Do me a favor. Let them stew in it a little longer.
Just make sure my Takamine acoustic and all my stuff makes it onto the Matzo Baller, Pier 83, by Friday afternoon.
You got it, boss.
A photo came through. Tobin with his three-day scruff, saluting the camera. Avi smiled.
Thanks, friend.
Chapter Eleven
“This is it? We’re in a park.” Leah glanced around the deserted lot. A sign said Niagara Falls State Park was open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. It didn’t look much like a Wonder of the World from where they were sitting.
What could only be described as ice needles hit them the moment they stepped out of the car. “Is that –?” Leah gasped, turning her back to the wind.
“I think it’s the mist, freezing. Let’s make this quick.”
Leah gingerly placed the urn inside her coat, holding it in place with her crossed arms. “I have no idea if this is even legal,” she whisper-shouted to him as he skated ahead of her on the slippery pavement.
“All the more reason to make this quick.”
A park ranger was coming out of the Welcome Center. He held up a gloved hand in greeting as if it were perfectly natural to be sightseeing ahead of the region’s blizzard warning. “You folks be careful out there. The Observation Deck is closed, but Terrapin Point has a nice view, top of the falls.”
He pointed them down a path. Avi grabbed Leah’s arm before she almost went down, and together they hobbled like penguins across the frozen terrain. They were even closer to the waterfalls now, so the freezing mist had coated everything, from the walkways to the trees to the overlooks, in a dreamy, otherworldly white.
You could still hear the roar of the water cascading, churning up the frosty mist. It was hard to see the falls through it, but you knew they were there. Leah stopped in front of the ice-coated railing. “Wow…”
“You can’t get this close to the Canadian Falls,” Avi marveled as they watched the rushing water from the river tip into oblivion from just a few feet away. “You can give Mrs. Horowitz a good send-off from here.”
Leah pulled out the urn, struggling with the top. “She’s not making this easy.”
Avi held out a hand. She stubbornly kept trying to turn the top before finally admitting defeat and handing it over. “Maybe it’s sealed?”
He carefully turned it around and then upside down, examining it. What they thought was the top and a lid was decorative, and there was a screw-off plug hidden in the base. “Ah ha, there we go.” Avi carefully removed it, then handed the urn back for Leah to do the honors.
“Now that we’re here…” she trailed off. “It feels like we should say a few words, you know?”
It was cold as fuck, the ice needles were stabbing his brain, and the fur coat was becoming ice mist-logged and heavier by the minute. But Leah was right. “Was she observant?”
She shook her head.
“How about a favorite song?”
Leah bit her lip in thought. “She loved Sam Cooke.”
In his mind, Avi saw the old jukebox his Year Course host Modi kept on themoshav, full of discs from every decade and rigged to play them for free. He’d learned to sing them all during his time there, with Modi sometimes joining in with his high tenor.
Sam Cooke.Avi nodded. Mentally scanned the inventory, landed on a flashing choice and selected it.
Leah inhaled a deep breath through her nose, then pincered her fingertips into the urn to pull out the bag. Her brow furrowed, then raised in confusion as she pulled what looked like a folded index card out.
“Tell me that’s the brisket recipe,” Avi laughed as Leah studied it.
“Taking it to her grave was a clue, not a threat!” Leah pressed the memento to her heart fondly before pocketing it so she could continue the task at hand.
As if on cue, the Falls around them lit up for their nightly illumination: a rainbow of blues, purples, yellows, and pinks. As if showing them just when to start.
Leah sprinkled little gray heaps over the railing toward the frothing beyond as Avi crooned a soulful rendition of “You Send Me.”
