We’re excavating the house, layer by layer. First, the silver will be sold, the silver we used in the formal dining room for family feasts. The silver that gleamed, heavy and ornate, under the chandelier, as solid a symbol of “arriving” in America as children of the landless and despised of Europe could have; the silver my Aunt Esther used to cut her egg dipped in salt water during a Passover Seder as I lay with my head in her lap, expiring with boredom though sated with affection. The silver we used on Rosh Hashanah to eat my mother’s brisket, which Sophie, my daughter, called “Grandma’s soft, moist meat;” me, picking out the burnt bits, the texture and taste of which I loved but which will probably give me stomach cancer one day.
As I look at it lying out on the dining room table, ready to be taken by “the silver guy”, I remember Sophie at four weeping and pleading when I was about to throw out my old mattress, “It smells like you, Mommy! You sleeped on it! Can’t we keep it in the living room?” She flung herself over it, clung like a crab. Even our dour handyman, a street-smart Albanian impatient for his tip, looked sympathetic. With increasing panic: “Mommy, what if we throw it out and it doesn’t know where we are?” She had an instinct for playing her cards. When your kid was found on a bridge at 7 weeks, it’s hard not to hear double meanings. Exasperation fighting empathy, I had an inspiration to let Sophie take photos and even a movie so she could have it always and, after a goodbye ceremony, she actually joined us in taking the old mattress to the service elevator, kissed it and watched it disappear forever.
When no one is looking, I lift a fork and kiss the handle. Then snap a photo.