Shiva

It seemed perfectly natural to take a kitchen knife and cut her Randolf blouse that night. So she did.

“What are you doing!” her mother yelled, letting the dishwasher slam shut.

“I am sitting shiva, for Cadbury,” Veronica said. She pulled at the little incision she’d made. It created a long rip. She put the knife back in the drawer and admired her newly torn blouse.

Veronica’s grandfather had died when she was five. Her grandmother had ripped her dress to symbolize her torn heart. Her grandmother sat in a hard wooden chair to symbolize her pain. The mirrors in her grandmother’s house were covered too, symbolizing the uselessness of vanity in the face of tragedy. For seven days Veronica watched her grandmother wear the same torn dress and sit on the same hard chair. According to her mother, she didn’t brush her hair or shower the whole time. Morning and evening ten men gathered in the living room to form a minyan. They wore black coats, and their bodies rocked as their voices rhythmically whispered the mourner’s kaddish: Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’may rabah. The women were allowed to join in and say Amen. Veronica had no idea what the words meant, but by the second day the prayer held her like a womb.

She had been fascinated by how her grandmother gave herself to her grief. She was also deeply moved by the community of men and women who showed up every day. The women brought food and sat with her grandmother telling stories. Sometimes they made her grandmother laugh. Sometimes they cried with her. Sometimes they just sat there and didn’t say a thing.

When her parents sat shiva for her grandmother it lasted only three days. The only mirror in the house that was covered was the one in the front hall. And her mother said the prayer alone. There was no minyan of ten men. Veronica felt gypped. No one sat for days telling stories and very few brought homemade food.

She had never known what the prayer meant, but when the words tumbled out of her mouth this evening, her body understood them. Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’may rabah … Her grandmother had clung to those words as though her life depended on them and Veronica did the same. Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom alaynu, v’al kol yisra’el, v’imru amen.

*   *   *

She kept her own company in her shiva. She gathered her books on her way to bed. She passed her mother, who was sitting on the couch sorting mail.

“Veronica,” Mrs. Morgan said. “I want you to take a shower. You have to take care of yourself. Daddy and I are worried.”

There was no wooden furniture in the living room or Veronica would have sat down.

“Something came for you,” her mother said. She handed Veronica a square red envelope.

She recognized Sarah-Lisa’s slanty handwriting immediately.

“Well then, open it,” her mother said. Veronica slid her finger under the flap and pulled out a pink card. There must have been a mistake. It was an invitation to Sarah-Lisa’s Valentine’s Day party.

She didn’t understand why she had been invited to Sarah-Lisa’s Valentine’s Day party and then she remembered something Melody had said early on. Randolf was inclusive. Everyone was invited to everything.

“What is it, honey?”

“An invitation.”

*   *   *

The next day after school, Mary handed Veronica more mail. This time a package. Under the brown paper were many layers of bubble wrap and tape. Whatever it was had been wrapped like something very precious. She peeled back the last layer and opened the cardboard box and in a nest of white tissue paper discovered the wooden box that contained Cadbury’s ashes. She held it next to her heart. She didn’t ever want to let it out of her hands.

“Yeah, but I think it’s best if you put it down somewhere,” Mary said. “You will be upset if you drop it and it spills.”

Veronica decided to put the ashes on her nightstand next to Cadbury’s collar. Mary approved.

“This came too,” Mary said. She handed Veronica another package, much smaller and even more carefully wrapped than the first. This one required scissors. When everything was peeled away, Veronica discovered a sculpted silver rose wrapped around a small glass vial.

There was a note from Esme.

Dear Veronica,

I want you to know that you were the very best owner Cadbury could ever have had. I know your time together was too short but you couldn’t have made him feel more loved had he lived to be a hundred. I bought you this necklace so you could put some of his ashes inside if you want to. That way he can be close to your heart at all times. I am sorry for your loss, Veronica. It is gigantic. Maybe this story will help. It helped me.

Yours,

Esme

On a separate page Esme had enclosed:

When a special animal dies, that animal goes to a place that is covered with meadows and dotted with pretty flowers. Animals run and play all day. They always have enough food and water and every animal that was old, ill, injured, or maimed is restored to optimal health. This place is called Rainbow Bridge and it is wonderful. The animals have a nearly perfect life in Rainbow Bridge except that they miss someone who had to be left behind. One day an animal looks into the distance with bright eyes. He stops running. His ears prick. He leaves the group he was playing with and flies over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together. You look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never replaced in your heart. You reunite knowing you will never be separated again.

The necklace came with a funnel and a tiny scoop. Veronica went right to work. Moments later, Cadbury was inside the necklace, around her neck. He was close to her heart. She put the box back on the table by her bed.

She did shower. But she wore her torn uniform and her necklace to school the next day.