After school a couple days later, Ivan and Max and I went to Blessed Sacrament for a service for Elena. A kind young nun who had done volunteer work with Elena on refugee problems had arranged the service. Josef had had Elena cremated, so there was no casket, just flowers. The Friedmanns, the Montebiancos, and Mr. and Mrs. Shreve were there, although their boys were “under house arrayest,” as Mrs. Shreve put it, because of the cherry-bomb debacle at the Fiesta. Beatriz’s parents let her sit with me and Max and Ivan, and Beatriz kissed Ivan’s cheek. Maria sat in the front row with Josef, weeping quietly. Tim was there, looking very handsome in a blazer and tie. He waved to us miserably. I was surprised not to see Gellert and his family.
I don’t remember much of what took place: some mumbo-jumbo and church songs, a man from the refugee organization said a few words. Before long we were back at my house, where Dimma had offered to host a small wake. The adults drank coffee and a little sherry, talking quietly and nibbling what Dimma had put out—the neighbors had all brought things. None of this was very real to me, and it didn’t seem to have much to do with the Elena we knew. Why weren’t we all drinking Cuba libres, smoking Vogues, laughing, wearing silky kimonos, listening to “The Twelfth of Never”? That would have been a more fitting goodbye for her, as far as I was concerned.
Beatriz and the boys and I went out to our front steps and sat quietly, surrounded by the mournful drone of the cicadas. I thought about us being right where we were, performing at the Fiesta; it had been only days but seemed like weeks.
I noticed Ivan was twiddling a golden ring with three diamonds on his middle finger. “What’s that?” I asked.
“It belonged to her grandmother,” he said. “She gave it to me at the Fiesta. He doesn’t know I have it. I’m gonna keep it forever.”
Beatriz leaned in to see. “It’s so beautiful! Ivan, she’s with the angels, and she’s okay.”
Max retorted, his mouth full of a muffin he’d eaten in one bite, “Shalami, shalami, baloney! Shee’sh gone and ish jusht dusht an’ ashes now.”
Ivan didn’t appear to be paying much attention, but then he said, “There might be angels. We don’t know everything. Maybe people believe in angels so they aren’t scared, and dying doesn’t seem so bad.” He put the ring in his pocket.
“Maybe God is punishing us for…our sins.” Beatriz’s lower lip trembled. “Like the Heist.”
“But why would God punish her?” I asked, still not able to say Elena.
“Maybe God is a moron,” Max said, shocking Beatriz, who cried, “Don’t say that, Max!”
“Everybody gets to think what they want, okay?” I said, putting an end to it.
Then the grown-ups left all at once, saying comforting things to Ivan. Josef cursorily said, “Be good, son,” and patted Ivan’s shoulder, but Ivan shrugged his father away. The irony of Josef telling anyone to be good was not lost on us—our bitterness was palpable, as if steam were coming off our heads. But what could we say?
Beatriz’s parents came to take her away, and she said, “See you later. I love you guys.” She blew us a kiss.
Brickie came out. “Everybody okay?”
I said, “Uh-huh. We’re just out here being stoic.”
“Is this a good time to talk about things? Ivan?”
“I don’t care,” he replied.
Sitting down with us, Brickie began, “I think you all need to know what’s going on.” He sounded so official. “The authorities have interviewed all the…persons of interest, and have concluded that Elena died from a severe asthma attack. She had her pills, but not her inhaler, apparently. She’d had a lot to drink, and there were traces of other injurious and unusual substances in her system that they couldn’t identify—possibly other drugs. But it doesn’t appear to have been…homicide.”
Confused, Max asked, “What do you mean, ‘unusual substances’? They thought she might have been poisoned?”
Brickie paused. Then he explained, “Elena consorted—kept company—with some individuals who didn’t have her best interests at heart.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “Like who?”
For a minute, Brickie looked away. “I do not know,” he said stiffly, adding, “but, as I say, homicide has been ruled out. And they don’t believe it was suicide, either. Maybe you boys have been worrying about that.”
“Suicide?” I asked. “You mean, like she killed herself?” Why would Elena have done such a thing? I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking Elena, so full of life, would have done that.
“Correct. The prescription bottle in the bag she was carrying still had pills, and if she’d intended to do away with herself, she likely would have taken all of those. She also had a spider bite, and there were traces of a spider-borne toxin in her system.”
At this, my heart began banging in my chest. Brickie was waiting for us to say something, but I knew we were all too afraid to speak.
Brickie continued. “But Josef said she wasn’t allergic to any insects, and the pathologist said that right now, of course, they’re seeing many people with traces of spider toxins in their blood. A bite from a regular spider wouldn’t kill anybody. It just seems to have been a combination of things, and bad luck. If she’d had her inhaler, it might not have happened. I’m truly sorry to tell you all this, Ivan. But I want you to understand. It was just a tragic accident.” I could hear us each exhaling.
I badly wanted Brickie to shut up and go away, but he had more to say. “And I might as well give you all the bad news. Your friend Gellert and his family have to leave the country. Someone determined that they were undesirable aliens, possibly Communist sympathizers posing as refugees, but I’m not convinced of that myself. I think someone had it in for them. But Elena tried her best to make things better for them. I’m sorry about everything, boys.” He rose, brushing off his pants, and patted each of our sweating heads before going inside.
Max and I looked at each other, baffled and amazed. Ivan said softly, “So did I do it?”
Max cried, “You didn’t! You heard him, Ivan! That’s great!”
“She’s still dead, Max.”
Realizing his insensitivity, Max apologized. “I’m an idiot.”
“But, Ivan, you don’t have to feel guilty anymore! You should feel better about that,” I said.
“I guess,” he said dully. “But what about the spider toxins?”
“He said everybody had them!” I practically shouted. “Forget about it, Ivan!”
Brickie’s remark regarding Gellert’s family struck me as summing everything up: Elena tried her best to make things better. Weird for this to be coming from Brickie, who had had reservations about Elena all along, but then I remembered them happily dancing together at the Fiesta. Elena had certainly made things better for Ivan and me. I grieved for myself, but how Ivan was going to get along without her in the world I could not imagine.