Chapter 10

IT WAS TWO FIFTEEN when I slipped quietly back into the house. My cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Ema: home. happy?

Me: Ecstatic.

I started tiptoeing toward the basement door when I heard voices coming from upstairs. At first I figured that it was the television, but no, one voice belonged to Myron. The other—hello—was female.

Hmm.

I moved toward the stairs. The light was off in Myron’s bedroom, but it was on in the office. The office, as Myron had told me maybe a million times, used to be my dad’s bedroom, and before Myron moved to the basement, he and my father had shared it. Myron often regaled me with stories of the lame stuff they used to do together in that room—play board games like Risk and Stratego, trade baseball cards, set up their own Nerf basketball leagues. Sometimes, when no one was in the house, I would go in the room and try to imagine my father as a child in there. But nothing ever came to me. The renovation had stripped the room of any memorabilia. It looked like an accountant’s office.

I moved upstairs and stopped by the door. Myron was on the computer, video chatting—at two in the morning? What was up with that?

“I can’t come now,” I heard Myron say.

A woman’s voice said, “I understand. I can’t either.”

Who was Myron talking to? Wait—was he trying to hook up online? And neither of them wanted to make the trip to the other’s town? Oh, gross.

“I know,” Myron said.

“Carrie isn’t ready,” the woman said.

Uh-oh. Who’s Carrie? Another woman? Oh, double gross.

“So what do we do?” Myron asked.

The woman said, “I want you to be happy, Myron.”

“You make me happy,” he said.

“I know. You make me happy too. But maybe we need to be realistic.”

They no longer sounded like strangers trying to hook up. They sounded like two people with broken hearts. I peeked into the room again. Myron had his head lowered. I could see a raven-haired woman on the screen.

“Maybe you’re right,” Myron said. “Maybe we do need to be realistic.” He raised his eyes to meet hers on the screen. “But not tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” Then the woman said in the most tender voice I’d ever heard, “I love you so much.”

“I love you so much too,” Myron said.

I didn’t know what to do here. I had no idea who this woman was or what they were talking about. I hadn’t asked Myron if he had a girlfriend or anything, mostly because I didn’t much care.

Whatever, I came up here because I heard voices. I didn’t feel good about eavesdropping like this. I took two steps back and quietly padded back down to my bedroom in the basement. I got ready for bed and slipped under the covers.

I wondered about how sad Myron and the woman sounded. I wondered who Carrie was and why Myron couldn’t be with her right now. But I didn’t wonder about it very long. In the morning, we would fly to Los Angeles and see my father’s grave. I figured that thought would keep me up the rest of the night. Instead I dropped off in seconds.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m still getting to know them, but as far as I can tell, my grandparents are the coolest grandparents in the history of the world.

Ellen and Al Bolitar—my grandmother likes to joke that they’re “El-Al, like the Israeli airline”—greeted us at LAX airport. Grandma sprinted toward Myron and me, arms wide open, hugging us as though we were innocent men just released from serving an unjust prison term, which is to say, like a grandmother should. She hugged us with everything she had and then she looked us over, inspecting us to make sure that everything was how it should be.

“You both look so handsome,” Grandma said to me.

I didn’t feel handsome. I wore one of Myron’s suits. The fit was far from perfect. Grandpa trailed, using a cane and moving too slowly. Myron and I both kissed the old man on the cheek because that was how we all wanted it. Grandpa was still pale and thin from his recent open-heart surgery. I pushed away the feelings of guilt over his condition, but it was hard to escape the fact that I felt at least partially responsible. Grandpa wouldn’t have any of that. In fact, he liked to say that I saved his life that day. I had my doubts. As though sensing that, Grandpa gave my shoulder an extra squeeze. I can’t tell you why, but that squeeze comforted me like nothing else could.

Myron had a rental car waiting. We drove to the graveyard in silence. Grandma and I sat in the back. She held my hand. She didn’t ask about my mother, though she had to know. I loved her for that.

When we reached the graveyard parking lot, I felt my entire body shudder. Myron turned off the car. We all stepped out of the car in the silence. The sun beat down upon us.

“It’s up the hill,” Myron said. “Maybe I can get you a wheelchair, Dad?”

Grandpa waved him off. “I’ll walk to my son’s grave.”

We made the trek in silence. Grandpa, leaning heavily on his cane, led the way. Grandma and I followed him. Myron brought up the back. As we neared my father’s burial spot, Myron caught up to me and asked, “You okay?”

“Fine,” I said, picking up my pace.

No headstone marked my father’s gravesite yet.

For a long time, no one spoke. The four of us just stood there. Cars from the adjacent highway zoomed by without a care, without the slightest concern that just yards away a devastated family grieved. Without warning Grandpa started reciting the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, from memory. We were not religious people, far from it, so I was a bit surprised. Some things, I guess, we do out of tradition, out of ritual, out of need.

“Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba . . .”

Myron started to cry. He was like that—overly expressive—the kind of guy who cried at a greeting card commercial. I looked off and tried to keep my face steady. A strange feeling enveloped me. I didn’t believe Bat Lady, but today, standing by my beloved father’s grave, missing him so much I wanted to rip my own heart out, I was oddly unmoved. Why? Why, I asked myself, am I not totally devastated by my father’s final resting spot?

And a small voice in my head whispered, Because he isn’t here . . .

With his hands clasped and his head lowered, Grandpa finished the long prayer with the words “Aleinu v’al kol Yis’ra’eil v’im’ru. Amen.”

Myron and Grandma joined in for that fourth and final amen, making the word sound more like “oh-main.” I stayed silent. For several minutes, no one moved. We were all lost in our own thoughts.