“Quiet. I’m making an important point. No, one ices and decorates it perfectly, then cuts it very carefully and places the slice upright on a china plate with a gold rim, perhaps with a paper doily beneath. I merely decorated the cake.”
“Ha,” Alix said, and we both smiled. “So did you ever get that reception?”
“Well, no,” I said. “She could hardly have held such a partyso many years later, as if she’d forgotten that her only son had married and was only now getting around to commemorating it. But when your mother was born, shedidsend out announcements, and, goodness, the gifts we received! Many of them very impractical: sterling silver baby cups and spoons and rattles; baby clothes of the finest wool, embroidered and lined with silk; hand-smocked dresses; a very beautiful white blanket with lace trim … things one couldn’t possibly put anywhere near a baby, even one as well-regulated as your mother, without the baby immediately finding a way to render them unfit for public viewing.”
“You mean she’d poop all over them,” Alix said. “Or possibly throw up.”
“Yes,” I said, “although I was trying not to be quite so crude. Babies are rather messy, and diapers were not nearly so leakproof as they are today. We saved all those lovely things, though, and your mother greatly enjoyed dressing her baby dolls with them later. And the tea set! It had to be what she called a ‘breakable’ tea set, not one made of plastic. Imagine her delight, at four years old, at receiving it from her grandmother! To see Mrs. Stark on the floor with her, having their pretend tea-party, would have softened any heart. Oh, and the pram! The pram was a gift from Joe’s parents, and thoroughly ridiculous. Silver Cross, the same model as the one Prince Charles’s nanny used as she perambulated around the palace grounds with her royal charges. What a silly thing to buy for a family that lived on a winding road without sidewalks in the California hills. We left it at the Starks’ instead so we could wheel your mother around Pacific Heights, which was vastly preferable anyway.”
“Since their neighbors and friends could see it,” Alix said. “Oh, dear. I feel like I understand Mother much better now.”
“Yes. But there’s nothing wrong with being more conventional, you know, if one is born so. It’s merely that you and Iwerenotborn so, so we don’t resonate to the same frequency. Your mother, though, loves you as much as I loved her. As much as Mrs. Stark loved Joe. As much as my mother loved me, for that matter, though I’m sure she sometimes wished me to have rather less of my father’s nature. This pan is ready; you may put it in the oven now.”
Alix did, but she also said, “You know? I still miss Grandpa like crazy. I always did, but since you’ve told me so much about him, I miss him even more. And I think about Sebastian out there in Buffalo this weekend, so far away, and what I’d do if I lost him, and I don’t see how you’ve managed. Isn’t it awfully hard?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s more than hard. But you know, after seventy-five years together, he is here still”—I laid a palm flat against my heart—“and more than that. In my very blood, exactly as Rilke said. And soon, you know, I’ll—well, perhaps notjoinhim, precisely, but?—”
“Oma,” Alix said with alarm as I sank onto a chair. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I put out my hands to the stove. It had been fueled by gas for many years, for there was no Joe to chop firewood anymore, but it still gave out its cheerful warmth and showed its cheerful flames. And across the room, Joe’s cello stood against the wall as it always had. I dusted it every week, knowing I should donate it to a music school but unable to bear its departure. “No,” I said. “Merely being realistic. Your grandfather and I never could decide what happens after we die, but wediddecide that it didn’t matter. There’s a poem about that. I read it long ago; I don’t remember where. I’ve since tried to find the author, but without success.”
Alix had put the kettle on for tea, but now she sank down beside me as the rain ran in streams down the windows and the flames leaped behind the glass of the stove. “What does itsay? I can’t believe you don’t know the author ofanypiece of poetry.”
I had to smile at that. “Perhaps you can find it. This is what it says.
“We only lose the presence
Of those who have left us.
What they have created,
Accomplished,
Sought for and found,
And all that they have given of themselves
Remains with us.”
“Oh, man,” Alix said. “Did you have to make me cry?”
“It’s very comforting, isn’t it?” I’d teared up too, but that was what handkerchiefs were for. The electric kettle boiled, and Alix jumped up to make the tea as I said, “But I do want to ask you a favor.”
“Hang on. Let me do the tea first.” She splashed water haphazardly over teabags in two mugs—Alix would never be putting her perfectly decorated slice of cake onto a doily—and came to sit with me again. “Shoot.”
“You’ll think it very strange,” I said.
“Oh, boy,” she said. “Coming from you …”
We both smiled, and I said, “You know how much your grandfather loved his garden.”
“Well, of course. His favorite place to be.”
“The raised beds have been empty for some years, as you also know,” I said. “I haven’t had the heart, and I certainly haven’t had the ability to stoop. The worm bin, though, I’ve kept supplied with compost. How many generations of worms must have come and gone by now?”
“You want to bequeath me your worm bin?” Alix asked. “Unusual, but you know what? I’ll take it. Ben wants to grow agarden. Can you believe that? Sixteen years old? He’s discovered that he loves heirloom tomatoes, for one thing.”
“Oh, Ben is full of surprises,” I said. “How wonderful it would be to have him take custody of Joe’s worms!” We both had to laugh at that, and then I sobered and said, “But there’s more.”
