Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do

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They held Donnie Jacobs’s funeral on a Friday. It was Jewish custom not to bury the dead on Saturday, and even though Donnie died Thursday evening, the service took place early on Friday.

Emma flew into Boston that morning. Jesse met her at the airport. She was red-eyed and disheveled, which was unusual for her. She clung to him for a while. He could feel the sobs coursing through her.

The service was at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, where Donnie had been living. His health had begun to fail quite suddenly, and in no time, he was gone.

Jesse had been to see him on a number of occasions. He couldn’t help but notice the old man’s decline, but he had still hoped for the best.

A handful of people attended the memorial. At Emma’s request, the cremation had occurred prior to her arrival. She had no interest in viewing the body. She had seen her mother’s, and the sight of it had stayed with her. She didn’t want to risk the same with her father.

The rabbi spoke eloquently about life and about death. He appeared not to have known Donnie, and although his comments were fairly nonspecific, his thoughts were transcendent. Emma cried softly throughout the service.

Afterward, there was a small reception in the dining room. Sandwiches and salads. Coffee, tea, and desserts.

Then they were in Jesse’s Explorer, carrying Donnie’s ashes to the cottage on Peterman Drive. Emma was planning to strew them around the property that she and her family had so loved.

“Funny,” she said. “Just last week the house went into escrow. Maybe he sensed it. Maybe that’s why he let go.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Jesse said.

They parked in front of the house. The realtor’s sign read: SOLD. They walked slowly across the front lawn and around the side of the house. She wanted to scatter Donnie’s ashes in the back, among the plants and shrubbery, all of them in early bloom. Green buds had begun to appear on the trees. The spring air was fresh and clean.

“Dolly’s ashes are here,” Emma said. “Now they’ll be together again.”

Jesse stepped back while she opened the urn that contained the ashes. He stepped to the side of the house, allowing her the moment alone. He watched as she walked the yard, scattering the ashes here and there. Then it was done.

She restored the top to the urn and looked back at the house. In her own way, she was saying good-bye to it and to the life she had known there. She would never return to it again.

Together they got into the Explorer and Jesse drove her back to the airport.