Read Online The Sixteenth of June by Maya Lang - Free Book Online

have recounted a story from when Michael was young, a boy in Brookline. How she watched for him through the window, waiting for him to come home from school, the plate of cookies already out. And then looked on as he did his homework, clutching his pencil too tight. So smart, she might have said. Even then, you could tell.
    They might have taken a liking to each other, she and Grandma Portman. The two of them were the only ones who did not zig and zag, but watched it all from a remove.
    Maybe that was why Stephen had visited her—because they both felt like outsiders. Maybe no one feels as if they belong in this family, even the people in it.
    Nora should have made some fractional effort with her. Who knows what it might have yielded? Instead she had ignored her, too caught up in her own troubles. She’d made a snide joke about how Hannah Portman resembled a taxidermied animal. And she had said it to the person who loved her most.
    She feels for Stephen’s arm beside her, touches it. I am the one who’s stuffed and fake, she wants to tell him. She thinks of his weekly visits to the woman they had all ignored and feels a swell of feeling for her friend. I’m so sorry. If she could say it in Hebrew she would. May peace find you, Stephen.
    His hand folds down, finds hers. And here you must comfort me, she thinks. On top of it all, you must comfort me.

Five
    L eo reaches for a white paper plate, using his thumbnail to separate it from the stack. People stand in groups around him in the synagogue’s basement. The burial had taken less time than he imagined. Who knew funerals were so fast? This business of death is efficient.
    But this is the type of thinking that would make Nora and Stephen wince. They think he is a heathen for not dabbing his eyes and staring off in regret. Only a barbarian consults his watch at a funeral. Only a barbarian is tempted by the food.
    The buffet table bisects the room. Black trays with clear plastic lids display their contents: smoked fish, pasta salad, sandwiches. A catering company probably has an in with the synagogue. Shivah trays. So good, you will die. Leo disguises his laugh by coughing into his shoulder. Aunt Sharon must have made the arrangements. His mom had glanced at the table, her lips pursed in disapproval.
    Leo reaches for a sandwich, a cross-section of turkey and lettuce and tomato speared with a toothpick, green plastic wrap on its end. Is it decorative? For safety? Did that little bit of green protect you from the toothpick’s point? He contemplates this, about to take a bite, when he feels himself being watched. He looks up. What? he thinks, as Nora meets his eye accusingly.
    Nora’s eyes flash their code. Memo to Leo: Be the hero. Don’t eat the hero . He drops the sandwich like a dog.
    The morning has been filled with such rebukes. How Stephen and Nora carried on at the cemetery! Murmuring to each other, eyes lowered. Their gestures composed a ballet, a great performance of propriety. Meanwhile, he watched as Nora tugged at her outfit during the service, so anxious to get everything right. Arms crossed? No, better straight. She darted nervous looks at June, attempting to mirror her movements. And what was so respectful about that? The dead don’t care if we slouch. But there Stephen and Nora stand, so upright and stiff, too pious for food.
    Leo has given in to their small demands, not minding the way anyone else in his position might. Whether you stand straight or talk in a hushed voice at a funeral is meaningless. But not causing a scene? That, as they say in the MasterCard ads, is priceless.
    The dead probably want us to do whatever we think offends them. Eat, cough, laugh. The dead probably long for such acts. All those stirrings and scratchings—glorious when you can no longer do them. These are the fidgets and falterings of what it means to be human. When we are most ourselves, our faulty selves, and finally relent.
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