Chapter 20 Rosalie
TWENTY
ROSALIE
SANOK, POLAND
The tears won’t stop. The pain—nothing takes it away. Every time I close my eyes, I see Papa’s face and my heart shatters again. I try to imagine Mama waiting for him at heaven’s gates, but it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that I could be alone at seventeen. It’s not fair.
Miriam continues to comb her fingers through my hair.
She’s been doing this for days. She just sits with me and acts like a mother while I bury my face in a pillow.
I can’t remember if this is what mama’s fingers felt like when she combed my hair.
I don’t know why I can’t remember. I should be able to.
“Fresh tea,” Stefan says before the clinks and clatter of a teacup and saucer settle on the nightstand.
He repositions the large fan, pointing it toward me then testing out how far the breeze travels. It’s hot, but I haven’t noticed.
“Has your father returned?” Miriam asks Stefan.
“Just a few minutes ago. Everything worked out.”
“Good,” Miriam whispers. “Do you want to—”
“What are the two of you not so secretly discussing?” I utter with a sniffle.
Miriam runs her hand in a circle along my back. “There’s something we want to discuss if you’re up to it. If you’re not, we can wait.”
It’s a struggle to push myself upright. My muscles ache from crying.
My face burns from the tears. And my chest feels like it’s collapsed.
Stefan props up a couple pillows behind my back.
Suddenly, I feel like a patient, not a woman grieving the loss of her father.
I don’t have the energy to be stronger than this though. I don’t.
“You’ve never spoken much about your faith,” Miriam says.
“What religion do you practice?” It feels almost odd to be asked after the amount of time I’ve spent with the Silbergs.
No one truly talks much about religion now though.
They’re afraid to if they’re Jewish and no one knows what religion will be chosen for persecution tomorrow.
“I don’t have a religion.”
“How did I not know this?” Stefan asks, shock in his expression.
It never came up.
“My mother was Catholic but didn’t go to church or practice. And my father was protestant but seemingly became an atheist after Mama died. He would often say he didn’t believe in God, just time.” I shrug because I just haven’t given it much further thought.
“What about you?” Stefan asks, his question quiet but curious.
I peer between the two of them, looking at me with their matching set of hazel eyes.
“I used to think it was hard to believe in something I can’t see, or something that hasn’t protected me from pain. But then I would question what higher power gives me the strength I need to keep going. God is the only answer that comes to mind.”
“I think it’s beautiful you came to that conclusion on your own without influence. And you’re right. No one knows what higher powers exist. There may be one we all refer to as different names, or maybe there are hundreds for every individual belief.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you want to know?”
Stefan takes my hand into his, encompassing it within his grip.
“We want to give your father a proper goodbye,” he suggests.
“Of course, any traditional ceremony is challenging now, but my father is friends with a rabbi, and he offered to do a small service for him. Only if that’s something that you would want, though. If not—”
“That’s where your father was all morning?” I interrupt.
Miriam combs her fingers through my hair again. “It’s the least any of us could do right now.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous? For all of you? I wouldn’t want to—”
“We have a plan, a safe plan. If it’s something you—”
Tears plummet like fat rain drops from my eyes and I nod. “More than anything. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”
Miriam wraps her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into her chest, kissing my forehead. “Say no more. I’m going to go tell Philip so he can make the arrangements,” she says, scooting off the end of the bed.
With Miriam hurrying downstairs, Stefan moves to my side on the bed and wraps his arm around me.
“Your family is too good to me,” I tell him.
“When you step into someone’s life and change it for the better, you become a part of their family.”
“I didn’t know how much I would need to hear that right now.”
Stefan leans into me, fishing something out of his pocket before turning to face me. He takes my hand and fastens a leather-banded watch around my wrist. “Your papa would want you to hold on to this for him.” His old chronograph watch. He never took it off.
When the buckle clicks shut, I turn the chronograph face toward me, my reflection blurred in the glass. I cup my wrist to my heart, aching for the warmth of Papa’s hand. Lowering my nose to the worn leather, I close my eyes. It’s him.
“How can I ever thank you for all you’ve done?” I utter.
“I’m not doing any of this for your gratitude. I’m doing this because I want you to know I’m with you and by your side. You’re not alone.”
I sniffle and drop my heavy wrist to my lap. “Stefan, you don’t have to protect me like you promised him. I know he put you on the spot, and I don’t want you to think you owe him…”
Stefan presses his index finger to my lips. “Not another word about that. Your father didn’t force me to say anything.”
“But you—”
“Rosalie,” Stefan says, his hand sweeping down my arm. “He asked if you were happy. I told him you are full of so much joy and happiness that I had carelessly fallen in love with you.”
“You said that?” I ask, wiping a tear from my eye.
Stefan chokes out a quiet laugh. “Yes, and for a split second, I thought he might slug me, but then he put his arm around me and said, ‘I’d been hoping you’d be the man to sweep my daughter off her feet.’”
“That’s a lie,” I snort through a cry.
“All right, maybe a little lie. But he did put his arm around me and said, ‘Good. Good. You’re a good man, Stefan.’ I thanked him and told him I wanted to be honest about the way I felt and hoped I might earn his respect in return.” Stefan lifts my hand to his lips. “That’s not a lie.”
“I know. I can feel it.”
Twenty-four hours after humbly taking the Silbergs up on their offer to have a proper burial ceremony for Papa, the five of them, me, and the rabbi stand together in a small meadow seemingly carved out of the forest within the hills behind the Silbergs’ estate.
Philip and Stefan have taken care of all the details, ensuring a place on this earth for Papa’s body to rest. He would have loved this beautiful little meadow.
The rabbi, an older gentleman with a bald crown and a halo of thin white hair wears a small round black cap that barely covers his crown.
His glasses, dark rimmed, leveled just beneath his thick gray brows.
His kind eyes offer immediate comfort as he stands in front of me, reaching out his aged hand.
I give him my hand and he envelops it between his. “I am so sorry for the loss of your father, Rosalie. A man of such importance to the village of Sanok has marked his time on earth with a gift.”
His gift to the village was keeping the time, but no one is doing that now. “He loved taking care of the clock,” I reply, my voice barely audible above a faint breeze.
“You, dear Rosalie. You are the gift he’s given this village,” the rabbi says with a small, heart-felt smile.
My hand creeps up my chest toward my neck, another lump forming in my throat. “Thank you,” I say.
“My typical services included prayers from the Hebrew Bible and traditional hymns of remembrance, but I want to do what is most comfortable to you. Are there any prayers you would like me to read?”
I shake my head. “Your traditional service is already more than I could ask for. Please don’t change anything.”
The rabbi gently tips his head forward and walks over to a nearby tree where he’s left his briefcase. He pulls out a prayer book and returns to the forefront of the deep hole in the earth beneath the oak coffin that will soon be lowered to its final resting spot.
Stefan takes my hand and squeezes, just enough to keep me grounded as the rabbi begins to recite a prayer, first in Polish, then in Hebrew, a passage about a person needing nothing now that they are within green pastures and surrounded by quiet waters, a place where the soul can be free.
A Hebrew chant follows, the melody wavering like the tall grass surrounding us. The sun breaks through the light layer of clouds, and I feel heaven on my shoulders. It isn’t heavy. It’s a part of me, like a new skin.
Each prayer brings tears to my eyes. Though I can’t decipher the Hebrew words, the beauty of the harmonious chant carries me on the passing breezes to keep this memory as a proper goodbye.
The pages of the prayer book butterfly as the rabbi bows his head. Philip, Miriam, Stefan, and Eloise bow theirs too. So I follow, feeling the final words honoring Papa wave around my heart like a silk ribbon.
Once the service concludes, I take a moment to kneel by the coffin and place my hand on the smooth wooden surface. I close my eyes. “For all the time you gave me, I promise to never waste a second. I love you, Papa. I love you—so much.”
My chest heaves with pain as I press my hands into the soil to stand.
Stefan helps me up to my feet, holding me in his arms as if proving his promise to both Papa and me.
The smell of grass, dirt, and wildflowers whirls around me.
Birds sing. Insects trill, and leaves flicker.
Just like nature intended, I’m left with a beautiful last memory of the remarkable man who gave me life.