short story

MARCH



Jo stood up from her chair in the front pew and straightened her skirt. The short walk to the podium seemed to take an eternity. She placed her white hands on either side and leaned in towards the microphone. “Thank you Rabbi Rothstein. That was a beautiful introduction. How can I even begin to say how much Laurie meant to me? Being a quadruplet is never easy. Being a quadruplet named after famous characters from a famous novel is never easy. Laurie got off a little easier then the rest of us, though, not actually being named DIRECTLY after a March sister. Mom and Dad didn’t want to name one of us Beth, because she is the one who dies in the end of Little Women, sorry to ruin the ending for you. So they named Laurie Laurie, but I guess somehow she was still jinxed, because she died anyway, didn’t she?” Jo quickly looked down and let the tears fall from her eyes onto the printed out copy of her speech in front of her. She tightened her grip on the sides of the podium turning her knuckles a translucent white. “Laurie was always the one to instigate the trouble. It wasn’t necessarily trouble, but adventures. There was this one night when we were all twelve, I think. Daddy had hit our pet ferret, Monk, with his car earlier in the week. Laurie wanted to go have a séance and try to bring back their souls. Amy and I were all for the idea, but Meg got angry at Laurie for even bringing up the idea. They started fighting about if the spirits would be evil or not and Amy started to cry like she always did when there was a fight in the house. Laurie looked at Amy, then at Meg and said ‘Look! Now you made her cry!’ And we all started cracking up. That was kind of the thing we would always say to get Amy to calm down. We just laughed and laughed and rolled on the floor for hours laughing through tears of laughter. She always knew the right thing to say to bring a smile to people’s faces.” Jo paused and looked into the faces of her sisters in the front row. Meg was wearing a pants suit and her hair had recently been cut short and highlighted so that she stood out among the sisters. She was looking through Jo and taking a slow, hidden sip from a monogrammed flask. Amy sat on her left, long dark hair brushing her shoulders. She fiddled with a string on her skirt and kept her eyes towards the ground. It was difficult to look at either of her sisters without seeing Laurie. “About a year and a half ago, right around our 38th birthday, before Laurie started her struggle with scarlet fever, we were just getting the ice fashion line off the ground. I had been having a very rough week dealing with the accountants and publicists and the ends of my divorce. One night Laurie met me at my house after work with a marshmallow pie. Its really just marshmallows and chocolate sauce in a gram cracker crust. We sat on the floor of my living room and devoured it, just like we were 13 again. And then pretty soon the disease devoured her. Laurie will forever live on in me, in Meg, in Amy, in all her friends and in all her creative endeavors from over the years. I love you.” Jo wiped the silent tears from her cheeks and headed back to her seat in the front row. She sat down next to Meg and put her hand on Meg’s knee. Meg quickly shifted her weight so that Jo’s hand fell in between the chairs. “Its your turn,” Jo whispered.
Meg slowly stood up and wobbled slightly. She did not make any attempt to conceal the small metal flask in her right hand. She sauntered to the podium and slammed the flask down making the microphone bounce a little. She leaned in slowly and put her mouth less than an inch away from the microphone. “Laurie. Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. It was always all about her wasn’t it? It was about her when she pretended to be me and dated my boyfriend in 8th grade. It was about her when she got to name the kitten that I found in the back alley. Who names a cat Pim? I would of named it Charlie. It was about her when she dropped the Christmas ham that one year and blamed it on me! And its pretty hard to defend yourself against something like that when your mother dresses you in fucking matching pinafores and you look EXACTLY ALIKE.” Meg paused for a moment and glanced around at the packed pews. Friends and family members covered their eyes and shook their heads silently in disgrace. Jo stared at her with a look of desperation in her eyes that said “Stop while your ahead.” A few rows behind her sisters, Uncle Ron with an ugly grimace on his face glared at her. She licked her lips and continues. “It was about her when she invented ‘ice theater’. Anyone could have installed ice rinks in smaller, more intimate venues and performed ground breaking theatrical works WHILE ice skating! And its about her today. You know what, I may not have accomplished as much as Laurie in my life, but at least I’m strong. At least I didn’t succumb to some hundred-year-old disease that ironically took away our little Beth! She got scarlet fever! Who the fuck gets scarlet fever after 1912?” Meg took a quick swig from her flask and noticed a small woman storming out of the main sanctuary with a small child in her arms. Dread covered almost every face in the room, however no one made any motion to stop her from continuing. “I was married first. And I was able to have a baby. To actually conceive a child, unlike the little goddess of life. Well you know what everyone, she’s gone. And you have to deal with that. And you know what? Consider me gone too. Don’t think that all of you who overlooked me for my stupid sister over the years are going to use me as replacement now that she’s dead. I was done with this family years ago. Thank you for your time. Amy, I think you’re next.” Meg let her empty flask fall to the ground and stumbled back to her seat. Before she could sit, she was intercepted by a tall, bulky man in a dark gray suit. His nose was thick and long, with a few stray hairs sticking out of the nostrils. He grabbed Meg’s arm and dragged her down the aisle past rows of horrified guests. He slammed through the doors into a lobby with stained glass windows and many pillars. He let go of her arm and threw her in the direction of the entrance of the synagogue. “How could you say such things at your sister’s funeral?” he screamed in a raspy, gray, voice.
“Whatever, Uncle Ron. It’s the truth, I’m not ashamed of how I really feel.”
“You are a disgrace to this family! If Jean and Ira were still alive they would take you out of their will. They would disown you.”
“Mom and Dad barely knew I existed. They wouldn’t have even listened to my speech. And they barely left me anything in their will as it is.” Jo slammed through the doors and shot an angry look at Meg. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Uncle Ron. “I can not believe you behaved like this! Your parents loved each of you equally, and would be ashamed of your behavior. Whether or not you are actually done with this family, this family is done with you. This was the last draw.”
“Ron,” Jo shouted. “You cant just exile our sister.”
“We should have cut ties with you last New Years when you and your gentile husband almost killed Amy with that torch!” Meg was facing away from her old uncle, into the purple light streaming in through the windows. He stared at her fiercely and she continued to avoid his gaze. Jo stood in between them trying to think of some way to mend the situation. Meg played with the last button on her jacket and stared silently at the floor. “What, cat got your tongue, Meggy? No biting remarks to throw back at me?” Meg continued her silent vigil. “You can sit Shiva and try to mourn your sister’s death properly, but after that I do not want to see you at family events. Maybe your sisters will still want you around, but to me you are lost forever.” He turned, his gray suit jacket flying up a bit in the back as he did and stormed back into the main sanctuary. As the doors closed slowly, Amy’s speech seeped out into the lobby. “L-l-l-l-l-l-aurie was my f-f-f-f-f-avorite sister. N-n-n-no offense. S-s-s-s-she always l-l-l-l-l-l-ooked after m-m-m-me…” Jo crossed the lobby to Meg and stood very close to her without making any physical contact. “That was really out of line, Meg. But I understand that you’re grieving and we all express of sadness in different ways. I think that was rude and you should know better, but don’t listen to Uncle Ron. You are as much a part of this family as anyone else, maybe even a larger part then Ron is.”
“Leave me alone right now, Jo.” Jo did not change her facial expression at all, but turned and walked slowly back into the temple.
Meg stood in a strange peaceful silence. She was just given permission to cut all ties with her family. This is what she had wanted her entire life, to no longer be a Goldberg. To never again be lumped in with her sisters, to never have to sit through another God damn nine hour Seder dinner at Grandma’s house, to not have to pretend she was sorry she married a non-jewish man, to not have to split her birthday three ways, to not have to humor her uncle Jerry’s awful jokes, and to not have to watch one more fucking romantic comedy on sister movie night (which she hadn’t even attended in months). This was her chance to start fresh and never look back. She stormed out of the temple into the frigid air. The early March cold immediately stung her lungs and she remembered her coat was down in the basement buried under thousands of mourner’s winter wear. “Fuck,” she yelled, stopping on the stairs. She turned around and walked back into the lobby, took a sharp left and headed down some concrete stairs. The rec-room was large with a small stage at the far end. The fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling were all out except for one over the coat rack. Luckily the coats were, indeed, hanging up so she wouldn’t have to dig though a pile of black and gray wool. She started at the front and pulled each coat aside searching for her own long, heavy, black coat. There were many doppelgangers, so she had to inspect each tag. She was halfway through the rack of coats when she heard a muffled cry across the rec-room from her. It sounded like a child, a bit like her own daughter, Harper, who was back at home in San Francisco with her husband. James was not well liked by the Goldberg family, and had decided to not make the cross country trip to upstate New York.
She walked slowly across the half-lit concrete floor towards the sobs. She reached a pair of folding, wood paneled doors. The crier was definitely behind the door. Meg knocked softly. The sobs stopped immediately. “Are you alright?” Meg whispered into a crack in the doors. There was no answer, only heavy breaths. “Can I open the door to see if you’re okay?” She continued to whisper. There was still no answer. “Please?” she asked sweetly. Who ever was inside was not answering. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know I’m here, please can I come in? Please?” Her voice cracked and tears began to pour down her face. “Please, please, please, let me in” she sobbed leaning her weight against the door. She allowed herself to slide down the door into a small ball on the cold concrete floor. “Please,” she repeated over and over again through her tears. She lay curled up on the floor for minutes crying into her knees. The wood paneled doors slowly opened behind her, and a little girl stood in the dim rec-room light. She was wearing a velvet black dress that came to her shins, black tights, and small and shiny mary janes. There was a white barrette holding her whispy blonde bangs out of her face. “Are you okay?” She asked in a light voice from the doorway. Meg looked at the girl from the floor and immediately sat up straight. “Are you alright?” She responded, surveying the girl for any physical injuries. The little girl took a timid step forward.
“My mom took me out of the room when you started talking. Then I went to the bathroom while she was listening to the door, but I couldn’t find it, and I also can’t find my way to the big room. I’m lost.”
“Did you go to the bathroom yet?” The girl shook her head. Meg stood up, wiped off her pants, wiped off her cheeks, and took the little girl’s hand. She lead her across the room, up the narrow stairs, through the lobby, and into a one stall bathroom. The little girl walked straight into the stall and immediately did what she had to do. “Why were you so mad? My mom said you were mad and that she didn’t want me to hear those mean words today.” Meg shifted her weight and examined her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with watery mascara. She grabbed a paper towel and began to dab at her eyes.
“I wasn’t very good friends with my sister, Laurie. I wanted everyone to know.”
“But isn’t she dead?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re mad she died?”
“Are you almost done?”
“Yes.” Her little feet hit the floor with slap and within moments her tights were pulled up again. She emerged and went right to the sink. She was barley tall enough, but with a little help from her tip toes she was able to turn on the water. “So why are you mad?” She repeated staring at her hands.
“Who is your mom?”
“Um…her name is Maria. Laurie was her director a lot. I got to ice skate with them. Laurie bought me a really nice ice outfit for my birthday last year. It was purple.”
“Maria. So you must be Alexia?”
“Yes.”
“She used to pretend you were her daughter.”
“I am her daughter. Maria is my mom.”
“Of course she is. Are you finished?”
“Yes.” She turned off the water and dried her hands on the skirt of her dress. Meg took her hand and lead her to the doors into the main sanctuary. A woman emerged from the stair way that lead to the basement. “There you are!” She ran the last few steps to Alexia and picked her up in a quick hug. She closed her eyes and hugged the little girl for a long moment. Only when she opened her eyes did she notice Meg’s presence. “You’re awful. AWFUL. So many people loved Laurie and what right do you have to come in here and ruin our last chance to say goodbye with your teenager ego bullshit!”
“Mommy, swear jar!” Maria ignored her child’s comment, gave Meg a vicious look and walked back into the main room.
“Everyone loved her so much.” Meg said under her breath and headed back into the basement to finally retrieve her coat.

Two days later Meg sat on a plush, red couch thumbing through old photo albums. This particular album was of a summer vacation to their aunt’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. The girls were almost 12. This was the one-year when Meg stood out from everyone. She had started to develop a little bit earlier and was the first Goldberg sister to get boobs. The other three were insanely jealous and wondered if she was somehow faking it. There was one particular photo where the four girls stood on the beach with waves crashing behind them. Amy, Joe, and Laurie stood in their one pieces slightly hunched and smiling uncomfortably in the sun, but Meg stood proudly with her chest as far out as it would go in a red bikini top. She remembered right after this picture was taken a boy had stopped to talk to her. The moment was terribly exciting as it happened, she was making her sisters even more jealous and angry which she loved doing. Looking back on it now, she realized the boy was probably some scummy 16 year old who liked to hit on 12-year-old girls.
The phone rang for the millionth time that day. She let it go to the answering machine. “Meg, its Jo- AGAIN. I don’t want to yell at you, okay, I just want to talk. No one saw you leave the funeral and no one has heard from you since, we just want to make sure you’re okay. PLEASE call me back.” Meg ignored the voice from across the room, just as she had ignored the previous three thousand messages from various family members. Some of the calls were to harass her for her funeral behavior, others were to console, others to see why the hell she didn’t sit Shiva for her dead sister. She had heard Uncle Ron loud and clear at the funeral, she was to have nothing more to do with the Goldbergs, and from the moment she walked out the doors was no longer a part of that family.