Herb's Pajamas by Abigail Thomas

Author:Abigail Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 1998-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

SHOPPING BAG

EDITH PICKED UP her mother’s ashes from the funeral parlor one sunny afternoon and carried them all the way home. They were quite heavy after all, but she carried them fifty-seven blocks, thinking to herself, Here’s Zabar’s, Mother, and here’s the Town Shop, where our underwear comes from, don’t you know, and here is where Teacher’s was that had the good eggs Benedict. And across the street is where we like the iced coffee and the movie theater used to be and now there is another one. And here we are passing Williams Bar-B-Que Poultry and now across the street is Liberty House and here is where we bought the air conditoner thirty years ago and there was a bookshop here once too. And there is the old man to whom we always gave money and I will again, and in another couple of blocks, past the other good coffee place (Turkish) and falafel and nearer to La Rosita but first here is Straus Park and let’s us sit down. Edith sat on a bench near the Queen Anne’s lace (her mother’s favorite flower) holding the pale blue shopping bag (Compliments of Riverside Chapel) that contained the cardboard box that contained her mother and held it on her lap like a baby. Edith placed the bag logo inward as she didn’t want to attract sympathy on the street.

That night Edith dreamed she was wearing black clothes. She dreamed her mother’s funeral was at the Metro Theater, with those steep seats, and as she passed her mother’s body she wept, although she pulled herself together since people were looking. Her mother, though, was not behaving in manner befitting the dead. She insisted on trying to get out of the coffin. It took several people to hold her down (all of them strangers to Edith). It was all terribly sad and hard to understand. Finally Edith took her mother’s arm and helped her up and together they walked into the lobby. Her mother was pleased and began to tell Edith a rhyme, which Edith couldn’t hear. Still, they had a pleasant time standing there together in the lobby and then her mother vanished into the street.

If my mother isn’t dead, thought Edith in the dream, whose ashes do I have?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.