“Where’s yours?” she replied tartly, rising from the sofa. I offered her a hand, and she swatted it away.
“What’s the cemetery called?” I asked, pulling up Google Maps.
“The cemetery.”
“No, like what’s the name, so I can find it?”
“It doesn’t have a name.”
I sighed and searched for Jewish cemeteries near me. “Is it in Gloucester?”
“I know the way.”
I set the Gloucester cemetery as our destination and followed the map’s first direction.
“Are you and Tony like together now?”
She peered at me over her ridiculously large sunglasses. “Are you and Joe?”
I laughed. “I think we are.”
“Then you should thank your great-grandmother at the cemetery for not letting me marry his great-uncle. You’d have been cousins.”
“Ew, Grandma, why?”
She grinned. “Because it’s fun to make you squirm, darling.”
The cemetery was small and labeled only with a sign that said “Jewish Cemetery” from the main road, the words Mt. Jacob almost illegibly carved on a stone at the entrance.
I parked the car in the tiny lot and helped her out. She stood for a moment, and I saw the weight of loss in her face. Her whole family was here except my grandfather. Then she took a deep breath and strode purposefully through the headstones. I followed, careful not to step on any graves, though she had no compunction about that.
Finally, she came to rest at a large, shared headstone that read Bergman at the top. The left said Joseph, giving only the year 1895 for his birth, and his death on June 8, 1980. Miriam’s birthdate was present on her side, in 1894, and her death in October 1978.
“Less than two years apart,” I said quietly.
“Papa was lost with her gone.” She stared contemplatively at the earth in front of her. “And then he had a stroke, a heart attack, and another stroke.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. “That was when Bernie sold his cottage. Between Papa’s medical bills and the full-time care he needed by then—he didn’t want to leave the Main Street house, you see. We had a family meeting and agreed one of the cottages had to go to pay for it all.” She sighed heavily. “I probably drove back and forth fifty times those last two years. But we lived so far away, and Richie wasn’t in college yet. I wasn’t much help.”
“When did you move to Maryland?”
“Well before that. Your grandfather took the government job in . . . Let me think. Anna was fifteen, so it would have been seventy-one.”
She took my hand. “Mama, Papa, I want you to meet your great-granddaughter.” She didn’t speak for a moment, and I wondered if I was expected to say something. Nice to meet you would be a little weird under the circumstances. But she shook her head. “They would have loved you. Papa loved children more than anything. And you’re the good girl Mama always wished I was.”
She pulled me with her to the next grave. Genevieve Bergman, the stone read. Who was Genevieve? I read the dates. January 1934 until July 1955. “Genevieve?” I asked, confused. “I thought Vivie was short for Vivian?”
“Why would it be Vivian? You’re named for her, after all.”
“I—what?”
“Your mother thought Genevieve was too old-fashioned. The older names weren’t in style when you were born. So she chose Jenna.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.” I stared at the stone.
“I couldn’t say Genevieve when I was little. My nickname for her stuck.” She looked down at the ground, then up at me. “Go on back to the car. I have things to tell her.”
“I think she knows already.”
My grandmother put a hand on her hip. “And I think she needs to hear some of it from me.”
I didn’t like leaving her there in the sun, but I did as she asked, starting the car and putting on the air conditioner, but making sure I could still see her. I was named for Vivie. On the one hand, no wonder I had been so miserable. My mother didn’t mean to curse me, but oof. What a legacy to saddle a child with. I looked over at my grandmother again. She was engaged in an animated, albeit one-sided, conversation. I wondered if she was telling her sister about George or Tony, or all of it.
Eventually she shuffled back to the car, and I scrambled out to open her door for her.
“What did Vivie have to say?”