for what felt to Adam like a long time. He said, “I could tell my guys to have the grave dug by the time we start. But if it gets late, I’ll have to call them in to finish. It would be easier with more people . . . We have to be done with the burial before nightfall, so we’ll need to get an early start.”
Adam sighed. “Can we do it with three? I’m sure I can get Steven. We could do it with just the three of us, right?” Steven was Adam’s friend from college, and they were still very close. They were both on faculty at Belmont now.
“It’s back-breaking work.”
Adam nodded into the phone. “He’ll be up for it. I’ll call him. We’ll be there by eight.”
Danny sighed. “OK. I’ll make sure Hank’s coffin will be there when you arrive. We can be there to help lower it into the grave. I’ll have someone standing vigil over Hank at the funeral home all night. The body won’t be left alone until we arrive.”
“I know, Danny.” Adam said. “Jewish law. I know the drill.”
“I know you do. I know. Look, we’re both a little raw right now. Just call Steven, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I will,” Adam said. He reminded himself, as his grandfather would have reminded him, that he could try to be gracious. “Thanks Danny. I know this is tough on you too.”
“Don’t thank me,” Danny said. “I mean it. Don’t. We both want to do right by Hank. Try to get some sleep, Adam. Tomorrow’s going to be a long, hard day.” He hung up.
Adam called Steven next. They were on for less than three minutes. “I’m so sorry,” Steven said. “What can I do? I’ll be there. Just tell me when and where.” That was it. Adam let out a breath when he hung up the phone. No one was better in a crisis than Steven. Steven would help him get through this and he would he help him deal with Danny and there would be no drama. It was going to be all right.
Adam brushed his teeth and got into bed, but, worn out as he was, he couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes, he felt hyperaware, like every nerve was firing. He could almost feel his hair growing out of his scalp.
He got up and pulled up Miles Davis’s On The Corner on his computer. It was one of the first albums that got him into jazz, back in high school. It wasn’t the kind of music that would help most people relax, but at the familiar skittering rhythms of the opening bars Adam knew he had found his medicine. He lay back on his bed and let his head sink into his pillow. The music was electric, distorted, complex. Bursts of trumpet and guitar wove in and out of the underlying bass and percussion, complementing and canceling out the insistent, chaotic chatter in Adam’s brain.
Adam closed his eyes and he could almost see a woman coalescing from the music, pulling him toward her, inviting him to dance alongside her. In his mind’s eye, he could see the curves of her hips and her breasts as she moved. She undid her ponytail, and her hair fell over her face, covering her eyes. All of his focus was on her, on his desire to bury himself in her embrace. He could almost feel his fingers against her smooth, cool skin as he swayed with her, taken by the music. His breathing slowed and steadied. He slept.
The next morning, Adam showered and dressed, but he didn’t shave. He wouldn’t be shaving for a while. He packed a day-bag with water bottles and suntan lotion before heading to a diner to eat a quick breakfast and pick up some sandwiches for lunch.
His grandfather’s coffin was already there when Adam arrived at the cemetery. A bearded, middle-aged man in a black hat and black suit stood sentry, reading psalms. He looked up disapprovingly and left without a word when he saw Adam approaching in his shorts and work boots.
Next to the coffin, the grave lay open like a wound. A mound of loose dirt lay alongside. Danny’s crew had prepared the site before Adam had arrived and Adam could see the scars left by the teeth of their mechanical digger along the side of the grave closest to the headstones.
Adam took a breath as he looked back at the coffin. It was a simple pine box with three rope handles on each side. As prescribed by Jewish law, nothing was to interfere with the decomposition of the body.
Adam saw that Danny had left three shovels out for them, much larger and cruder than the tools Adam had used at Tel Arad, but when Adam hefted the one closest to him, it sat comfortably in his hands. He probed the soft, moist soil with the toe of his boot. He was anxious to get started, to be digging. He badly needed this to be over.
Adam looked up and saw Danny striding toward him on his short, powerful legs. The four men he had brought with him were in work clothes, but Danny wore a dark sports coat and dark jeans. When Danny caught Adam’s eye, he put his arms out wide as if he could pull Adam to his barrel chest from thirty steps away. “Adam! Adam!” he called.
Adam winced. Danny always spoke too loudly for Adam’s taste and with too much physical contact: an arm around the neck, a pat on the shoulder, a two-handed handshake. Danny cried in public. He got into loud arguments over nothing. In hundreds of small ways, despite his grandfather’s hopes that he and Danny would become close, being associated with Danny had always embarrassed Adam.
As Adam walked over to take Danny’s hand, Danny shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s gone, Adam,” he said. He squeezed Adam’s arm. He glanced over his shoulder, gesturing toward his crew. “We should get started,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m a little late. I had to drive Henry to daycare. Rose was a real treat this morning. A total bitch.”
Adam never had much to do with Rose when he could avoid it. She had always been cold toward him, and prickly. But then he imagined it was no picnic being married to Danny. “How is Henry doing?” Adam asked. “How old is he now? Eight months?”
Danny nodded. “Eight months last week.” He glowed with pride. “One of his teeth just came in. He’s such a trooper. It must have hurt, but he barely fussed at all. Hank was telling me just the other day what a special kid he is.” Adam recognized the flash of pain on Danny’s face as a mirror of his own, and for just a second, he felt their shared bond as something more than a burden.
Danny looked at his watch. “We should get started,” he said. “These guys need to get going.” Adam nodded, and at Danny’s signal, one of the men distributed short ropes. Danny walked to the front right side of the coffin and he gestured for Adam stand across from him on the other side. The other men lined up behind them. When Danny gave the word, they all looped their ropes through the rope handles on the coffin.
“You’re going to want to stand straight, Adam,” Danny said. “We’ll go slow. Lower the coffin hand under hand.”
Adam kept his eyes on his hands. It was one more loss alongside all the others, he thought. He focused on his breathing and on Danny’s whispered count before each incremental descent of the coffin. When the box finally came to rest at the bottom of the grave, the men pulled up their ropes and handed them back to the leader of Danny’s crew.
Steven drove past then in the beat-up Chevy he had bought back in grad school. He parked and walked over to Adam and embraced him. “How are you doing, Adam? Are you okay? You look like crap. Have you slept?” As usual, Steven looked every inch the prep school graduate. He was wearing jeans, but he had a summer sports coat draped over one arm.
“I’ve been better,” Adam said. “I’ll feel better after today. I’m really glad you could come. It means a lot.” He gestured at the jacket. “I hope you don’t mind getting those clothes dirty.”
Steve shrugged.
