candles, Harris asked Sammy what he thought Mommy would wish for. “To be alive,” Sammy said.
He looks more like his father now, with a face that mixes independence and innocence. Jessie has perfected the ironic smile of a grown woman. When Sammy was going over the invitation list for his birthday party, which consisted of everyone in his class, he was asked if he was sure he wanted to include the class bully. “Yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t want him to cry.” When, in a terrible coincidence, another girl’s mother in Jessie’s class died suddenly, Jessie said, “She can live with us.”
Jessie sits at the upright piano in the little room, her back to Ginny and me. A print of lavender fields in Provence, frayed at the edges, hangs over the piano. Jessie’s hair is tied with an aqua band. She wears black pants and a white shirt with long black sleeves, the front of which reads, “Color Me Happy”—every letter a different color and design. Magdalina, her young teacher, sits to her right, slightly behind her, making corrections of tempo. Jessie plays “My Robot” and “Money Can’t Buy Ev’rything.” “A little faster,” says Magdalina quietly, with remnants of what sounds like a Russian accent. The room is one of many at the International School of Music, which sits in a small cluster of shops in Bethesda. Children come to learn the violin and clarinet and other instruments, as well as the piano. In the long hallway connecting the practice rooms, it sounds like a ragtag orchestra tuning up.
Magdalina makes checkmarks in Jessie’s books as she goes along. She never interrupts. If Jessie hits a wrong note, she corrects herself. If a piece needs more practice, Magdalina tells her that. Jessie sits tall and straight. When she finishes with one of her three books, she carefully slides it into a black carrying case, and takes another. Ginny and I look at her back and watch her fingers as she plays “Bravery at Sea” and “The Happy Seal.”
Just before dinner on May 2, Kevin Stakey calls. He hesitates and apologizes. His voice falters. “I’ve come to think of you as a friend,” he says.
“What is it, Kevin?”
“My son died.”
His eighteen-year-old Stephen, a freshman at Stony Brook, collapsed during a mock regatta on campus. Students float cardboard boats on a pond in one of the undergraduate rites of spring.
“They don’t know the cause yet,” he says. “Something to do with his heart.”
The next day, I drive to the North Fork of Long Island to be with Kevin and his family, whom I have not met. His pretty wife, Cathy, is blond, with a wide and open face and the look of someone who gets things done—the adult version of their fourteen-year-old daughter, Laura. Laura greets me politely, so does nine-year-old Andrew. Cathy calls me “Mr. Rosenblatt,” until I ask her not to. We sit in the brightly lit and spotless living room of the gray, two-story house that Kevin built, and they tell me about Stephen—how easily he made friends, how he loved playing the bass drum in the university band. He had been valedictorian of his Mattituck High School class. Every few minutes Cathy offers me something to eat. I recognize this improbable impulse to play host to those who grieve with you. Kevin’s dad comes by. He is a huge man, well over six feet and larger than Kevin. He sits with us, says nothing, and eventually takes Andrew for a walk.
Before returning to Bethesda, I tell Kevin not to concern himself with whatever remains to be done on the playhouse. Two days later, he is back at work.
Ginny has a choking fit at breakfast. It lasts only seconds, but Jessie freezes. Sammy runs from the room.
On the last day of Sammy’s pre-school, the Geneva Day School dedicated a bench to Amy’s memory. Jessie had gone to Geneva two years earlier, and next year would be Bubbies’s turn. The bench was Leslie Adelman’s and Laura Gwyn’s idea, and the teachers and families of the
He looks more like his father now, with a face that mixes independence and innocence. Jessie has perfected the ironic smile of a grown woman. When Sammy was going over the invitation list for his birthday party, which consisted of everyone in his class, he was asked if he was sure he wanted to include the class bully. “Yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t want him to cry.” When, in a terrible coincidence, another girl’s mother in Jessie’s class died suddenly, Jessie said, “She can live with us.”
Jessie sits at the upright piano in the little room, her back to Ginny and me. A print of lavender fields in Provence, frayed at the edges, hangs over the piano. Jessie’s hair is tied with an aqua band. She wears black pants and a white shirt with long black sleeves, the front of which reads, “Color Me Happy”—every letter a different color and design. Magdalina, her young teacher, sits to her right, slightly behind her, making corrections of tempo. Jessie plays “My Robot” and “Money Can’t Buy Ev’rything.” “A little faster,” says Magdalina quietly, with remnants of what sounds like a Russian accent. The room is one of many at the International School of Music, which sits in a small cluster of shops in Bethesda. Children come to learn the violin and clarinet and other instruments, as well as the piano. In the long hallway connecting the practice rooms, it sounds like a ragtag orchestra tuning up.
Magdalina makes checkmarks in Jessie’s books as she goes along. She never interrupts. If Jessie hits a wrong note, she corrects herself. If a piece needs more practice, Magdalina tells her that. Jessie sits tall and straight. When she finishes with one of her three books, she carefully slides it into a black carrying case, and takes another. Ginny and I look at her back and watch her fingers as she plays “Bravery at Sea” and “The Happy Seal.”
Just before dinner on May 2, Kevin Stakey calls. He hesitates and apologizes. His voice falters. “I’ve come to think of you as a friend,” he says.
“What is it, Kevin?”
“My son died.”
His eighteen-year-old Stephen, a freshman at Stony Brook, collapsed during a mock regatta on campus. Students float cardboard boats on a pond in one of the undergraduate rites of spring.
“They don’t know the cause yet,” he says. “Something to do with his heart.”
The next day, I drive to the North Fork of Long Island to be with Kevin and his family, whom I have not met. His pretty wife, Cathy, is blond, with a wide and open face and the look of someone who gets things done—the adult version of their fourteen-year-old daughter, Laura. Laura greets me politely, so does nine-year-old Andrew. Cathy calls me “Mr. Rosenblatt,” until I ask her not to. We sit in the brightly lit and spotless living room of the gray, two-story house that Kevin built, and they tell me about Stephen—how easily he made friends, how he loved playing the bass drum in the university band. He had been valedictorian of his Mattituck High School class. Every few minutes Cathy offers me something to eat. I recognize this improbable impulse to play host to those who grieve with you. Kevin’s dad comes by. He is a huge man, well over six feet and larger than Kevin. He sits with us, says nothing, and eventually takes Andrew for a walk.
Before returning to Bethesda, I tell Kevin not to concern himself with whatever remains to be done on the playhouse. Two days later, he is back at work.
Ginny has a choking fit at breakfast. It lasts only seconds, but Jessie freezes. Sammy runs from the room.
On the last day of Sammy’s pre-school, the Geneva Day School dedicated a bench to Amy’s memory. Jessie had gone to Geneva two years earlier, and next year would be Bubbies’s turn. The bench was Leslie Adelman’s and Laura Gwyn’s idea, and the teachers and families of the
Similar Books
