smell of
the doughy challah fresh from the oven, the lighting of the candles, the prayers all had disappeared. Lilly no longer went to synagogue, not even for the High Holy Days. On Saturday mornings she dropped us off in front of the synagogue, and picked us up after services in the parking lot, sometimes an hour late. I surmised she was angry with God because he had taken her husband away. But, unlike my mother, I sought comfort in the rabbi’s sermons. I let the deep and guttural sound of his voice, which echoed in the hollow synagogue, float over me. The Bible stories of Abraham, and Moses, and the ancient Jews from a lost land having to endure droughts, famines, and plagues meant that we were put on earth for a higher purpose. What the Jews had suffered made what my family had lost seem less important. I thought that maybe if my mother came to synagogue she could learn how to banish her black moods with faith. But my mother was firm on the subject. She said whenever she entered a synagogue she began to cry.
I wish my mother could have found sustenance, if not in religion, then somewhere inside herself. The only place she found it, briefly, was with men. I noticed how her cheeks looked sunken, her complexion waxy in the morning, and then rosy and full as soon as the sun went down. My friends’ mothers spent the day shopping for groceries, cleaning, preparing long suppers. But in my mother’s spare time, when she wasn’t on a date, she daydreamed, tended to her bath, or slept. I wished for the normalcy of a freshly plowed driveway, the busy sounds of cake mixers, eggshells grinding in the disposal. The hum of a healthy life.
Sometimes I stared at the gazebo and convinced myself that if I willed it, I could conjure my father there in the icy circle
the sun made through the rafters. I imagined us all sitting on the floor, my father with his arm draped around my mother’s shoulder, my mother holding Louise in her arms, all of us dressed in our winter coats. If I closed my eyes and concentrated hard, I could still hear it, my father’s voice, telling us about happiness. About how the trees, and the grass, and the flowers he would plant once the frost had lifted were all blessings, and about how fortunate he was, to be with the woman he loved most in the world, my mother, and these fine daughters. I could hear the words,
these fine daughters
, and told myself it was enough.
I was distracted by a small tap on the screen of our living room window. At night, in the late spring, the hot air was like a layer separating you from the rest of the world. Nearly an hour, maybe more, since I got home from Austin’s party, I was still downstairs, lying on our couch, doing a play-by-play of the night. I sensed that Austin would come back for me. Even then, before we’d ever made love, it was the way we communicated, in silence, by touch and scent.
I sprang up and peered outside. My mouth felt dry from the aftertaste of diluted beer. Austin was crouched in the bed of rhododendrons, staring back at me with lustful eyes; I felt a pinch in my chest. I quietly opened the front door, let in a swallow of air.
“What time is it?” I said.
“Around two o’clock.”
“
Shhhhh
,” I said, when he practically tripped on a bucket of Lilly’s paint, motioning with my eyes upstairs. I didn’t want him to wake my mother.
I stood with my back to him. He lifted the hair up from my shoulders. I was still mad about Rita. I remembered watching the way Steve Kennedy looked at my mother with that same hangdog look, and then how quickly he vanished. “What are you doing?” I quipped. “Why do people think they can just touch you?”
“I shouldn’t have come, is that what you’re saying?” Austin turned me around and searched my face.
I wasn’t an extraordinarily pretty girl, but I knew I would do. There was vulnerability in my eyes and shyness in my walk, but I wasn’t timid enough not to invite a boy’s attention. I had
the doughy challah fresh from the oven, the lighting of the candles, the prayers all had disappeared. Lilly no longer went to synagogue, not even for the High Holy Days. On Saturday mornings she dropped us off in front of the synagogue, and picked us up after services in the parking lot, sometimes an hour late. I surmised she was angry with God because he had taken her husband away. But, unlike my mother, I sought comfort in the rabbi’s sermons. I let the deep and guttural sound of his voice, which echoed in the hollow synagogue, float over me. The Bible stories of Abraham, and Moses, and the ancient Jews from a lost land having to endure droughts, famines, and plagues meant that we were put on earth for a higher purpose. What the Jews had suffered made what my family had lost seem less important. I thought that maybe if my mother came to synagogue she could learn how to banish her black moods with faith. But my mother was firm on the subject. She said whenever she entered a synagogue she began to cry.
I wish my mother could have found sustenance, if not in religion, then somewhere inside herself. The only place she found it, briefly, was with men. I noticed how her cheeks looked sunken, her complexion waxy in the morning, and then rosy and full as soon as the sun went down. My friends’ mothers spent the day shopping for groceries, cleaning, preparing long suppers. But in my mother’s spare time, when she wasn’t on a date, she daydreamed, tended to her bath, or slept. I wished for the normalcy of a freshly plowed driveway, the busy sounds of cake mixers, eggshells grinding in the disposal. The hum of a healthy life.
Sometimes I stared at the gazebo and convinced myself that if I willed it, I could conjure my father there in the icy circle
the sun made through the rafters. I imagined us all sitting on the floor, my father with his arm draped around my mother’s shoulder, my mother holding Louise in her arms, all of us dressed in our winter coats. If I closed my eyes and concentrated hard, I could still hear it, my father’s voice, telling us about happiness. About how the trees, and the grass, and the flowers he would plant once the frost had lifted were all blessings, and about how fortunate he was, to be with the woman he loved most in the world, my mother, and these fine daughters. I could hear the words,
these fine daughters
, and told myself it was enough.
I was distracted by a small tap on the screen of our living room window. At night, in the late spring, the hot air was like a layer separating you from the rest of the world. Nearly an hour, maybe more, since I got home from Austin’s party, I was still downstairs, lying on our couch, doing a play-by-play of the night. I sensed that Austin would come back for me. Even then, before we’d ever made love, it was the way we communicated, in silence, by touch and scent.
I sprang up and peered outside. My mouth felt dry from the aftertaste of diluted beer. Austin was crouched in the bed of rhododendrons, staring back at me with lustful eyes; I felt a pinch in my chest. I quietly opened the front door, let in a swallow of air.
“What time is it?” I said.
“Around two o’clock.”
“
Shhhhh
,” I said, when he practically tripped on a bucket of Lilly’s paint, motioning with my eyes upstairs. I didn’t want him to wake my mother.
I stood with my back to him. He lifted the hair up from my shoulders. I was still mad about Rita. I remembered watching the way Steve Kennedy looked at my mother with that same hangdog look, and then how quickly he vanished. “What are you doing?” I quipped. “Why do people think they can just touch you?”
“I shouldn’t have come, is that what you’re saying?” Austin turned me around and searched my face.
I wasn’t an extraordinarily pretty girl, but I knew I would do. There was vulnerability in my eyes and shyness in my walk, but I wasn’t timid enough not to invite a boy’s attention. I had
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