Anna in the Afterlife Read Online Free PDF Page B

makeup.”
    â€œWe’re not having an open casket, so no one will be looking,” Janet said.
    â€œYou’ll be looking.” The woman leaned forward till her earrings jangled. “You’ll have to identify the body. We can’t bury anyone unless we’re sure it’s the right one in the box.”
    In Anna’s opinion, once the girls got to the casket room, they both looked faint. They hadn’t eaten for hours; it was way past lunch time. The theory here was to wear them down and then give them the hard sell. If only they remembered her instruction that for a hole in the ground the cheapest piece of plywood would do.
    The $10,000 bronze casket was the first thing to be seen in the room, gleaming, satin-lined, with quilted pillow, burnished walnut edges, a miniature oil painting on the underside of the lid to fold down over the face of the deceased. The idea of the lid coming down, shutting down, locking down, was enough to make a person want to be scattered at sea. The Russian was leading her daughters among the aisles of the showroom: one level down from bronze was mahogany, then walnut, then maple, then pine, then cedar (Sammy had got cedar), and in the far, far corner, almost hidden from view, was the cheesecloth-covered plywood box. Cheesy. That was the one Anna wanted. Take it, take it , she sent telepathy to her girls. Don’t let them shame you with this business about You don’t want the cheapest coffin for your mother, do you? You do! You do!
    Bless them, they did.
    By the time they had ordered the headstone, the bronze plaque that had to match Abram’s (but it would have a piano instead of a Jewish star at its center), it was dinnertime. The girls spent another half hour spelling out what would be engraved on the bronze plaque, the simplest of words:
    ANNA GOLDMAN
1907 (EMBOSSED GRAND PIANO) 1997
BELOVED WIFE MOTHER
GRANDMOTHER GREAT-GRANDMOTHER
    Was Anna really a great-grandmother? Carol’s oldest (adopted) son, the one in the army, already had two babies. (Were his babies really her great-grandbabies, did they count?)
    Her girls now had to pay the bill and Janet was looking at the figures. A fortune, a waste of money. The funeral business, it was a gold mine! There was never a lack of customers. What her funeral was costing came to more than Anna and Abram had ever paid for a vacation, for a year’s rent, for a car . She should live so long before she’d do this again!
    But finally her girls got out of there. The sky was dark. The two of them were faint from low blood sugar. Carol drove them toward home; they discussed where they might stop to eat. Maybe Shakey’s Pizza was a good idea. Yes, they’d order cheese and mushrooms. But then it would have to be baked. Impossible to wait that long.
    â€œIt has to be fast food. Let’s go anywhere! The first place we see!” Janet said.
    Carol turned off the freeway as soon as they saw the lights of Clodhopper’s. It was a hamburger place they never went to, mainly because the restaurant kept sides of beef hanging in the window. “The best beef in town,” was their motto, but to see it there—half a cow on every silver hook, complete with fat, sinew, muscle and bone—didn’t do much for the appetite.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, I’ll eat anything,” said Carol, who was these days on the verge of giving up red meat. “This day has been so surreal. Bringing clothes for the corpse of our mother, buying a coffin, picking a piano for the tombstone. Now we’ll be eating dead cows. What kind of nightmare is this?” They were rushing forward with their trays, ordering giant hamburgers, curly seasoned fries, and huge root beers, when a man came up to Carol and put his arm around her.
    â€œHey there,” he whispered and Carol nearly passed out. For there was the image of her father, a replica of Abram, the ghost of her father giving her a hug.
    â€œOh my