“The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves” is a mystery, a search for one’s roots that takes the searcher on a long, tragic journey to the truth. The story is from the anthology Final Shadows.
—E.D.
Despite the rain, you’ve been to the cemetery yet again, ignoring the cold autumn gusts slanting under your bowed umbrella, the drenched drab leaves blowing against your soaked pant legs and shoes.
Two graves. You shiver, blinking through tears toward the freshly laid sod. There aren t any tombstones. There won’t be for a year. But you imagine what the markers will look like, each birth date different, the death dates—God help you—the same. Simon and Esther Weinberg. Your parents. You silently mouth the kaddish prayers that Rabbi Goldstein recited at the funeral. Losing strength, you turn to trudge back to your rain-beaded car, to throw your umbrella on the passenger seat and jab the button marked Defroster, to try to control your trembling hands and somehow suppress your chest-swelling rage, your heart-numbing grief.
Eyes swollen from tears, you manage to drive back to your parents’ home. An estate on Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, the mansion feels ghostly, hollow without its proper occupants. You cross the enormous vestibule and enter the oak-paneled study. One wall is lined with books, another with photographs of your precious father shaking hands with local and national dignitaries, even a president. As you sit at the massive desk to resume sorting through your father’s papers, the last of them, the documents unsealed from your parents’ safe-deposit box, your wife appears in the study’s doorway, a coffee cup in her hand. She slumps against the wall and frowns as she did when you obeyed your repeated, so intense compulsion to go back—yet again—to the cemetery.
“Why?” she asks.
You squint up from the documents. “Isn’t it obvious? I feel the need to be with them.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Rebecca says. She’s forty-nine, tall, with a narrow face and pensive eyes. “All the work you’ve been doing. All the documents and the meetings. All the phone calls. Can’t you let yourself relax? You look terrible.” “How the hell should I look? My father’s chest was crushed. My mother’s head was . . . The asshole drunk who hit their car got away with just a few stitches.” “Not what I meant,” Rebecca repeats. Using two hands, both of them shaky, she raises the coffee cup to her lips. “Don’t make sympathy sound like an accusation. You’ve got every right to look terrible. It’s bad enough to lose one parent, let alone two at once, and the way they died was”—she shakes her head—“obscene. But what you’re doing, your compulsion to . . . I’m afraid you’ll push yourself until you collapse. Don’t torture yourself. Your father assigned an executor for his estate, a perfectly competent lawyer from his firm. Let the man do his job. I grant, you’re a wonderful attorney, but right now it’s time to let someone else take charge. For God’s sake, Jacob—and if not for God, then for me—get some rest.”
You sigh, knowing she means well and wants only what’s best for you. But she doesn’t understand: you need to keep busy, you need to distract yourself with minutiae so that your mind doesn’t snap from confronting the full horror of losing your parents.
“I’m almost finished,” you say. “Just a few more documents from the safe-deposit box. Then I promise I’ll try to rest. A bath sounds . . . Lord, I still can t believe . . . How much I miss . . . Pour me a scotch. I think my nerves need numbing.”
“I’ll have one with you.”
As Rebecca crosses the study toward the liquor cabinet, you glance down toward the next document: a faded copy of your birth certificate. You shake your head. “Dad kept everything. What a pack rat.” Your tone is bittersweet, your throat tight with affection. “That’s why his estate’s so hard to sort through. It’s so difficult to tell what’s important, what’s sentimental, and what’s just ...”
You glance at the next document, almost set it aside, take another look, frown, feel what seems to be a frozen fishhook in your stomach, and murmur, “God.” Your breathing fails.
“Jacob?” Your wife turns from pouring the scotch and hurriedly puts the bottle down, rushing toward you. “Whats wrong? Your face. You re as gray as !
You keep staring toward the document, feeling as if you’ve been punched in the ribs, the wind knocked out of you. Rebecca crouches beside you, touching your face. You swallow and manage to breathe. “I ...”
“What? Jacob, tell me. What’s the matter?”
“There has to be some mistake.” You point toward the document.
Rebecca hurriedly reads it. “I don’t understand. It’s crammed with legal jargom A woman’s promising to give up two children for adoption, is that what this means? “Yes.” You have trouble speaking. “Look at the date.”
“August fifteen, nineteen thirty-eight.”
“A week before my birthday. Same year.” You sound hoarse.
“So what? That’s just a coincidence. Your father did all kinds of legal work, probably including adoptions.”
“But he wouldn’t have kept a business affidavit with his personal papers in his private safe-deposit box. Here, at the bottom, look at the place where this was notarized.”
“Redwood Point, California.”
“Right,” you say. “Now check this copy of my birth certificate. The place of birth is . . .”
“Redwood Point, California.” Rebecca’s voice drops.
“Still think it’s just a coincidence?”
“It has to be. Jacob, you’ve been under a lot of strain, but this is one strain you don’t have to deal with. You know you’re not adopted.”
