wind nearly knocked her down. It was chillier than she’d thought. The tulips planted on the meridian of Park Avenue were bright orange this year. The cherry trees above them were in full pink bloom. The wind would take care of that, soon enough, she supposed. The petals would blow around like bright pink snow, then settle into colorful drifts, then turn brown and rot like all flesh, even flowered flesh. But for now, they danced gaily against the blue sky.
She turned into Aaron’s little park and sat on a bench. The sun was glaring. The bread of her sandwich was dry. The wind was cold. This was a mistake. She was not ready. She felt her heart beat unevenly. Atrial fibrillation. Right now, the blood could be languishing, clotting during a skipped beat, and then, wham, a clot could be thrown up to her brain and she would be dead. Or worse.
Karl came into the park just as she was balling up the wrapper from her sandwich.
“Joy!” He pushed his red wheeled walker aside and sat next to her on the bench. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”