Twenty-Eight
Telling her parents that Fanny had left to stay at Sean’s sister’s house was even worse than Sarah had feared. She didn’t tell them about Subbie. They couldn’t have taken in any more bad news.
“You remember where the boy’s house is?” Jacob asked, desperate. He couldn’t settle, but kept pacing the room.
Sarah was on the couch, holding Sammy on her lap. “I went there only once. I don’t know if I could find it again.”
“You should have asked her,” her mother said accusingly.
“You don’t give out your address when you’re running away, Rifke. Leave her.” Jacob tried to lift Sammy off Sarah’s lap, but he clung to her. “Sammy, come. I’ll read you a story.”
“I want to sleep with Sarah.”
“Let him,” Sarah said. She carried him to her bed, his body’s warmth reminding her of hugging Charley. Had that really happened?
Sammy fell asleep before she was halfway through a story. It was a comfort to have his small, solid body close to her. She uncurled one of his hands gently and pressed it against her cheek.
Goosie, Subbie—as quickly as an eye blinks their lives had been snatched away. If only she believed in angels, as Bianca did, she could think of them flying up to heaven where loved ones would greet them.
Angels? She wasn’t sure she even believed in God.
She fell asleep, her face buried in Sammy’s curls.
§
The information about Subbie’s funeral service was posted on the Hull House bulletin board. His family would appreciate his friends participating in the service.
“You should write something, Sarah,” Bianca said.
“Will you read it then?”
“No.”
“I might cry.”
“A lot of people will cry.”
“Bianca…”
Bianca sighed. “Oh…all right.”
§
Sarah left most of her food on her plate. Rifke had served warmed-over stew that had stuck to the pot and tasted burnt.
“Sit and eat, Rifke,” Jacob said. “We have to lead a normal life.”
“Everything is bitter, like my heart.”
“Fanny might walk in right now while we’re eating.”
“Dreamer!” Rifke rolled up her sleeves and started to scrub the burnt pot.
Jacob did Sarah’s job of clearing the table and drying the dishes, so she could write the piece for Subbie’s funeral. After Sammy had been put to bed she asked, “Papa, can I read this to you?”
“I’m listening,” Jacob said, sitting down in his chair.
Sarah wet her lips and started to read. “Subbie…” She stopped, fought for control, and started again. “Subbie…was a friend to everyone. He never did an unkind thing that I know of. He was cheerful and loved to laugh. Other people might not notice, but he would always sense if you were feeling sad and try to help you. In Peanut Park he would give beggars the peanuts he had bought for himself, and because he knew they were lonely he would talk with them. He wasn’t good at school subjects, but he had his own kind of wisdom. Someone special is missing from our world with Subbie gone.” Her voice broke, but she pushed on. “We will always…remember him with love in our hearts.”
Jacob stood up and hugged Sarah. “Beautiful, Sarahla.”
“Should I change anything?”
“Not one word.”
§
The chapel was simple, with whitewashed walls. Behind the raised wooden pulpit were two narrow, stained glass windows in shades of gold and green, a full-size carving of the crucified Christ between them. Mourners filed in on the worn crimson carpet, women in black dresses, some in hats, others in dark babushkas, men in their dark church suits, children, big-eyed and solemn, holding their mother’s or father’s hands, Subbie’s bowed grandmother walking on the arm of Subbie’s father, his face a mask of sorrow.
Following the priest’s eulogy, Charley was the first of Subbie’s friends to read. Sarah felt her stomach plummet as he stepped to the pulpit. She was so nervous she found it hard to look at him.
“Subbie taught me a lot,” Charley said, his voice soft, then unnaturally loud, like an instrument difficult to tune. “He taught me not to look down on someone if they didn’t look or act like what we call normal, to understand that they just have a different way of knowing things, and they may know things we don’t.” His voice gained strength as he spoke, and he dared to glance at the audience. “He would be happy if something good happened to you, even though nothing good happened to him. He’d clap and jump and say, ‘That makes us happy, doesn’t it, Charley?’” His voice broke and he bowed his head, standing very still as he fought for control. Many of the mourners bowed their heads with him, raising them only when Charley was able to speak again. “If someone changes your life you never forget them. Subbie changed mine and made me a little better person. I miss him so much already.”
Charley walked back to his pew and sat down.
Sarah whispered to Bianca. “I’ll read mine.” She took the sheet from Bianca and walked down the aisle quickly, aware of her body as a machine that she had to keep moving. When she walked up the two stairs to the pulpit, she knew that there were rows of people looking at her but she didn’t let herself see them. She was seeing Subbie…his pale eyes looking at her with open affection and trust. “I listen to you, Miss Lady. You have truth in your mouth…” She began to speak, and the words came slowly but clearly. Only at the very last sentence did she have to swallow a sob.
Making an effort to hold her head erect, she walked back down the aisle to her seat. It was then that she saw two familiar figures in the last row. Her mother and father. Why had they come?
When the service was over she didn’t stand up.
“Are you all right?” Bianca asked.
“Sit down a minute,” she whispered. “My mother and father are in the back. I don’t want to talk to them now.”
Everyone around them was getting up and leaving. She felt a light touch on her shoulder. “I liked what you said about Subbie. It was…right.”
She had never seen Charley in a suit and tie before. He looked older. He had brushed his hair with some shiny stuff so that it wouldn’t fall over his forehead.
“I liked what you said too. It was beautiful.”
“They just walked out,” Bianca whispered. “You’re safe.”
It was a glorious day, sunny with what Sammy would call “baby clouds” floating in the sky. Sarah didn’t want to go home; neither did Bianca or Charley. They decided to walk to Peanut Park. Sarah and Bianca were used to being silent when they were together, but Charley’s quietness was as foreign to Sarah as his suit and tie.
She was the first to speak. “It seems wrong that it’s such a pretty day.”
Bianca nodded.
Charley strode over to the peanut peddler, half asleep on a bench, and fished a coin out of his jacket pocket. The peddler, eyes flying open at the sound of coins clinking, jumped to attention and smiled with toothless gratitude as he handed Charley a bag.
Charley poured some peanuts into Sarah’s and Bianca’s hands. They shelled and scattered them. Pigeons flew in from all directions and began pecking, their gray heads bobbing.
“Birds have such simple lives.” Sarah dropped peanuts next to her shoes so the pigeons would scurry closer to her. “Maybe that’s why it’s so peaceful to watch them.”
Charley leaned forward, hands on knees. “Funny…happy things never make me really think. Only sad ones.” He scuffed a crescent in the gravel with the toe of his shoe. “Since Subbie…” He blinked his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about God… How could he let that happen to Subbie?”
Sarah shook her head. “They say suffering is supposed to teach you about life, but am I supposed to believe that God made Subbie die to teach me something?”
Bianca turned the bag upside down, letting all the peanuts fall out. “I don’t know more and more every day.”
Charley brushed bits of peanut shell off his pants. “My grandmother’s coming for dinner. I better get home.”
“And I’ve got to take care of my sister and brother.”
“I’d like to stay here and never go home,” Sarah said, but when Charley took her hand she stood up and they left Peanut Park.
§
“At the last minute we decided to go to the funeral,” Jacob said.
“Why?” Sarah asked. “You didn’t know Subbie.”
“He was your friend and you were going to speak at the altar. I think that’s reason enough.”
Rifke lifted her head from the book she was reading. “I felt great sympathy for Subbie’s mother, losing a child.”
A flush rose in Sarah’s cheeks. “Mama, if you’re saying what I think you are…”
“Fanny has made her choice. I have two children now instead of three. One of them died.”
All color drained from Jacob’s face. “Rifke! To say such a terrible thing!”
Sammy crawled into Jacob’s lap. “I want to see Fanny.” His bottom lip began to quiver.
Jacob’s hand shook as he pulled a book of Russian fairy tales from the pile beside his chair. “Which story tonight, boychick?”
§
From that day on, Rifke did not mention Fanny. When Jacob asked if Sarah had seen her at school, Rifke pretended she hadn’t heard him. Sarah had seen Fanny at recess twice, but Fanny clearly made a point of not seeing her. Sarah steeled herself against Rifke’s iciness when she purposely brought Fanny’s name up. As days passed she mentioned Fanny less and less. But Sammy never forgot. “Is this the day Fanny’s coming home?” he would ask Sarah, never asking his mother.
“She hasn’t told us yet, Sammy.”
It was difficult for Sarah to sort out her conflicting feelings about Fanny. Since she was a baby she had spent a part of every day with her sister. She still remembered Fanny curling her hair, and how nice it felt to have curls bobbing up and down. She had been six years old then. Things seemed to change the day Sarah had spilled ink on Fanny’s new dress. Fanny began pointing out ways in which Sarah was different from anyone else in the family—“I wonder where you got your straight black hair.” But when she wanted Sarah to do her a favor, she would be so friendly and playful that Sarah would forget how mean she’d been. Under cover of darkness Fanny would sometimes tell her things that she would never talk about during the day. She would even listen to some of Sarah’s worries. Sarah hoarded those good moments against the times that Fanny had made her miserable.