“Lots of people I don’t know,” he interrupts.
“Well, yes, that, but…” I deflate. “That was extremely weird, wasn’t it? Me just inviting you to a shiva. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t even know if shiva is a noun.” I run my hand over the top of my head. “Sorry.” But the idea of not having to go alone felt like someone throwing me a life raft, and the thought of going with my parents felt akin to going in a life raft—but one loaded down with two tons of cement and emotional baggage.
Ringo rubs his chin, tosses his head and groans. “Sure,” he says.
“Sure?”
“Sure, I’ll go.”
“To the shiva?” I brighten. “Because you know it’s basically a funeral, right?”
“Not the traditional third date, but what the hell.”
I blanch at the word date. “I didn’t mean it as a…” I say slowly, thinking, Will, Will, Will. Will the leaver of epic voicemails, Will the best hand-holder, Will the boy I love.
Ringo lifts his eyebrow. “Lake, relax. I know. It was a joke.” My shoulders slide back down the length of my neck just a bit. “Flattering reaction, though.” He peers down his nose at me with a gentle smirk. Ringo accompanies me to my car, and I don’t even mind that he’s probably coming with me out of pity. It’s worth it to have him be there.
Ringo drives. He insists, but it’s not like I put up much of a fight. He hums intermittently, and it’s a nice distraction from the road. In between he tells me about the Beatles and how when he was in middle school, playing their record Abbey Road was the only thing that kept him from wanting to blow his brains out. I can’t tell if he’s serious.
But it’s when he lists the band members that I startle. “Ringo Starr is the drummer’s name? But I thought you got the name Ringo because of…well…”
“Because of the ring around my eye? It’s okay, Lake. I’m aware that I have a birthmark on my face.” I flush. “And you’re right. That’s how I got the name.” He cracks his knuckles over the wheel. “But,” he says, brightening, “it’s also how I discovered the second-greatest Ringo in history.” He shrugs. “You know what they say, if you can’t beat them…”
I don’t have time to process this because we’re pulling up to Penny’s house and the van we’re pulling up behind is my mom’s. I didn’t want her here. But she is here. And that means she has unilaterally decided I can’t handle this on my own and that instead she will come rescue me with her loaded boat of cement and painful words between us that go unsaid.
Only I’m not on my own. I’m with Ringo. And I wish none of us had to be here.
Penny’s house is two stories and made of yellow stucco. Unlike ours, the lawn is always perfectly maintained by Tessa, a natural gardener, and Simon, who put his techie senses to good use, installing a hypersensitive automated sprinkler system of which NASA would be jealous.
A friendly welcome wreath adorns the pale-blue front door. The rest of the yard bears all the remnants of Penny. Her kooky wind chimes dangle from one of the branches next to a hummingbird feeder. At the corner of a well-maintained flowerbed, Penny built a rock garden. It’s only a few square feet, but Penny claimed it had perfect feng shui.
I pass the Penny artifacts and every bone in my body goes flu-cold achy. I’ve been so caught in my fog of sadness that I haven’t quite fully realized how much of it was specific to missing Penny. Now that I’m here in the presence of so much Penny-ness, though, the loss is breaking into me like a wave.
“You okay?” Ringo’s hand finds the small of my back and I worry that it’s the only thing holding me up.
Outside the house there sits a pitcher of water. A man is entering right before us wearing a yarmulke. He bends to wash his hands in the pitcher and then lets himself inside. I look to Ringo for guidance.
“We don’t want to look disrespectful,” he whispers.
I nod and dip my hands into the cool water. Without thinking, I run my wet hands over my cheeks. It cools the heat rising in them and quiets some of the discomfort. I nod and we let ourselves into the home of Tessa and Simon Hightower.
“I probably should have worn black, huh?” Ringo says into my ear. We both stare at his purple Clemons University T-shirt. He does stand out. And not just because of the T-shirt.
In the foyer, black cloths cover the mirrors. I scan the mourners gathered in the living room for my mother but don’t see her. An elderly woman with silk pulled gently over her gray hair shuffles over to greet us. She extends a bony hand to me.
“Lake, dear,” she says. I recognize the voice, though it’s been over a year since I last saw her.
“Grandma Adler.” I take her hand, which is as cold as her veins are blue. I cup it in both of my own, hoping to warm them. Grandma Adler is Penny’s grandmother on Tessa’s side. My own grandparents had all died by the time I was five years old, but visits from Grandma Adler became a treat for both Penny and me. Seeing her brings tears to my eyes instantly.
She reaches up with her free hand. The skin on her thumb feels papery thin as she wipes away the trickle running down my cheek and says something softly to me in Yiddish.
“I would have come sooner if I’d known you were here,” I say, starting to turn to introduce Ringo but feeling the empty space behind me just before I do. He’s gone. The swell of panic has subsided now in the company of Grandma Adler, and I tell myself that I’ll find him. Later.
She pats the back of my hand and begins leading me into the living room. I’m not sure I’m ready to go in, but I walk beside her, holding onto her elbow to support her. “I would have come sooner myself,” she confides. “Tessa is not honoring k’vod hamet. Penny should have been buried right away. But Tessa won’t hold a funeral. She won’t allow burial rites. We didn’t even know Penny…” Grandma Adler pulls a crumpled tissue from her pocket and dabs at her nose. “We didn’t even know she had passed away.”
I try to keep my steps and breathing even. It’s nothing I couldn’t have predicted already, but to hear the lengths to which the Hightowers have gone, hoping for my resurrection choice, sends pain searing through muscle and bone, where it continues to burn.
“It was her cousin Halina who saw the accident report on the news.” I’ve been avoiding the news for that very reason. “Rabbi Fisch informed the rest of the family, and I told Tessa we are sitting shiva and I won’t hear another word. Here”—she takes a torn black ribbon from a basket resting on a side table—“put this on. We have to honor Penny however we can.”