We own just one hearse—Dad’s old retro one that he named Ecto after the one from the Ghostbusters movie. For today’s service, one of the other funeral homes in town had loaned us a hearse and driver.

The family stood up. The pallbearers lifted the caskets by their wooden handles and made their way to the doors. Mr. Silver put an arm around Oren and pulled him close. I couldn’t really see their faces. I wanted to, though I didn’t know why. I already knew they were sad.

Once the caskets were loaded into the backs of the hearses, the drivers closed the swinging rear doors. The kerchunk, kerchunk seemed so loud because of how quiet it was in the chapel.

My dad directed the family out the same doors to the limousine that would take them to the cemetery.

I’ve been to the cemetery tons of times with my parents, but I’ve never been to an actual burial. Dad always goes with the family, and sometimes Nate joins him, but my job is to stay behind and tidy up after the service.

Once the family had left, I opened the rear chapel doors. I stood there respectfully while the mourners filed out into the lobby.

Some lingered in the chapel, sitting with their heads together, speaking quietly. Not everyone would go to the cemetery. Some people probably had to go back to work or wherever.

“How are you doing, Evie?” my mom asked as she came up and gave me a side hug.

I looked up at her. “Okay, I guess. That was really sad.”

She nodded. “It was.”

“The Katzmans sound like really nice people.”

“They do. I wish I could have met them.” She squeezed my shoulders. “I was thinking we could go to the service tonight at the shiva house and pay our respects. How would you feel about that?”

After a Jewish funeral, the grieving family sets up daily receptions and prayer services at someone’s home for the whole week after the funeral. That gives everyone a chance to come and pay their respects. They often bring or order in meals so the family doesn’t have to worry about cooking. There are prayer services every night too. I’d never been invited to go before now. It felt like a big deal, maybe part of my junior funeral director training.

“Okay,” I said, nervous and a little excited. It meant a lot that my parents were starting to treat me like a grown-up.

“I bet Oren would be glad to see you,” Mom said, giving me another squeeze. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Silver said that Oren will definitely be going to Beit Sefer in the fall—eighth grade.”

Which meant he’d definitely be in my class. Beit Sefer has just one class per grade.

“Oh,” I said with a shrug. “Okay.”

Mom looked at me and was about to say something more, but some ladies in the lobby were waving to get her attention.

I guessed it was a good thing about Oren going to my school. Not that I was looking to make friends with him or anything. I was never doing that again. But even though I didn’t think he liked me very much, at least he hadn’t called me any names or told me I smelled like death.