Washing the Dead (9 page)

The rebbetzin patted her heart with her open palm. “I will help you find your way back to her.”

“What?” I didn’t know whether to be shocked or angry. This made no sense at all. Why would the rebbetzin want to be a part of our lives after shunning our family? And why would I want to find my way back to my mother? She’d cost me the nook and everything good about my childhood.

“It’s important, Barbara.”

I stared at the rebbetzin’s hand flat against her sweater and tasted something like bile in my mouth. Where had she been when my mother bailed on me? Did she think we could resume our old relationship without addressing our years of silence? I took a second now to compose myself before I said something I would regret. I said tersely, “I’m fine, but I appreciate your concern.”

The rebbetzin’s eyes bored into me. She knew I wasn’t fine, but if I chose to let my mother back into my heart, the rebbetzin would be the last person I’d ask for guidance.

I thanked her for allowing me the honor of doing this mitzvah for Mrs. Kessler and said goodbye. She reached into her pocket and handed me a piece of paper with her phone number. She didn’t need to; I still knew it.

“I have to go. I have to take my daughter to the doctor.” I folded the paper, turned on my heel, walked to my car, and drove back toward my life.

5

W
hile I was performing Mrs. Kessler’s tahara, Sam had left three messages on my cell, all of them telling me that Lili’s appointment had been moved up an hour, which meant that I wouldn’t have time to stop home and change before I picked her up. I needed to shower badly. The taste of death lingered on my tongue, and the onion stink was back. I recalled the initial onset of this horrid odor, the morning I discovered I was carrying a girl. I’d since read somewhere that perspiration has no scent; it’s the stress hormone cortisol that makes our sweat smell bad.

I pulled into the parking lot of Lili’s high school, feeling both wired and sleepy, as though I’d been roused from a nap that had ventured too far into the REM sleep cycle. I ran into Sheri Jacobstein in the lobby. Sheri and I had stayed friends since Lili and her son Max were born. She was my fashion consultant and a buddy who made a place for me in her book club, on her PTA committees, and at other such adult lunch tables; she felt like home to me—well, the home I’d created with Sam. I adored her. She grinned, revealing her newly whitened teeth against her tanned skin, a contrast that resembled that of a film negative. She eyed my sneakers, the unseasonably warm shirt, and the long, frumpy skirt, and I folded my arms across my chest to ward off a hug. I didn’t want her to smell me.

“You okay?” She stared at me.

“Fine.” I smiled, and she looked at my outfit again, but I didn’t explain. I wouldn’t have known where to begin.

“Lunch next Thursday, right?” she asked, and I told her that I was looking forward to it, which I was. She’d have her live-in housekeeper poach us salmon, we’d indulge in a glass of white wine, and I’d feel pampered. I’d relax into the details of her bounty: a prohibitively expensive rug she’d just purchased or the theme she was considering for the synagogue’s annual gala. Last year it was
The Brady Bunch
, and almost all the women dressed as Marcia, who was the ultimate shiksa goddess, according to Sheri’s husband, Brad. I went as Alice because I admired her can-do attitude and her ability to keep the Brady household running smoothly.

“I’m sure I’ll see you before then,” I said as we parted. I couldn’t wait to shed these clothes and return to my capris and a tank top. Sheri had advised me to wear sleeveless shirts and dresses as much as possible because my Michelle Obama triceps were to die for. My mother still had pretty arms, even in her seventies, but she never showed them off until she left the Schines’ community. I’d felt self-conscious wearing sleeveless clothing well into my twenties.

Sheri disappeared into one of the offices seconds before the bell rang and the halls filled up with students. Lili came limping down the sophomore corridor with Megan, Kara—carrying Lili’s backpack, which we’d joked equaled half her body weight—and Taylor, who stood on the outskirts of the triangle. Taylor had recently moved to Milwaukee from Boston, and Lili had befriended her during their summer cross-country practices. My daughter gathered people effortlessly. Like my mother and me, she had full lips that didn’t quite fit over her teeth, giving the impression that she was always smiling. Although she struggled with geometry and spelling, she possessed an uncanny ability to read people. She had inherited Sam’s knack for zeroing in on what mattered to people most and engaging them in conversation about their passion. Sam often reminded me of this when she was struggling in school. “You don’t need to worry about that one,” he’d tell me. “She can sell ice to Eskimos, and that’s what matters in life.”

“Thanks, girls,” I said to Lili’s friends.

Kara handed me the backpack, which might well have equaled half of Sam’s body weight.

“How you doing, Lil?” I was so happy to see her that I put my arm around her.

“Whoa, Mom.” She recoiled.

“Did you like eat a raw onion or something?”

“You don’t care for my new fragrance?” I put my wrist to my nose and breathed in.

“And what’s up with the shoes and skirt?”

“What’s wrong with my new look?” I joked.

Lili studied me for what seemed like five minutes, and I squirmed under her scrutiny, knowing that my diversions weren’t working. I feared that she’d push me further and I’d have to fib. I was a horrible liar. But then she laughed. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, you just look kind of Amish.”

I giggled too enthusiastically, more out of relief than amusement.

During the drive to Felix’s office, Lili regaled me with stories about running friends who had suffered tiny setbacks after their injuries and bounced back fast. Her voice was tinny, filled with fear and hope, as mine had been when I described my mother’s memory loss to the rebbetzin. Neither one of us wanted to ponder life for Lili if she couldn’t run. In seventh grade, she’d started exhibiting what the specialists called soft signs of ADHD, that—combined with a mild learning disability, a drastic increase in her homework, and the onset of puberty—made our efforts to help her with schoolwork a bloody battleground. I was so wrecked by her despondency I barely ate that year. Sam and I were just about to put her on Ritalin when a miracle occurred. One day in gym class, she up and ran a sub-six-minute mile. Boom. An athlete was born. She earned the nickname Lightning Bolt Lili, and with her new status and ability to concentrate, she turned into a solid student and peace returned to our house.

“Lil, we’ll wait and see what Dr. Nezbith has to say,” I offered, trying my best to sound hopeful.

She jumped on the last word of my sentence. “You mean you think he’s going to bench me for the rest of the season?”

I wanted to tell her that she was going to be just fine, like Sam would, but Sam believed it because life hadn’t offered him many bad surprises. He said that I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Let’s stay positive, Lil.”

“That’s what I was
trying
to do, Mom.” She turned her face toward the window.

“I know you were.” Once we were settled in the office, I thumbed through a
Newsweek
, but I couldn’t concentrate on Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. Lili sat next to me, jiggling her good heel against the floor.

“One of the girls on the track team sprained her ankle, Rebecca Freed, and it was five times this size—” she said, her voice thin and sweet.

“Lili Blumfield.” A pert twentysomething with a diamond stud in her nostril appeared with Lili’s chart.

We only had to wait a few minutes for Felix, a tall man with a ridiculously narrow waist for someone his age. He greeted me with a kiss and asked after Sam.

“He weathering the economy?” Felix picked up Lili’s chart.

Sam’s clients had taken a hit during the recession, and he was working as hard as he had in the early days when he was building his business. “Oh, you know Sam. He always manages to keep himself afloat.”

“Your dad’s a financial wizard, Lili. And a damn fine water-skier.”

Thanks to Sam’s investment savvy, Felix had done well and had invited us to his summer home on Elkhart Lake on a number of occasions to show his appreciation. We’d become business friends with Felix and Betty Nezbith, one of the many couples in our circle of friends who had begun as clients and turned into something that teetered on the fringes of true kinship.

Lili smiled shyly. “He was first place in the Camp Manakee slalom competition five years in a row,” she said, reciting a statistic
Sam rattled off frequently. She resumed jiggling her good leg.

Felix laughed. “I don’t doubt that for a second.” He removed his glasses from his pocket. “Okay, then. Let’s see what’s going on here.”

He took one look at her X-rays and two looks at her ankle before he delivered the news. “You have what is called a spiral break. Now, if these bones don’t move, we probably won’t have to do surgery, but it means you have to stay off that ankle.”

Lili bit her lip to stave off tears and mustered the wherewithal to ask the follow-up question.

“When will you know if you have to do the surgery?”

“Two weeks,” Felix said gently

“If I’m okay, then I can start running again?”

“I’m afraid not, Lili. You’ll need a good eight or ten weeks of rehab before you even think about running again.”

Oh, crap. My breath congealed in my lungs. Relax, I told myself. I tried to pretend that I was fine, but I wasn’t fine at all, and instead of imagining Maui beaches and sunsets, as Sheri’s shrink had instructed her to do during moments of anxiety, I started thinking about my mother’s fading faculties and Lili’s inability to manage life without endorphins.

“Mom, are you with us?” Lili sounded frightened.

The room was spinning a smidgeon. “Of course, honey, I’m here. I’m here, just a little off today.”

Felix called in the pert nurse to get me a glass of water. He probably thought I was one of those mothers who was too invested in her child’s achievements, but that wasn’t it at all. Running was Lili’s medicine.

“Thank you,” I said to the nurse as she handed me the glass. Lili looked both worried and mortified.

“You going to be all right, Mrs. Blumfield?” the nurse asked.

I took a sip of water. “I’m fine.”

Felix picked up the chart. “Look, I know this is rough, but if Lili stays off this thing, she’ll have plenty more cross-country seasons.”

“Thanks, Felix, you were a doll to squeeze us in,” I said.

“We’ll get you fitted for a boot and talk in a few weeks. Sound good?”

“Sure,” Lili said as Felix left to see his next patient.

The nurse slid a big black boot on Lili’s foot. “This one seems right. How does it feel?”

Lili futzed around with the boot for a few minutes. “Okay, I guess,” she said and followed me to the reception desk, where I wrote a check for our co-pay. It was painful to watch her limp to the elevator, dragging her big boot behind her. We rode down to the lobby in silence. I offered to pull up the car, but Lili said that she’d have to get used to this boot sooner or later and hobbled to our parking spot. I started the engine and waited for her to break down in tears. She didn’t.

“What happened in there, Mom? You were like on another planet for a minute.”

“I just felt a little light-headed. Let’s not make a federal case out of it.” It was alarmingly easy to lie to my daughter.

“Whatever.”

I felt guilty for snapping at her. “Talk to me, Lil.”

“No offense, like I know Dr. Nezbith is your friend, but that guy’s a quack. I want a second opinion,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. All summer, she’d woken up at six o’clock every morning to run up and down bleachers before she met up with some of the area’s top distance runners for long training runs. Last week, after she won the Menomonee Falls challenge, Coach JJ, Jill Johnson, former NCAA all-American in the mile, who barked at the girls like a drill sergeant, told her she had a shot at winning the state championship.

“I know this stinks, sweetie.”

Lili pulled out her phone and started texting maniacally. After ten seconds, she looked up. “Megan and Kara have last period off today. They’re hanging out at Megan’s. Can you drop me off?”

“Sure. You know, if Dr. Nezbith decides you need surgery, we’ll talk about a second opinion,” I said.

“I’m going to find out who Rebecca Freed saw for her ankle.” She resumed gnawing on her cuticle.

“Okay, honey, so tell me about your new friend Taylor,” I said, trying to distract her.

“Megan and Kara don’t like her. They think she’s too into herself.”

“Maybe they’ll get to know her better throughout the season.” What a dumb thing to say to Lili right now.

“That’s not going to happen. She quit the team today.”

I waited for her to continue. She gave me more information if I refrained from peppering her with questions.

“Kara said Taylor told her that she only joined so her parents would buy her a car.”

I wasn’t surprised. Taylor didn’t seem to fit in with Lili’s other friends, who were more sporty than stylish. Though built like a runner, she wore heavy black eyeliner that accentuated her spectacular irises, as green as those of the famous “Afghan girl” featured on the cover of
National Geographic
magazine.