But their jobs were important. Way more important than cutting up paper for crafts. And they couldn’t wait. They were on call all the time whether they liked it or not.

Since the funeral was scheduled for the next day, Mom and Dad had to go help the chevra kadisha—the people who perform the special rituals to prepare the bodies for burial. Mom would help the group that prepared Oren’s mother, and Dad would help prepare Oren’s father.

I’d never seen a tahara done, but I knew what it was. And it was the part of working at the funeral home that I was dreading most. Can you blame me?

I didn’t dread it because I was worried about zombies or ghosts. Or because I thought that death was contagious (my parents were proof that it wasn’t) or that I’d start to smell like death the way the jerks at school said. It was mostly because performing a tahara meant you had to touch a dead person. Not just touch them, but wash them and dress them too. Even cleaning their nails was part of it. Pretty intense.

Dad says it’s the ultimate mitzvah you can do for someone, because they can’t thank you or ever return the favor. But it still sounds terrifying.

I guess that’s why I’m not allowed to help with that until I am older.

And why I am in charge of tissues.

But as I sat there fiddling with my scissors and paper strips, giving out tissues didn’t feel like enough. I thought about Oren and what he was going through. In an instant he had lost his entire family. How do you even start to recover from that?

I wanted to do more. And I needed him to know I was sorry for messing up earlier. And I wanted him to know how very sorry I was for his loss.

But how? I didn’t want to make a fool of myself by talking his ear off (again).

I looked down at the little paper daisy in front of me. Blue on the outside, yellow in the middle, green for leaves and a stem.

Dad came into the room. “Looks great, Evie,” he said. “It’s really turning into a piece of art!”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing up at him. He had a stack of papers in his hands. “What’s all that?”

“I just printed out all the programs for tomorrow’s funeral.” He frowned. “I’ve never done a double funeral before. It makes sense, and I guess it will be easier on Oren in the long run, but…” He sighed and shook his head.

“Can I see?” I asked.

He handed me the top page. It looked like most of the programs I’d seen for previous funerals except that it had two people’s names on it instead of one. The English and Hebrew names of Oren’s parents, along with their birth dates and the date they died, also in English and Hebrew. The information about the funeral service and the location of the reception at the shiva house were there too, but only in English.