Richard Middlestein was uncomfortable in his suit. It had been five years since he had worn it, five years since he had been to a funeral. There had been a string of them in 2005: his mother’s, his father’s, his Aunt Ellie’s, a second cousin named Boris he didn’t know particularly well but who lived nearby in Highland Park so he went as a representative of his side of the family (by then he was the only one left), one of his estranged wife Edie’s co-workers’ (a suicide, terrible), Rabbi Schumann (they had to rent some tents for that one, so many people came), and at least three more that he couldn’t recall at that exact moment because he could barely breathe. He hadn’t gained more than a few pounds since then, but his flesh lay differently on his body now. Gravity had struck, and skin gathered around his waist, creating a small buttress of fat between his ailing chest and still-youthful legs. He hadn’t noticed it till he pulled up the zipper on the pants. He’d had to suck in his gut. He’d been holding it in for hours now.
To make matters worse, he couldn’t stop eating. There was food on every surface of his son’s house, the living-room table, the kitchen table, the dining room table, a few card tables that had been dragged inside from their garage, the glass end tables on either side of the living-room couch. And the food kept coming, friends of Edie’s—friends of theirs, he supposed, when they had once been together—streaming through the front door, all holding different offerings, kugels and casseroles covered in aluminum foil, fruit salads in vast Tupperware containers, pastries in elegant cardboard boxes tied with thin, curled ribbons. His oldest friends from the synagogue, the Cohns and the Grodsteins and the Weinmans and the Frankens, had all gone in together on the elaborate smoked-fish trays. He had heard them mention it more than once that day, but only when someone wondered out loud where the delicious fish had been purchased, and one of them offered up the information. “We went this morning right when they opened,” they said. “It’s the least we could do.”
Middlestein would have thrown in a few bills, too, if they had only called him, but they had not. No one had called him about anything at all, not even to extend condolences, except for his son to give him the details about the funeral. But why would they? Why had he thought anyone would care how he felt? He had left her, and they had been weeks away from signing divorce papers. He put his plate down on the floor and lowered his head between his legs and let it hang there. He had brought two boxes of rugelach, and he realized when he walked through the door that it was not enough. Nine months before, he would not have been allowed to bring a thing. Nine months before, shiva would have been held at the house they shared together. Why didn’t he bring more rugelach? How much rugelach would he have had to buy to not feel this way? How much rugelach would he have to eat?
He jerked his head up. He wasn’t certain he was feeling rational. He was so full, but still he wanted more. All around him, people sat politely with plastic plates in their laps. His son, Benny, sat on a low chair, his granddaughter, Emily, leaning against her father, staring off into the distance, her lips downturned. She was thirteen; it was her first funeral. Middlestein’s daughter, Robin, sat next to Benny on a normal-size chair; she was working hard at actively not looking at Richard. Her boyfriend, Danny, sat next to her. He held her hand. He was stroking it. He had these fancy-framed glasses, but he wore his tie loosely, like he’d never learned how to tie it on his own. He looked like a real pushover, is what he looked like to Richard. That’s about Robin’s speed, he thought. She’d need someone to mow right over.
Robin was hell-bent on ignoring most of the traditions, but she at least wore a black ribbon pinned to her blazer. She wore one, Benny wore one, Rachelle wore one, Emily wore one, and so did her twin brother, Josh, who had wandered off somewhere toward the dessert table. Richard was not wearing one. Richard was not sitting on a low chair. He was on the couch, with the rest of the general population. He had sat in the third row at the synagogue during the services. He didn’t know if that was too close or too far. He didn’t know if he should have leaned against the back wall, like some of the other mourners. It was standing room only. Good for Edie, he thought. People still cared about her. People wanted to show their respect. When he died—oh God, he was going to die someday—he wasn’t sure he’d get the same kind of crowd. Not anymore.