Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [132]
Cody sat in the right front pew, the picture of a bereaved and dutiful son. But skeptical thoughts flowed through his head so loudly that he almost believed they might be heard by the congregation. He was back to his boyhood, it seemed, fearing that his mother could read his mind as unhesitatingly as she read the inner temperature of a roasting hen by giving its thigh a single, contemptuous pinch. He glanced sideways at Ruth, but she was listening to the minister.
The minister announced the closing hymn, which Pearl had requested in her funeral instructions: “We’ll Understand It All By and By.” Raising his long, boneless face to lead the singing, Reverend Thurman did appear bewildered—perhaps less by the Lord’s mysterious ways than by the unresponsive nature of this group of mourners. Most were just staring into open hymn-books, following each stanza silently. And there were so few of them: a couple of Ezra’s co-workers, some surly teen-aged grandchildren sulking in scattered pews, and five or six anonymous old people, who were probably there as church members but gave the impression of having wandered in off the streets for shelter, dragging their string-handled shopping bags.
When the service was finished, the minister descended from the pulpit and stopped to offer Cody, as firstborn, a handshake and condolences. “All my sympathy … know what a loss …”
“Thank you,” said Cody, and he and Ruth and the minister proceeded down the aisle. Jenny and Joe followed, and last came Ezra, blowing his nose. By rights the grandchildren should have risen too, but if they had there would have been hardly any guests remaining.
Outside, the cold was a relief, and Cody was grateful for the lumbering noise of the traffic in the street. He stood between Jenny and Ruth and accepted the murmurs of strangers. “Beautiful service,” they told him.
“Thank you,” he said.
He heard a woman say to Ezra, over by the church doorway, “I’m so sorry for your trouble,” and Ezra said, kindly, “Oh, that’s all right”—although for Ezra alone, of the three of them, this death was clearly not all right. What would he fill his life with now? He had been his mother’s eyes. Lately, he had been her hands and feet as well. Now that she was gone he would come home every night and … do what? What would he do? Just sit on the couch by himself, Cody pictured; or lie on his bed, fully dressed, staring into the swarming, brownish air above his bed.
Jenny said, “Did Ezra tell you we’re meeting at his restaurant afterward?”
Cody groaned. He shook an old man’s hand and said to Jenny, “I knew it. I just knew it.” Hadn’t he told Ruth, in fact? In the car coming down, he’d said, “Oh, God, I suppose there’ll be one of those dinners. We’ll have to have one of those eternal family dinners at Ezra’s restaurant.”
“He’s probably too upset,” Ruth said. “I doubt he’d give a dinner now.”
This showed she didn’t know Ezra as well as she’d always imagined. Certainly he would give a dinner. Any excuse would do—wedding or engagement or nephew’s name on the honor roll. “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant! Everyone in the family! Just a cozy family gathering”—and he’d rub his hands together in that annoying way he had. He no doubt had his staff at work even at this moment, preparing the … what were they called? The funeral baked meats. Cody sighed. But he suspected they would have to attend.
The old man must have spoken; he was waiting for Cody to answer. He tilted his flushed, tight-skinned face beneath an elaborate plume of silver hair that let the light shine through. “Thank you,” Cody said. Evidently, this was the wrong response. The old man made some disappointed adjustment to his mouth. “Um …” said Cody.
“I said,” the old man told him, “I said, ‘Cody? Do you know me?’ ”
Cody knew him.
It shouldn’t have taken him so long. There were clues he should have picked up at once: that fan-shaped pompadour,