The visit was short. It wasn’t until the next day that Thelma got to be with Dorothy who was a few years younger. “Call me Dotten,” she said as Thelma and Harvey gathered with her and Nils, her older brother, in a corner of the Covenant Church parlors after the funeral.
Thelma liked what Dotten was wearing, and she told her so.
“I don’t see much of my father,” Dotten said. “He lives and works on Long Island — a valet for a rich man there. But he sends money, especially for clothes. He wants us to look nice.”
Thelma’s face collapsed. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t be with my daddy. “Oh, don’t you miss him?’ she said.
“Not really. I’m used to it,”
Thelma couldn’t imagine it.
Anna was consigned to God’s good earth at Forestville Cemetery, after which the family moved on to Emil’s to continue the reunion.
And what was the specific thing Thelma and Harvey remembered about their cousins from the Bronx? Dotten and Nils couldn’t sleep because the birds made too much noise.
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