“Goodbye, Mom,” Sarah said softly as the ashes skirted over the tops of the waves. The wind turned them into a mist, thinning and spreading them out until they were invisible. “I love you.”
* * *
Up at the house, there were muffins and danish, bagels and lox and cream cheese, pitchers of fresh juice and champagne for mimosas. Lord Farquaad cruised the room on his stumpy legs, nosing for scraps. The boys were playing Monopoly in the living room. Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Matt sat at the dining-room table with overflowing plates in front of them, announcing, loudly, to anyone who came near, what a shame it was that the kids were selling the place, and, really, were they sure it was what Veronica would have wanted?
Eli’s brother, Ari, and Gabe’s aunt Amanda had retreated to a corner, where they stood, almost touching, deep in conversation. Sarah lifted her eyebrows at her brother. Sam pressed his lips together and shook his head. Twin-speak for Sam saying, That isn’t going to end well, and Sarah replying, Yes, but there’s nothing we can do to stop it. As part of his attempts to be a better person, Eli had announced he was going to try to give his brother some grace—or at least, when possible, the benefit of the doubt. “If all I do is expect him to screw up, when he does, it’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he’d explained. Sarah wasn’t sure that Ari was capable of being anything but the troubled and trouble-making rapscallion she’d always known, but she loved her husband for trying.
Fifteen minutes into the reception, Suzanne got to her feet and cornered her niece and nephew in the kitchen.
“Did you two ever do those DNA kits I sent you?”
Sarah looked at her brother. Sam shook his head. “I know I meant to, but I think it got packed in the move, and it hasn’t been unpacked yet.” Sam and Connor were permanent East Coast residents now. Six months ago, they’d left California and moved to Brooklyn, so Connor could go to the same school as his cousins, and the families could have Shabbat dinners together each week, and so that Sam could see Gabe every night, instead of every month, which was what they’d done for the first six months of their courtship. “Young love,” Eli had said indulgently when Sarah gave him the news. “Isn’t it grand?”
“At least one of them’s young,” Sarah muttered… but Eli knew how happy she was that her brother had found someone; that he’d finally found himself.
“Sarah?” Aunt Suzanne blared. “What about you?”
Sarah shrugged. “I was going to, but then my mom told me she’d heard a podcast about how there’s privacy issues, and that the government can force companies to turn over your data if they think you committed a crime. It sounded too risky.”
“Hear, hear,” said Uncle Matt. “I told Suze it was a bad idea.”
“Oh, you said no such thing,” said Aunt Suzanne, and slapped playfully at her husband’s shoulder.
Uncle Matt wandered over to the bookcase. He pulled one of Veronica’s books off the shelf and flipped through the pages. “You ever wonder why your mom stopped writing?”
Sam and Sarah exchanged a look. “I got the impression that she liked writing, but she didn’t enjoy publishing very much,” Sarah said.
“Fame,” said Matt, and nodded like he’d spent his life dodging the paparazzi instead of unclogging toilets. “It’s not for everyone.”
“Who knows?” Sarah asked lightly. “Maybe she never stopped writing at all. Maybe there’s a treasure trove of unpublished novels around here.”
“Oh, you haven’t gone through her things?” Suzanne’s eyes gleamed with sudden interest.
“Not yet,” Sarah said.
“We’ve been putting it off,” Sam said. “We were going to do a big clean-out before we put the place on the market.”
“But then,” said Sarah, “we decided to hang on to the house.”
Suzanne’s and Matt’s heads swung around in unison. Together, they asked, “Oh?”
Sarah nodded. “Mom always wanted us to come here and spend time together. She wanted the cousins to get to know each other, and have the kinds of summers that we did, and she wanted to spend a lot of time with her grandkids.” Brother and sister exchanged another look. “We weren’t great about it when she was alive,” Sarah said. “We want to do better now.”
“Well, that’s lovely,” said Suzanne, hands clasped at her ample bosom. “And, of course, we’re so close!”