A Fresh Life

The shiva callers arrived hungry and wet, and despite the communal sadness at the loss of Phyllis Bloom, the moment friends and relatives arrived at the front door they tossed their umbrellas and walked towards the corned beef for their well-earned feast. Jill Bloom, who had managed to reach thirty-two without making a single shiva call or even attending a funeral, watched her mother’s mourners with a mix of awe and disgust.

She had been stunned when she learned that people would be expecting a meal. “What are we supposed to serve them?” She asked this in Rabbi Birnbaum’s study. Nobody answered her, but they were also in shock. Jill knew that Todd would probably let the responsibility fall to her—the would-be prodigal daughter—that she would have to just figure it out.

“Maybe we should just skip it,” Todd said. “Mom wasn’t into crowds.”

Jill turned to him, eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? Mom was all about a crowd.” Their mother would have told her to give Todd a break, to appreciate how much he had changed over the years from a drug-dealing liar to guy who could hold a job. For this he was celebrated while Jill’s good behavior was expected. As the younger sibling to a delinquent older brother, there weren’t enough beats left in the family dance for so much as one missed curfew.

“We’ll sit shiva for one day,” their father said in the tone that used to terrify Jill. It said your opinion means nothing. It was his proverbial iron fist. “We’ll start early, after the burial, and go through the evening. Then everyone can show their face, and get out.”

Rabbi Birnbaum cleared his throat. He had already explained that the technical time for a shiva is seven days although many Jewish families had fudged it to three. “It sounds like you’re expecting a large group for Phyllis and one day would just not—”

Jill watched her father stand up abruptly. Had he stomped his foot or had she imagined that? Maybe she had actually imagined the past forty-eight hours starting with the moment her caller ID read Highland Park Hospital. Her father had spoken fast and made no sense whatsoever. All that Jill had been able to make out was “Mom” and “heart attack,” but that couldn’t be possible because her mother was the healthiest sixty-year-old in all of Highland Park, in all of Chicago, in the entire Midwest. As everyone knew from her mother’s book Fresh Living, she had sworn off high- fructose corn syrup a decade before it was en vogue. She walked outside every single day; even in February against the harsh lake-effect wind. Her heart could not fail.

Jill spent the first few hours of the shiva holed up in the kitchen although she occasionally made her away around the living room, hardly recognizing anyone. At least five different women named Judy handed her food, or, if they saw her hands were full, they asked where things should go. “Thanks,” Jill said; or, “On the dining room table.” These were the only words she spoke for a good part of the day. Her mother’s friends didn’t expect much more. What they wanted was her ear for their condolences, their memories, and their grief.

Because the family was small, the constant flow of people was made up of her mom’s friends. Her father didn’t have any, which didn’t surprise Jill since impossible did not adequately describe the ins and outs of his personality. He was the kind of guy who gave you a riddle the moment he met you and when you couldn’t solve it—which was most people—he said something like, “See, that’s how I decide if someone is fit for conversation.” And the worse thing was that he meant it. If he didn’t feel that you were “clever” he waved you away like a mosquito. He read two books a week and three newspapers a day. He wore a suit every single day of his life, weekends included. He wasn’t the kind of guy who collected friends or even acquaintances. And yet for reasons that mystified Jill, her mother had loved him and defended him against anything resembling criticism.

Next, a woman with spiky, red hair handed Jill a large paper bag containing dozens of bagels and nine kinds of cream cheese: two foods that Phyllis Bloom would never have demeaned herself to eat. Jill took the enormous bag to the dining room table where she had set up the rest of the food. Where was her father anyway? He was the one who insisted on having all of these people over in one day. Seven would have been more than she could handle—she could admit that now—but maybe Rabbi Birnbaum had been on to something with three.

Jill picked up a blueberry bagel and imagined how appalled her mother would be at the display of white flour and nitrates in her home. A decade earlier when Phyllis wrote Fresh Living, a treatise against eating processed food, she hadn’t imagined that so many people would read it. She wrote it more to get all of her beliefs about healthy living into one place so that when people asked her how she approached the world with so much energy and aplomb—because, really people asked this—she could hand them the book and save herself a few hours. In truth she hadn’t written it as much as researched it and outlined all the ideas. Jill had actually ghost-written the manuscript during a summer-break from college. It sold well in Chicago back when it was released and it picked up renewed steam now that trans-fats and corn syrup and the influx of soy in every bite of food were being regarded as the devil by even the average shopper. Phyllis had practically developed a cult following, and truly, Jill didn’t mind the lack of recognition of her own efforts on the project. The last thing she wanted was for people to scrutinize everything she ate because her name was on some love letter to mangoes and beets.

She felt a hand stroke the back of her head. “Oh sweetie, you shouldn’t be the one dealing with all the food. Your mother definitely wouldn’t have liked that. Give me that bag.”

“Thank you,” Jill said.

“You know your mother was my closest friend.”

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