“She wanted you to have – ”
“I don’t want any of this! Iwantmy mother’s brisket.” She shoved the box back into Avi’s arms. “You can keep it all for yourtrouble. Including that gawdawful coat. What would I want with fifty pounds of musty Persian lamb?”
“But…she wanted you to scatter her ashes at Niagara Falls this spring. Where she and Saul honeymooned, fifty years next April.”
“No brisket, no second honeymoon.”
It was a standoff.
“Better call Saul,” Avi whispered.
Leah pulled the urn from the box. “No. I will take her there myself. I’ve always wanted to see the Falls, anyway.” What was one more item added to the bucket list, anyway? And a few extra hours?
She marched out of the house, and down the front steps. “Leave the box, we could use the extra cargo space. She can deal with it how she likes.”
Leah turned as Avi dropped the box on the stoop. Hattie was staring at them through the storm door, get-off-my-lawn vibes in full effect.
“It was orange juice, you know!”
“What’s that?” Hattie opened the storm door a crack.
“It was orange juice. That’s what made your mom’s brisket so good. Linda made it for every temple potluck, every Hadassah fundraiser. It was legendary. And everyone knew it was the orange juice, because she would tell them when they asked!”
Mrs. Horowitz had been the kindest, warmest woman. She was the one who showed up at their door, fed them for weeks after her mother left. Brisket and chicken fricassee and all her dad’s favorites. She was always there for them. In that fur coat that didn’t smell musty, but like the fabulous Chanel no 5 she always wore.
“She always said the secret ingredient was love. So obviously you will never be able to recreate it, even if you had the recipe in your petty little hand!”
With that, Leah stomped to the car, carefully placed the urn back in the hatchback, and got back behind the wheel. Her hands shook as she fought to jam the keys in the ignition.
Was this how the rest of the trip was going to be? Full of false hope and disappointment? It didn’t bode well for the rest of the bucket list.
There was a knock on her window. With her nerves on edge and her thoughts spiraling, she flinched. Avi’s knuckles tapped again, gentler this time, before he shoved his hands in the pockets of the fur coat for warmth.
She rolled down the window.
“Let me drive.”
“I’m fine.” Her fingers fumbled with her phone. “Let me just… I’ll map it to the bus terminal.” Her shaking hands knocked it clear off its stand and down by her feet. “Dammit!” She felt around on the floormat, gritty with road salt, for her errant device. “I don’t want you to miss – ”
“Fuck the bus terminal, Leah.”
She looked up. Avi puffed a locomotive breath in the frigid air, hands still jammed in the pockets. “Buffalo’s on the way to Niagara Falls. My turn to drive.”
“You don’t have a license.”
“Yes I do.” He grinned. “I have Tobin’s.”
Relief flooded her nervous system, replacing the adrenaline. She wouldn’t have to make the next unexpected leg of the trip alone.
“And I have this.” From the left hand pocket of Mrs. Horowitz’s coat, he pulled a fifty dollar Canadian bill. “Looks like gas is on Linda.”
“Do you think it’s left over from their honeymoon?”
“Maybe? That would be pretty cool.”
The bill was definitely old. Paper. Not like the newer, polymer-plastic money with their holographs of the Queen that Buck would dole out forper diemwhen they played Toronto, Quebec, Montreal.
Avi wondered what Buck was doing right now. And whether he himself would become just one of the tour manager’s anecdotes.Then there was the time we forgot the lead singer of Painted Doors at a rest stop!
