***

 

We held a funeral for Ruth that evening, burying her in the backyard under her favorite acacia tree. She used to snooze under that tree while my grandmother was tending to her garden. She’d wake occasionally, tearing off to chase the geckos that would climb over the thick stucco fence, stalking right back to the shade when she inevitably couldn’t catch them. Then she’d immediately fall asleep again, like someone had flipped her on/off switch. She snored, too, a weird snuffling noise that scared the pants off Bubbe that first night with her.

Christ on a matzoh, I was going to miss that cat.

“That is a huge cat,” Sabine said for the third time that day, her voice muffled by my handkerchief. She’d had to hold it over her face as we prepared Ruth for burial, since the smell had made her lose her lunch when we’d first gone out back to see her.

“Was a huge cat,” I corrected tonelessly as I looked down at the stiff, lifeless body of my best friend for the last dozen years. I huffed, thinking of the tiny kitten that I’d thought was a scruffy, mangy tabby when sixteen-year-old me had brought her home. Turned out, she was a Maine coon, and she would eventually grow to be nearly ten times the size she was when we first found her.

Sabine squeezed my hand, her agate eyes sad as she looked at me. “I’m so fucking sorry, babe.”

I nodded, feeling numb. “Me, too.”

It was just Sabine and me out there, standing in the backyard and staring at the hole I’d dug earlier. Faith was inside with Bubbe, leaving us alone to take care of this most unpleasant business. But we both just stood there. It was like neither of us wanted to be the one to do it, to actually pick her up and put her in the ground. Can you blame us? This was a nightmare for cat lovers like ourselves.

After several more minutes of just staring, I finally let go of Sabine’s hand, taking a deep, fortifying breath. Then I bent, grabbing the corners of the floral bedsheet I’d placed under my cat’s body and lifting it. She felt too light, like she might float away if I were to let her go. It was like the life in her had kept her tethered to the Earth, and without it, she was nothing but air.

Sniffing back the tears that were threatening, I gently placed Ruth in her grave.

Sabine started to cry as I shoveled the dirt back into place. When I was done, I placed several heavy river ricks over the spot, like a tiny cairn. I was hoping the rocks would slow any predators down. It wasn’t unheard of to see a coyote or two in the neighborhood, and I’d be damned if I’d let one of those schmucks disturb Ruth’s final resting place.

When I was done, I murmured a half-remembered prayer in Hebrew, upset with myself that I’d probably botched it. Ruth deserved better.

I turned back to Sabine, and she sniffed and wiped her eyes, giving me a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice like gravel. “I don’t know what’s with me today. I never cry this much.”

I reached out a hand, intending to rub it up and down her arm to comfort her, but stopped myself when I remembered my hands were covered in dirt. And death.

“Don’t be sorry,” I told her. “It’s a sad night.”

“Yeah.” She turned, and I followed her back into the house. Or the ‘mansion,’ as she’d called it earlier when we arrived.

“‘Business has been good,’ huh?” she’d asked in an accusatory tone when we stepped out of the car.

“What do you mean?” I’d asked, my brow furrowing as I led her into the courtyard that fronted the Spanish mission-style home I’d grown up in.

“You never told me you were rich,” she’d replied, gesturing to the house with an angry stab of her arm.

I’d never thought of myself as rich, even though I lived in a big house in one of the best neighborhoods in the city. Maybe that made me privileged, but it’s not like I sat around all day, counting my money. I worked seven days a week, and I had since I was fifteen. And I didn’t throw my money around like it was water, either. Most of what I owned had been in my family for years, including the house and the car. My great-grandparents had built this house when they’d come over from Holland in the 1920s, using the profits they’d made from the antiques store I still ran to this day.

Obviously, her words had bothered me. But at the time she’d said it, I’d been too preoccupied to even think of a reply. I just wanted to get in the house and get to Bubbe. I thought of it again now, though, trying to swallow down the bubble of unease rising up in my gut. I didn’t want Sabine to resent me for the things I had; I wanted her to share them with me.

Bubbe was sleeping now, finally, so we crept into the house quietly. My grandmother had always been a light sleeper, something that had only gotten worse as her disease had progressed. She’d often wake up at the slightest noise, disoriented and unable to soothe herself back to sleep.

I scrubbed down my arms and hands at the kitchen sink as Sabine helped herself to another hamentashen, humming happily as she chewed the date, raisin, and poppy seed-filled pastry.

“You were right,” she said, wiping crumbs off her chest. “These definitely make up for the pizza.”

I smiled. “Good. And now you know how to make them, so you can fill your craving whenever you want.”

“Or I’ll just make you bake them for me,” she teased.

I froze in the act of drying my hands on a dish towel. She had no idea how badly I wanted to do that. Cooking for her, feeding her, living with her. Loving her. I wanted that so badly. She was in my home now, standing in my kitchen and looking perfectly at ease, and I never wanted her to leave.

“Your grandmother is awesome,” she said, pulling me out of my daydreams. Because that was all they were – fantasies my brain had cooked up, torturing me with what my rational mind knew to be impossible. Or at least highly unlikely.

“I think she liked you,” I said cautiously. It was hard to say, really. She’d patted Sabine’s cheeks and smiled, saying she was pretty. But then she’d started to get confused about who this new person was, which made her agitated. Eventually I’d had to ask Sabine to leave us until I could calm Bubbe down again.

Sabine gave me a cautious look when my eyes cut over to her. “What is a shiksa?” she asked, surprising me. I wasn’t sure where she’d heard that word.

“It’s a woman who isn’t Jewish,” I replied.

She frowned. “Is that a bad thing, to her?”

I chuckled. “Well, at least she didn’t call you a goy.” That was a less-than-polite word for a Gentile, to my grandmother, anyway. Barely one step up from calling someone a putz.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Who is Melissa?”

“Melissa was my mother.” I frowned. “Why do you ask?”

She chewed her lip for a minute. “She called me Melissa, while you were in the bathroom.”

I sighed. If Bubbe had called Sabine by that name, that was not a good sign.

Though she’d never said it outright, I always thought that my grandmother held some grudge against my mother. Sometimes I thought she might have even blamed her for my family’s deaths. My mother had encouraged Rachel to go to the slumber party, thinking it would be good for my shy sister to be more social. If my sister hadn’t felt the need to invent an excuse to leave a party she wasn’t really ready to attend in the first place, then none of them would have died. Bubbe had stated this matter-of-factly, but she hadn’t been able to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

But that kind of thinking just compounds the grief, in my opinion. You could waste your life away, thinking of all the if/thens, until eventually you were driven mad by things that would never be. My parents and sister were dead, and no amount of wishing or theorizing – or blaming – would bring them back.

“She was also a shiksa, your mother?”

Sabine’s thoughtful voice pulled me out of my dark thoughts. “She was,” I confirmed.

Her eyes slid away from mine, and I sighed. Avoiding again. “Seems like that’s kind of a sticking point for your grandmother.”

I frowned. Her tone sounded defeated, like she saw Bubbe’s theoretical objection as a roadblock, one she wouldn’t be able to get around. It was like she was determined to find any excuse not to even try for something deeper with me.

“Maybe she would have had a problem with it, years ago. But there’s no way of knowing how she’d feel now. Besides,” I continued, coming around the counter and taking her chin in my hands. I turned her to look at me, holding her gaze. “I don’t care what religion you are. It doesn’t change what’s in here.” I laid my hands over her chest, feeling her heart beating wildly. “This is what matters to me.”

She inhaled sharply, her mouth opening and closing a few times like she was struggling with what to say. But before she could reply, Faith came into the kitchen, her orthopedic nurse’s shoes squeaking on the saltillo floor tiles. I sighed, stepping away from Sabine reluctantly.

“Well, I’m out for the night. Sylvia is in there checking on her now, but we gave her a sedative to help her sleep, so for once, she’s out cold. I’ll see you Wednesday,” she said, coming over and putting her arms around my waist, giving me a tight squeeze. “Thanks for the help today, big guy.”

I wasn’t sure how much help I’d been. Faith had done all the hard work, administering her meds, checking her vitals, and just generally making sure she was okay. All I’d done was feed her a couple of pastries while she harangued me for leaving my bike in the driveway again – something I hadn’t done in twenty years.

I hugged Faith back, smiling sadly. “That’s my line,” I replied.

She chuckled. “Well, I’m just doing my job.”

I shook my head sadly. “Nah, I’m doing mine.”

Bubbe had raised me, sacrificing what should have been her retirement years to ferry me to soccer games and listen to me murder “Ode to Joy” on the trumpet. She’d always had a backbone made of pure steel, but she was sixty-one years old when I was given over to her care. She’d been a widow since the age of forty, and had now had to bury both her sons, her daughter-in-law, and a grandchild. I don’t think anyone would have blamed her if she’d sent to live with someone else, someone younger and better equipped to handle an orphaned toddler. But she hadn’t. She’d raised me with as much energy as any parent half her age. And she’d done it without complaint.

Well, some complaint. She was a Jewish grandmother, after all. But I always knew, without a doubt, that she loved me.

So taking care of her now, making sure her final years were spent in the place she’d called home for almost seventy years, the place where she felt comfortable and safe? That was simply me doing what I was supposed to do, as far as I was concerned.

Faith reached up, squeezing my cheeks. “Your boyfriend is a keeper,” she said, looking at Sabine over her shoulder. I followed her gaze, noting that Sabine was wearing a glare that could melt steel.

I chuckled, trying to smooth over the uncomfortable moment. What on Earth was Sabine upset about now? Still jealous of Faith? Or was it something else?

I mulled it over as I walked Faith to the door. I stood and watched for a minute, making sure she got in her car and took off okay. Then I walked slowly back to the kitchen.

Sabine pounced as soon as I re-entered the room.

“Did you tell that woman that I was your girlfriend?”

Her tone was sharp, and I winced, conscious of Bubbe sleeping down the hall.

“No,” I replied as quietly as I could, hoping she’d follow my lead.

But of course I couldn’t get that lucky. “Or maybe she just threw that out to test the waters?” she said, her voice rising. “Fishing for information?”

I blinked. “What?”

She stepped around the kitchen island, her eyes narrowed dangerously. “She was all over you,” she hissed. “Calling you hon, hugging you. She wants your dick,” she accused.

I raised my eyebrows. “I highly doubt that.” I reached for her, needing to touch her, to hold her. Needing that connection to ground me. Because I was dangerously close to losing my temper.

But she swatted my hand away, then crossed her arms over her chest, her expression still hostile. “She’s really pretty,” she said, like that was some kind of proof of wrongdoing.

“I hadn’t noticed.” I rubbed a hand over my neck, frustrated. “But I’m sure her wife agrees with you,” I added, hoping the knowledge that Faith batted for the other team would shut down this insane argument.

She was undeterred, however. “But women cheat with you.”

“Women try to cheat with me,” I corrected. “I don’t ever go through with it if I know the truth. I would never willingly participate in breaking up someone’s family! You ought to know me better by now.”

Her eyes softened at that, ever so slightly, but her tone was still flinty. “That’s not the point.”

I stepped toward her, but she moved back again. “Look, which is it? Are you mad that I might have eyes for some other woman? Because jealousy is a girlfriend thing.” I gripped the edge of the counter, the butcher block smooth under my fingertips. “And you obviously don’t want to be my girlfriend. So you can’t have it both ways.”

She scowled at me. “We agreed to be exclusive.”

I snorted in disgust. “Yeah. Exclusive fuck buddies,” I sneered. “You just want my dick at your beck and call. You don’t want to date me. You don’t want our friends to know we’re together. You can’t even handle it when someone who doesn’t know you assumes you’re my girlfriend.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t actually want to be with me. You just don’t want to share your toy.”

She reared back as though I’d slapped her, her eyes blinking furiously against the sudden onslaught of tears. “You agreed to this,” she cried out. “You knew what you were getting yourself into.”

I nodded slowly. “You know what? You’re right. I did agree to this.” I heaved a ragged breath. “Because I stupidly thought you might change your mind about us. I thought if we got to know each other better, got to spend time together, you’d see that we could be good together. You’d see that it’s not so scary, to let someone in.” I shook my head. “But you were never going to let me in, were you?”

She held her hands up like she was pleading with me. “I don’t do relationships. You knew that.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, but why?”

“Why what?”

“Don’t be dense,” I spat, unable to control my anger now. “Why don’t you do relationships?”

She shook her head stubbornly. Always so stubborn. “I just don’t.”

“Bullshit.” She winced, and I realized I was dangerously close to yelling. I hung my head, breathing deep, gripping the counter again to try to steady myself. “There has to be some reason,” I continued in a softer tone. “I want to know.” I looked up at her then. She seemed terrified, and I knew I was pushing her too far, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I deserve to know.”

Her eyes turned hard at that. “You don’t deserve shit.” She stepped forward poking me in the chest with one of her long fingers. “What makes you think you have a right to know my secrets? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“The man who loves you!” I shouted, finally exploding.

She froze, her eyes huge, like a hunted rabbit. But then she exhaled noisily, shaking her head. “No. Don’t you dare.” Her tone was increasingly desperate as she continued to mulishly shake her head. “Don’t you fucking dare love me.”

“That’s not how it works!” I pounded my fists on the counter. “You don’t get to decide whether I love you. I just do. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have a family with you, and live happily ever after, and have all the things you’ve convinced yourself you can’t have.” I reached out, uncrossing her arms and gripping her just above her elbows. “But you can. You can have all those things, if you just trust me.”

Tears began to fall down her smooth, round cheeks as she continued to shake her head. “No. I can’t. I can’t trust you.”

I growled in frustration. “You can’t trust yourself, more like. You think, I don’t know what. That you’re bad at relationships, or that it won’t last, or something.”

“Because they don’t. They never last.”

Her tone was so pitiful, so defeated, that my anger immediately dissolved. I slid my hands down her arms, squeezing her hands, trying to reassure her. I was here. I had her, and I wasn’t letting go.

“Don’t think that. Lots of relationships stand the test of time. I know we could be one of them, babe. Please. Just trust me. Trust us.”

But she just kept shaking her head. “I can’t do a relationship. Not with you. Not with anyone.”

I let out a weary sigh. I was just so tired, and it didn’t help that we were going around in circles. “Why? Why can’t you just open yourself up to me? To anyone?”

“Because they leave!” She whimpered, pulling her hands from mine and scrubbing them across her cheeks. “I open up my heart to people, and they just leave me.” She hunched her shoulders forward, folding in on herself. “They take off and never come back. ‘Happy birthday, kid,’” she huffed, putting on a mock deep voice, obviously imitating a man from her past. Her father, maybe? “‘Enjoy the drum kit. I’m outta here.’”

I stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her. “I’m not going to leave you,” I promised. I kissed her wet, salty cheeks, trying to reassure her. “I love you so much. I would never take off on you like that.”

But she just kept going. I wanted her to open up, and boy, was she ever. But every word out of her mouth just broke my heart a little bit more.

“Love doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t protect you when they leave.”

I closed my eyes in frustration. “Not everyone is a deadbeat. Not everyone will abandon you. I won’t do that. I swear to you, I won’t do that.”

“Then you’ll die,” she whispered brokenly. “Like my mother. Like your parents. Your sister.”

“But-”

She cut me off before I could finish my objection. “Or they get sick, like your grandmother. She might still be here, but make no mistake, she’s gone all the same.” Her tone was brittle, every word dripping with pain. “One way or another, everyone leaves.”

“But we’re young, and we’re healthy,” I insisted. “We can have a long, happy life together.”

“My mother was young,” she whispered. “Only forty-six years old when cancer took her from me. Your parents were young when that drunk driver hit them. Your sister-” she choked back a sob, unable to finish that thought.

Because we both knew my sister was only six years old when she died.

I shook my head stubbornly. “But you can’t think like that. You can’t deny yourself happiness because it might get taken away. Yes, everyone dies.” I ran my hands up and down her back, trying to soother her. “That doesn’t mean we close ourselves off, never letting anyone in. That’s no way to live.”

She stepped away, turning to face me. Her expression was almost bewildered. She just looked lost.

“I can’t do this. I just… I can’t.”

“Don’t say that,” I croaked, my throat raw, my voice ragged with pain. “Please just trust me. We can be happy. I know we can be happy.”

She shook her head as her frantic eyes darted around the kitchen. Her eyes landed on her purse, and she snatched it up like it was a lifeline. “I can’t.” She turned, heading toward the front door.

“Please,” I begged. “I love you. I love you so much. Please just give this a chance. Give me a chance.”

She stopped short, letting out a violent shudder. “You can’t love me. Because you’ll leave me.” She took another step, murmuring almost to herself. “You can’t.”

“Please.” I followed her into the hall. “Don’t do this.”

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “I have to,” she whispered, not even turning to face me. “I just have to.”

And then she opened the front door and walked out on me.