Acknowledgement

My boss Robert’s sister died two days after her release from prison. She served eighteen months in the Georgia State Prison for forging checks. Again.

Their cousin, Walter, called our office in San Francisco to tell him. A moment later, Robert strode into my cubicle and leaned against my desk.

“Well, Dana, Elizabeth’s gone. We always thought the booze would kill her but apparently it was pneumonia.” He said it so matter-of-factly that I looked up at him to see if he was kidding. He never had anything nice to say about his baby sister. She was a troubled woman who, after forty years in the south, spoke with a slight southern accent. Elizabeth called every now and then to speak with “Bobby” and ask for a loan. She was the opposite of what I expected from Robert and his family. They were old money Main Line Philly people. The kind that sent their children to the same boarding schools they’d gone to, where they’d played lacrosse and rowed crew before college at the Ivy of their choice. 

Until I spoke to Elizabeth on the phone, I never knew Robert had a sister. I knew all the other details of Robert’s family, especially about his cousin Walter’s life: the kids, his divorce. But nothing about Elizabeth. I wondered what had taken her so far away from home.

When Robert kidded, his eyes crinkled at the corners. A precursor to his wide smile and his approximation of a fake laugh, har har har. 

He was not joking today.  

“She died in a halfway house. Walt and I have to make arrangements. I’d just as soon leave her there, but Walt wants to bring her home.”

There was nothing I could say except “I’m sorry,” and “Let me know if I can help in any way.”

Robert sounded offhand about his sister’s death but it affected him more than he let on. The news plunged him into his birthday funk several weeks too early. He snapped at the staff and stomped around the office. We all tried to keep our heads down and focus on work, hoping Hurricane Robert would fizzle out soon.

He worked late after Elizabeth died. His emails were stamped at midnight, and he came into the office before me. He had coffee percolating at 7:50 AM. 

As much as Robert had distanced himself from his sister, she was family.

He said nothing else about it but for the next few days, every time I put Walter through to him in his office, Robert raged loudly through the closed door. 

“I don’t want to have anything to do with the funeral arrangements. Walt. No one’s going to come anyway. It’s a waste of money. Liz wouldn’t have cared, and you know it. When did she ever take us into consideration? No church. No programs. And don’t mention me or my family in the obituary. I’m serious. You do that, and I will not talk to you again.” 

Three weeks later a fax came in. I was about to throw it out. We only ever got junk faxes these days. Too-good-to-be-true Caribbean vacation offers and timeshare opportunities. The fax was crooked and hard to read, but when I looked carefully I saw the letterhead from the Collier Funeral Home.

In the matter of Elizabeth Sperry, we are writing to let you know that we have yet to receive notarized documents releasing her body to the Reading Funeral Home in Philadelphia. Please visit the Reidsville, Georgia Town Hall to complete these documents at your earliest convenience. If Mrs. Sperry’s body remains unclaimed, it will be cremated and the cremains interred in the Tatnall County public burial ground. 

That fax made me so sad. To die alone so far from home was one thing. For no one to claim you, well, that was another.

I waited until Robert went to lunch to search his desk. I found the forms underneath a thick architectural tome. He had used them as notepaper and his chicken scrawl pencil marks dotted the page. A beige coffee ring covered one corner. 

As a California notary it wasn’t my job or my business to look at the documents except to confirm I was able to notarize them. These forms were a straightforward acknowledgement. I could have witnessed Robert signing the papers weeks ago and Elizabeth would be home already. 

My knowledge of death rituals was limited to the Jewish traditions: burying the dead within twenty-four hours, a prescribed mourning period, and most importantly the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I wasn’t religious, but knowing that Elizabeth’s body remained in cold storage in Georgia almost a month after her death pained me. I don’t believe in the soul, but Elizabeth deserved better in death than what she’d gotten in life.

I called the funeral home and spoke with the funeral director. 

“Mr. Howard can’t physically come in,” I explained to Director Quentin. “Would you accept out-of-state notarized documents? If you need originals I can overnight them.”

Mr. Quentin paused before he replied in his soft Georgia twang. “Yes, Ma’am, that should be fine. Fax them on back, when you have a moment.”

Robert was usually too busy to read documents before signing them. He trusted me to review them on his behalf. After lunch I handed him the papers, shuffled in among other items from San Francisco Planning to be notarized. I fanned them out so he could sign each page without looking at them. 

“Just need you to sign.” I handed him a pen. 

He didn’t even ask. Just scrawled his name with looping cursive on each signature line and on the signature page of my notary journal and then walked away. 

Funeral Director Quentin called half an hour later to thank us for sending the documents back. “We’ll start the paperwork to get Mrs. Sperry back to you all. God bless.”

I said nothing to Robert about it. Two weeks later, after the funeral in Philadelphia that Robert grudgingly attended, after I heard him tell Walter he’d share the cost of the headstone, I came in to work one morning to find a bright yellow post-it note on my monitor. I recognized Robert’s shaky block letters, the pen slightly smudged. The note simply read:

Thanks, Dana. 

-Robert.