perienced grief before, and now I used it as an excuse to avoid Melissa, Maury, and the rest of the Washington clan. Everyone overlooked my aloofness, impressed, I knew, with my devotion to Fran, with my selflessness. I held onto my sacrifice like a shield and refused to cry through the rabbi's long eulogy. All the time I kept waiting for the grief to hit me like a tidal wave, for it to grab me like a claw.
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At the cemetery, a beautiful snow-covered hillside in Virginia, both my parents fainted and were helped back to their feet by the Florida aunts. Those two were everywhere, consoling the family, lending a hand when the awning threatened to blow down at the graveside, helping mourners into and out of cars. They wept unashamedly, not so much for themselves, as Debs confided to me in the limousine, but on my parents' behalf. Ava was more silent than I had remembered her. She had a silver streak through her hairwhether natural or peroxidedlike Indira Gandhi. It gave her an otherworldly look, as if it were the badge of some wisdom obtained at great expense. All she said to me that afternoon was, ''There are no rewards for us here." Her green eyes swept the horizon and arced into the clouds and back.
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After the burial, there was the
shiva
, the period of ritual mourning. Zimmerman's had delivered to Fran's house a dozen wooden chairs small enough to be elementary school furniture. When we returned from the grave, my aunts dutifully unfolded them and set about serving the platters that friends of the family had sent. Only the immediate family had to sit in the little chairs, terribly uncomfortable on purpose to keep the mourners' attention on pain and grief. The aunts brought us food and encouraged us to eat. During all of this service they were as humble and quiet as geishas.
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The eating and crying continued all evening until the last guest left and my sister's husband, Herb, collapsed into sleep. Finally, only my parents, the aunts, and I remained. Ava suggested my mother switch from her mourner's chair to the sofa. My mother, mute as she had been all day, obeyed, moving in a daze. She took off her shoes and stretched out the length of the couch. "God," she suddenly said. "I helped Frannie pick out this fabric." She felt the nubby tweed of it and sobbed. "What's the point?" she asked us all.
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"Oh, Hen, I'm so sorry," Ava said.
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"I know," my mother said.
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"But Hen," Ava went on, "there's something I want to tell you. Something you have to know."
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