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

ahead,” the dead might say. “Let one rip.”
    In the far corner, Nora and Stephen stand huddled together. Their friendship bobs between them like a current, keeping Leo at bay.
    He feels a tap at his arm. Magnified eyes under oversize glasses, and what can only be a wig, sitting at an angle that is just slightly off.
    â€œA sad day,” the woman remarks.
    â€œThank you for coming,” he replies, holding out his hand. “Leopold.”
    The old lady comes up to his elbow. She takes his hand using just her fingers, the pressure nonexistent.
    â€œOh, I know whoyou are. I saw pictures.” She shows no sign of relinquishing his hand, and he has the strange feeling of having loaned it to her.
    â€œYou’re from Pine Grove?”
    She nods. “A couple of us came over. The shuttle made a special trip.”
    Perhaps at a certain age, he reflects, you dispense with names.
    â€œBut where is Stephen?” She peers around the room.
    Leo gestures with his free hand and she follows his gaze. Stephen and Nora have been joined by another old-timer, a fluff of white hair over a stick of a body, like a Q-tip.
    â€œThere he is!” A smile breaks out across her face. Her lips are frosted pink, a horror against her yellow teeth. “A wonderful grandson, to visit so often.”
    â€œRight,” Leo mutters.
    â€œI don’t mean it that way. You kids are busy with your own lives. She knew that.” The woman brushes away the thought. She has pink polish on her nails, which appear large and rounded, like coins. “It’s just that those visits meant a lot to her. She kept to herself, you know. But when Stephen was there, she’d light up. A kind soul, your brother.”
    â€œOh, sure.”
    â€œWell. Our condolences for your loss.” The woman pauses, nods. “She will be missed.” With that she begins shuffling down the buffet.
    Leo feels the faint trace of her fingers, his hand finally released. “Our condolences,” she had said. Was she speaking for the lot of them, a bingo club or mah-jongg group? Was she their ambassador? Or had she once been married, her husband now gone but still causing her to default into an automatic we after so many decades together? Maybe she was the resident busybody at the nursing home, the one who kept tabs on everyone and attended the funerals. Grandma Portman had probably frowned at her pink lipstick and nails, her ridiculous lopsided wig.
    Grandma Portman was impassive. Leo couldn’t tell if she enjoyed seeing them at Delancey or if she didn’t want to be there. He wouldn’t have been offended if it were the latter; he simply wanted to know, either way. It was her inscrutability that bothered him.
    Stephen probably knew the answer. Who visited a nursing home like that? Monthly would be one thing, but weekly! Stephen probably wanted to live out there, where his old-man wardrobe of cardigan sweaters and houndstooth blazers would fit right in.
    For months, Stephen claimed to be too busy to make it to Sunday brunch. It usually ended up being Leo and Nora and his parents, a strange double date, Nora so sullen that he had to work extra hard to cover for her. Leo didn’t mind. But the whole point of brunch was for the family to be together. What good is living in the same city if you never see each other?
    â€œWork,” Stephen always said apologetically when he begged off. Like he knew the meaning of the word. Yet he’d found time for Grandma Portman. Leo imagines Stephen doing the rounds, making balloon animals and performing card tricks. He imagines Stephen being greeted with applause.
    He should’ve asked that old woman about Stephen’s visits. But what would Leo have wanted her to say? Why Stephen visited so much? What he and their grandmother had in common? Leo pauses, considers. Why he kept it a secret, really.
    It wasn’t something the woman could have explained. Stephen wouldn’t