Modern Girls (30 page)

I studied her face. She was no longer my red-cheeked toddler who ran wild in the streets, barefoot till the first snow, and even sometimes after. She was no longer the girl who longed to sew like her ma, who managed to always be underfoot. She was no longer the little mama who cared for her younger brothers. No, she would
be
a mother. My melancholy deepened. “What will Eugene do without you?”

Dottie startled. I’d found the chink in her armor. Eugene.

But she refused to be rattled for longer than a moment. “I can’t think of Eugene,” she said. “Eugene is
your
baby. I have my own baby to consider.”

Nodding, I said, “Yes, he is my baby.” The time had come, it appeared, for me to take care of the children I had left. “So? Where is this husband of yours?”

“He’s . . .” Dottie hesitated in such a way as to make me wonder if I was about to hear a lie. “He had to be at work early. I came home to tell you and to pick up some of my belongings.”

“What kind of a man is that, not accompanying you to greet his in-laws?”

“Ma, it’s not like it was. These are modern times.” But a flicker in her eye belied her tone, and I could tell she was hurt.

“My little Dottala. All grown-up and married.”

She gave a half smile, but I could see the tears gathering once more.

“Come here, my
bubelah
.” She leaned in and I wrapped my arms around her, pretending one final time that she was my little girl and that I could make everything better with a kiss and a cookie.

SEEING Ma weak was almost as shocking to me as knowing what she’d done. Why hadn’t she confided in me? But then again, if I were her, would I have confided in me? I was a mess. I didn’t know where to begin, what to feel. Heartache. Guilt. Fear.

In the kitchen,
Tateh
was bustling about trying to start the soup, which needed to simmer all day to be ready for the
Shabbes
dinner. He wore one of Ma’s aprons, and as silly as he looked in that floral print, I could see the despair in his movements, the heaviness of his body as he shuffled about, his sorrow filling the room. The last time I’d seen him like this was after Joey died. How much worse would it be if he knew the truth about Ma’s loss? I would make sure he never found out. As it was, I knew my news was going to devastate him.

“Come,
Tateh
. Give me the apron.” I held out one hand, the other balled on my hip.

For a second it looked like
Tateh
was going to protest. He shook his head. “You look so much like your mother, standing there.”

Glancing down at my body, I realized I’d mimicked Ma’s stance when she was waiting to retrieve something—a bottle of milk, the morning paper—from one of us children. With my curving belly, I looked all the more like her.

Tateh
untied the apron and handed it to me. I took it and tied it around my waist, as if I had done it my whole life, which was not
the case. The motion was familiar—how many times had I seen Ma do it?—and it was one to which I must become accustomed. This was my life now. Wearing an apron. Cooking. Retrieving things for and from children.

“Sit,” I ordered
Tateh
.

Without a word, he sank into the chair by the small kitchen table.

I surveyed the counter. “Look,” I said. “You forgot to put in the chicken bones. The bones need to be boiled first. Otherwise the vegetables will become soggy.” Ever since grammar school, when
Tateh
and I spoke without Ma in the room, we used English. His English was as good as his Yiddish.

I reached for the carcass and broke it down into smaller pieces. It’s astounding how much I knew simply from observing Ma all those years.

“I told her not to work so hard,” he said. “I told her to let you take some of the burden. Look at how well you do. She shouldn’t have worked so hard.” His eyes were blank, and my chest ached at what I had done. He clearly blamed himself for what had happened, and yet it was my fault.

With a
chop chop chop
, not daring to look up, I said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been more help.”

“Look at you in the kitchen. A
balabusta
in the making.”

I sliced through the thick tendons, separating the bones, dropping them in the pot of boiling water as I pulled each one free. “
Tateh
, I have to tell you something.” I put down the knife and rested my hands on the counter. I could feel myself hyperventilating, the breath coming hot and fast. I needed to spit this out quickly, yank off the bandage.

“
Tateh
, last night, Willie Klein and I were married.” I wanted to turn to face him, but my body was leaden, my head bent, the weight of it too much for me to hold up. I stared at the wooden counter, grooved and nicked. The linoleum floor needed a mopping; dirt was beginning to show in the crevices.

“You were what?” His voice sounded confused, sounded old.

“We were married.”

“Married?”

I nodded without turning. I couldn’t look at him, knowing how much disappointment I was about to cause him.

“What do you mean, ‘married’?”

I was being a coward. I turned around. “Last night, Willie Klein and I were married.” I held up my hand with the band.
“Khasene,”
I repeated in Yiddish, so there’d be no misunderstanding. “Willie Klein and I were married.”

Tateh
looked wild, like one of those men from Hooverville. “I understand the word,” he said in English, fury in his tone. The shock of Ma, the shock of this. I dreaded telling him my next piece of news. “Married to Willie
Klein
? Married to that . . . that
schmuck
?”

My skin chilled. While Ma occasionally let her language become coarse,
Tateh
never used vulgarity. I wanted to defend Willie, defend myself. Giving in to my misery would have been the easiest thing to do, but I reeled in my emotions. Falling into a hysterical mess would do neither of us any good. As I turned back to the counter to continue breaking down the bones, I said coolly, “Willie Klein is my husband.”

“But what about Abe?”

“Abe has nothing to do with this.” Tossing the last bones in the pot, I began with the vegetables, which
Tateh
had already started. I counted the pieces as I cut them. The carrot, sliced in half, made two pieces. Slice the halves again, and there were four.

Tateh
leaned heavily on the back of the chair. “Willie Klein.”

I continued dicing. Eight pieces. Sixteen.

“You have been seeing Willie Klein?”

Thirty-two pieces of carrots. Using the knife, I slid the orange slivers into a bowl to await the soup pot. Two carrots would give me sixty-four pieces. If I had five carrots, I’d have one hundred
sixty. The numbers weren’t working. I could feel the blood rushing to my head, my breath unsteady. “I am married to Willie Klein.”

“You love him?”

Looking around the counters, I located the onions behind the salt dish. “I will grow to love him.” I removed the thin layers of peel and put them in the waste bucket on the counter.

“I don’t understand.”

When I sliced the first onion in half, the fumes immediately rose, burning my eyes. But I refused to let even onions make me cry. I was done crying. There was no escaping what I had to say. Putting aside the half-chopped onions, I forced myself to look straight at
Tateh
, to stare him in the eyes, to speak boldly. “I am with child.”

His eyes were fixed on me, but I could tell they weren’t focused. His mouth was agape. For a moment I was afraid he was having a seizure.

I knelt in front of him and took his hands. “Did you hear me,
Tateh
?”

The silence frightened me. His gaze never left my face.

“Tateh?”
I swallowed a sob. No more tears. “
Tateh
, please say something.”

Finally his voice was whisper soft, but ice-cold. “You are
what
?”

I looked down at his hands. The moons of his nails were permanently blackened, dark hairs gracing his knuckles. Hands that had comforted me so many times over the years. Those hands had kept me safe. But they couldn’t keep me safe any longer. “I am expecting a baby.”

He shook his hands free from mine and stood up—to do what? To get away from me? To hug me? To slap me? He paced the small room, his hands at the side of his head, gripping himself as if he was afraid he would burst apart. His eyes darted about the room, refusing to land upon me. “With child?” He paced like a caged animal in that small space. “You are with child?” Finally he gazed
right into my face and spit out the words, “You are
pregnant
?” The word sounded profane coming from his mouth.

“Tateh,”
I said, panic rising. “It’s not so bad.” My voice sounded pleading.

“Not so bad?” he repeated, shaking his head. “You are head bookkeeper. You had a big raise. You and
Abe
had a future. Not that
shmendrik
Klein.”

I sent up a quick prayer of thanks that he didn’t know about Ma’s plans for me to go to college. That I forfeited an education would have devastated him.

“You, with your fancy clothes and your uptown accent? You go to the theater—you have a high school diploma, an office job! You were going to do so many things.” He put both his hands on the back of the chair and for a moment, I feared he would pick it up and throw it across the room. But instead he loosened his grip, one hand covering his face, and I realized he was crying. “Pregnant before husband? You were too good for that.”

“Tateh,”
I said, going over to put my hand on his shoulder, but he pushed it off.

“You are my little girl,” he said, tears flowing down his face, and it terrified me. The only other time I had seen him cry was at Joey’s death. “You
were
my little girl.” Would he sit
shiva
for me? Was I going to be dead to
Tateh
?

He sank back into the chair and put his head in both his hands on the table.

“
Tateh
, I’m still your little girl.” I could hear the despondency in my voice.

He shook his head. “What have you done?” He lifted his head so I could see his reddened eyes. “What have you done?”

I put my hands on his back, and this time he let them rest there. Emboldened, I reached around, hugging him from behind. “It’s okay,
Tateh
. Willie is a good man. A smart man. He will take care of me. He will take care of the baby. This baby will want for nothing.
I
will want for nothing.”

“Did you really want for so much? We gave you all we had.” His tears slowed, but his voice was full of sorrow.

My chest shattered into a thousand shards at his words. “Of course not,
Tateh
. You gave me everything. I was never grateful enough. You gave me everything, and I was happy,
Tateh
.” I squeezed him tighter and he put his arms around mine. Despite all my efforts, the tears were flowing from me. “I love you,
Tateh
. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But it’s going to be okay. I promise.” I buried my head in his shoulder, squeezing him as tightly as I could. He clutched my arms as if to a life preserver, and quietly we stayed like that.

After a good while, with a deep breath,
Tateh
regained his composure. He let go of my hug and stood, saying, “We better get this food made. The soup won’t cook itself.”

I nodded. With a deep breath, I moved back to the onions while
Tateh
sliced celery. We worked in silence, moving about the kitchen, preparing the beginnings of the evening meal.

As the soup was set to simmer, the front door banged open.
Tateh
and I exchanged glances; I’d have to tell the boys.

Wiping my hands on the apron, I called out, “Don’t slam the door. Ma is resting.”

Tateh
nodded toward the living room while he cleaned up our mess in the kitchen. I knew what I had to do. Walking out to the front room, I passed Izzy as he went in the bedroom to check on Ma.

Alfie was splayed on the couch like a bum, but I could tell by the way he kept looking sideways from the corner of his eye toward the bedroom that he was worried. “How is Ma?”

“She will be fine,” I said, sitting down. “I need to talk to you.”

Eugene looked up, as if expecting more bad news. The boy had had so much grief in his short life. And here I was about to deliver more. I despised myself for what I was doing to my family.

Izzy came back out. “Ma’s feeling better, though we should probably stay at
Tante
Kate’s a little longer.”

“No,” I said. “She needs her family here.”

Izzy said, “But the noise—”

“The noise will be fine,” I said. “She needs her boys around her.” I knew the silence of the apartment would make her crazy, make her think too hard about all that was done, about all that was missing. “Sit, Izzy. I have something to say.”

With a quizzical look, Izzy squeezed onto the couch between Alfie and Eugene.

“I know this will come as a shock, and things certainly didn’t turn out the way I expected, but last night, Willie Klein and I were married.”

Izzy’s eyes locked on mine, and with sadness I realized he wasn’t surprised, that he’d heard the same rumors that Mrs. Klein had.

“Willie?” Alfie said. “But what about Abe?”

“Abe and I split up. I married Willie.”

“Congrats, I guess,” Izzy said.

I nodded crisply. “I need to finish getting the
Shabbes
dinner ready. If you’ll excuse—”

“Will Willie move in here with us?” Eugene asked.

I didn’t want to look at Eugene. I knew he had the power to make me fall apart. But how could I not look at my sweet baby boy? I regretted it the moment I did. His eyes were so trusting, I could barely get out my next words. “No, Willie will not be living here.” I toyed with the gold band, which still felt alien on my finger, as if trying to make it fit better. “Willie has a job writing. In Europe.”

I heard a knife clatter in the kitchen. Looking up, I saw
Tateh
standing in the kitchen doorway. “What did you say?” he asked.

Closing my eyes for strength, I said, “Willie has a job with
The New Yorker
. It’s in Europe. He will be a foreign correspondent.”

“Does he not understand what is happening in Europe?”

“He understands,
Tateh
. That’s why he’s going. To write about it. To make sure Americans know about it.”

“So when he goes to Europe, you’ll still live with us?” Eugene asked.

Tateh
’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Speaking slowly, as if
daring me to disagree, he said, “What kind of a
mamzer
leaves his pregnant wife and travels to Europe?”