Heddie

Mrs. Reiss is in the chair and I know I’m not going to get out of this one.

Some people don’t recognize me at work. My hair pulled all back, out of the way, half my face obscured behind the hygiene mask.

“Just a bit of polishing paste, please, for the lady,” Dr. Bhola says. “We’re going to give you a beautiful smile.” He beams into Mrs. Reiss’s tilted head.

She grimaces and catches my eye. I wink. He’s very nice to his clients, Dr. Bhola, but it’s the kind of thing you say to a seven-year-old with two missing milk teeth.

I smear the paste over her mouth with the spatula. The pink neon clashes with her lipstick.

“Her file, please, Hedda,” he calls from where he’s typing furiously into the computer.

“So it is you, Heddie,” Mrs. Reiss exclaims, splattering fluorescent goo onto the bib.

“You’re not meant to talk with this gunk in your mouth,” I say pointedly.

“You try and stop me.” She rubs the paste off her chin and squares it. “So Heddie, it’s been a while.”

I hold my face impassive, stirring the paste to keep it from hardening. “It’s not the best time to catch up, we’re in the middle of a polishing job.”

“Tell me about it, I can taste it, it’s all over my tongue.”

“It wouldn’t be if you wouldn’t be talking,” I say mildly.

“Listen, Heddie.” Her face is serious. “You’re on my mind. You know that. I’m going to think of someone for you if it’s the last thing I do.”

The tub of paste totters in my hand. Does she even know what this means? That someone is still trying, caring. Still hoping. They’ve given up, scores of them, over the years. Shadchanim, well-meaning friends, a deluge run dry. Thirty-six is twice eighteen.

“Thank you,” I say, and the words trip out on their own. “I have a caveat, though. My mother needs me. If, when, I marry, I need to stay in the house, so I can be on hand, be there for her. Please tell this to any prospective date.”

The open hole of her mouth widens. “You don’t mean that. I mean, who’d do that? Which young man is going to agree? What about starting fresh on your own, just the two of you, giving yourself a fair chance, for heaven’s sake? Really, Heddie, what of it?” Her tonsils are quivering.

What can I do? I find her bristling indignation heartwarming. She cares.

“My mother’s recovering from a hip operation, she can barely move herself. “This is something I have to do,” I say quietly.

“Well, I wonder,” she blurts.

Do I? What do I even want? But it’s not about me, it’s about Mom, and what I need to do now.

Now. Now? What about last year? Before the operation?

It’s always something else, Heddie. Before the new hip it was her aches and pains and limited mobility. And before that, Dad’s death. Not that that stopped the boys. They moved on, both of them. It’s not about Mom, she’s another excuse. You’re just scared.

I notice Dr. Bhola shifting ever so slightly in his tall stool. I better get back to her smile. I’m smearing paste and the good doctor talks, almost as if to himself.

“That’s fine of you, Hedda. Real fine, it’s like back home in India. Family is everything there. A new couple just means a new room in the home. If there’s no room, we make room, because we keep together, live together, look out for one another…”

He’s smiling, whiskers extending past the hygiene mask into a wizened brown face.

But his praise rankles. Really, do I mean this for Mom?

And India. I read a short story once for a literary course about a Western girl married into an Indian family. The smothering togetherness, lack of independence. India, yellow, sandy, oppressive.

Is that what I am offering a prospective husband?

But I need to, for Mom.

You do? Does she even want it?

Mrs. Reiss sits up and rinses. She’s going, she’s off with her purse and her caring. And she thinks me half-insane.

But maybe she doesn’t. She turns back and there’s a sudden gleam in her eye. “I need some help with my form, Heddie,” she says, looking pointedly at the Indian dentist.

I escort her out.

“Form, shmorm,” she says. “Listen, Heddie, I have an idea. I don’t care what you say, and what he says, Indian families, feh.” The expression is all in her nose. I have to smile.

“Tuvia Mayers from Baltimore, a friend of mine’s son. He’s back from Eretz Yisrael a few years now, nu, how long can you stay, you know? Learns mornings, works afternoons. A grounded guy, a real mentsh. You haven’t heard his name?”

I shake my head.

In one fluid movement she pulls on her sweater and says rapid-fire, “And-he’s-40. Is-that-okay?”

The way she does it, I almost laugh.

This is not going anywhere anyway, I’m killing it off before it starts, I remind myself. “I won’t even look into him until you’ve told him my caveat.”

She looks at me, earnest-eyed, and walks out, forgetting her forms.

I step back down the hall. For Mom. For Mom. For Mom. Back to Dr. Bhola’s room.

For Mom. Right.

Doris

“Three times, Menachem, three times she’s been out with this Tuvia Mayers. I tell you, I have a good feeling about this. I can feel it in my hip, it’s not throbbing as much. Ach, half of my aches and pains, you think they’re not from stress?”

“You think it’s going anywhere, Mom, really?” His dubious tone, can’t we imagine, cradle a dream, just for a bit? But this is Heddie.

“Oy, what do I know? Maybe she shouldn’t be bounding at 36, but the way she goes on those dates, half-resigned, you’d think they’re lining up and paying. And it’s been two years since she last had a date.”

I open the fridge. There’s the container of cheese blintzes Heddie made sometime before dawn this morning, before she left for work. Such a good balabusta she’d be. They’re pretty, perfect, waiting to be frozen. Strictly for Yom Tov, she said.

“Mom, I hate to say this…” His voice goes quiet in the cordless.

“What?” I demand quickly.

“I wish it would, but I don’t see this working. She’s not going to give it a proper chance, and it’s because of you.”

How is it that children can bring the greatest joy and the greatest pain?

“Think about it, Mom. Other girls, women, her age. Where are they living? In an apartment on their own, maybe they share it with some roommates. But with you, you need her. She has her place, and she feels good about it.”

“Menachem, what are you saying? That she’s an aide? You think I can’t afford one?”

“Oy, you know that’s not it, Mom.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe you’re right, but it’s the last thing I want for her.”

I yank open the fridge again and pilfer a blintz. A moment of whipped cream oblivion to take away the pain. As if it could.

The key turns in the front door. “Oh, it’s Tuesday, Heddie’s half-day,” I say to Menachem. “She’s home. You go on then, bye now.”

I down the blintz. And she comes in then, the girl of the hour. Looms over me, bun high on her head.

“Oh, Mom,” she shakes her head ruefully, “so how did the blintzes turn out?”

“Me? How would I know?”

“Just a dab of whipped cream on your nose.” She rolls her eyes and I smudge it off my nose, guiltily, licking my finger when she turns away to kick off her shoes.

She gathers the flower supplies and places them on the coffee table.

Soon we settle down to the task on the couches. We are bending the willow twigs into a half circle, one over another, like a braid, as though they are long strands of hair.

“Let’s wreathe the purple ivy through,” I say, “like a garland.”

“Ooh,” Heddie breathes.

She holds the looping branches together and I inch the sprigs of purple and white through. My legs have gone old, but my hands, they know this. This deft dance of beauty. Heddie’s too. I weave slowly, in and out, in and out, the long flower like a thread. Heddie primps the part I’ve done, a sprig primed here, a leaf there. I love working with her, being with her.

The basket handle is done. Heddie holds it upside down, a grin to complement her own. Gorgeous both.

What would I do without her?

It’s because of you. Menchem’s voice.

And then she lays it down and says, quiet and soft, “Mom, Tuvia’s coming here tonight, to take me out again — and to meet you.”

I am floored. Meet me? So this is getting serious, Menachem is wrong, she can take this further, it’s not about me.

I clap my hands. “Heddie! When?”

She laughs a little. “Oh, around eight, I think.”

Her voice is even-keeled, not hills-and-valleys excited like mine.

“How do you feel about this, Heddie?”

“Feel?” There’s the merest glimmer in her face, but it shutters, and she sighs.

“Heddie, c’mon, he’s coming to meet me, this has to mean something.” My tone is imploring but I can’t help it.

“Mom, don’t take it like that. It’s not an official thing, just he’s in the area tonight so he’s able to pick me up and he’ll come in for minute while he’s at it.”

Oh. Oh.

She comes down later, sling-back heels and that light blue wraparound sweater.

“Flats, Heddie, only flats. I don’t know why you have those heels even. Oy, your father may he rest in peace, he gave you all tall, so tall. And Heddale, that sweater is, what, five years old. It’s from Avi’s sheva brachos, no?”

I’m not doing the math, but Avi’s little girl is nine.

“Mom, who cares?”

I want to say that I do, that she should too, but the doorbell’s already ringing and I shuffle over in my walker. Great first impression, but it’s not me I’m worried about.

The young man smiles. Two years nothing, and now poof, a man in the flesh on our doorstep.

He’s tall. I notice this right away. Not like my boys, lanky like the Chrysler building. Normal tall.

Second thing I notice is that he’s graying. Shoin. I offer him a drink, a piece of cake, a bit of small talk.

They disappear into the night too soon and my mind is sizzling fireworks. I like him. A fourth date. And he’s come to see me. I think about calling back Menachem, give it to him a bit. See, it’s this far, what are you saying to your old mother?

I wake up when she lets herself in. Why can’t I tell anything from her face?

She comes over and leads me upstairs. “Ma, go to sleep,” she says, “It’s okay, some things are just not meant to be.”

What?

Over? Was it me, meeting me? How could that be, I didn’t do anything? Oy, Heddie, are you thinking this through, what happened? Why?

She is holding herself still, stoic because she doesn’t want to hurt me. Never does. But she throws a last comment over her shoulder and it stays with me all night as I writhe in the dark. “You can’t trust anyone.”

I wake up late. Trust, trust, what?

I turn over, it’s 10:05, Heddie’s long out to work.

You can’t trust anyone.

Why, why Heddie?

The bedside phone rings. It’s Sadie, she’s over at the shul. Do I want to help with the flower arrangements?

“Ours is ready but I can’t shlep it over now. Heddie’s at work,” I tell her. “But nu, I can walk the one block to shul, with my walker.”

I step out gingerly, one step, another, slow, so slow by myself. And who should I see coming out alone from the shul. It’s the young man from last night.

He sees me and gapes a little, but says, “Good morning,” his face like a cornered cat.

This is my chance.

“Good morning to you, Mr. Mayers,” I say, “Can I talk to you a moment?”

Age earns you something; if it’s not this, I don’t what it is. “I want to know what went wrong,” I say. “No details, nothing like that, but what, why?”

He blanches, fiddles with his collar. “Uh, she’s a lovely girl, your daughter.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I’m asking.”

I am overstepping all bounds, I know I am. But it’s been too long, and I need to know if, if.

“To be honest, it had nothing to do with her,” he says quietly.

A sinking feeling.

“Then what?” I demand.

The young man scrunches his collar hard. Swallows. “It, it was, she made this condition, and I didn’t know before, I wouldn’t have…”

What?

“The condition, you know…”

“No,” I say pointedly. “What condition?”

He’s working on the second collar, crushing it with fingers. I take pity on him. On the starch. And realize suddenly why he can’t go on.

“Was it a condition about me?” I ask this painfully.

He nods miserably and flees.

Heddie

“That’s ours,” Mom says, pointing. “The best of the lot, naturally.”

And it is. The intricate weft and weave of the basket, the flowers, bright popping colors crafted to resemble the fruit of Shivas Haminim. It sits atop the canopy of flowers like a crown. A bikkurim basket, Mom said, even as I wonder what we are thanking for.

I shake the bitterness away with my head and lead us over to the canopy. Mom for the whiff of paradise, me because maybe it’s good to be half-overlaid by leaves and blooms, camouflaged by a forest we’ve helped to create. Not that anyone is staring, not anymore, however I wear my hair. Really, no way is right when you have no one else to go by. No peer pressure, just me and my cornbraid. But on Yom Tov there are always new people in shul; shushkening and clucking and oy v’voys. We’re safer here.

Sadie’s there too, and I groan; she’s going to draw attention our way even if I turn into a tree.

But Mom just offers a gentle gut Yom Tov and reaches for a Tehillim. Not like her, she thrives on the shul social scene. These last few days she’s been too quiet, thoughtful, I realize. Since that night.

“Anyone by you for Yom Tov?” Sadie asks, giving Mom a mildly peeved look before she can start on the Tehillim. She beams lipstick at me. “I mean, besides for Heddie, of course.”

“The boys didn’t come down. We thought it might be too much on my poor hip, the three-day Yom Tov, you know.”

I wish they would’ve come. It’s Mom and me. Me and Mom. Meal after meal. And Yom Tov, it isn’t meant to be like that. You can’t help wanting a crowd.

For a moment I think of Tuvia.

Tuvia at our meal. Three places: him at the head, me beside him, Mom at the end. Telling us Torah, leading us in song. Can he even sing?

Downstairs someone bangs on the bimah and the chazzan starts Megillas Rus. Mom makes a pointed motion at her lips and Sadie looks into her machzor. I breathe, looking into mine, but I’m still thinking of Tuvia. Just Tuvia and me, a Yom Tov meal, on a table with grass ferns and greens and color, in a small airy room somewhere, Jerusalem?

Why am I thinking of him? It’s over. Over.

You snuffed the life out of it yourself.

I don’t want it. Can’t have it. I can’t leave Mom, and Mrs. Reiss, she didn’t breathe a word about my caveat. Fool that I am, I thought he knew, I thought meeting me was tacit agreement.

You can’t trust anyone, Mrs. Reiss and her earnestness — as if.

Mom’s hand falters on the page a moment. I turn it for her and she grasps my hand. She needs me.

The chazzan’s voice rises, words floating into my consciousness. “She raised her eyes and she cried and she kissed Orpah. V’Rus davka bah.”

I see them there, two wandering women in the wayside, the dust of travel on their faces.

And she clung to her.

“Where you will go, I will go, where you will lodge, I will lodge. Ameich ami, v’Eylokayich Elokai.”

The strength it must have taken to follow an impoverished, ailing woman back to a homeland that shunned her, forgoing the palace and riches of her father’s home…

I am still holding onto Mom, and for a split second I feel smug, righteous, resisting the whole world like Rus, to be there for my mother.

But there is the Tehillim beside her machzor, and the disappointment in her eyes and a quiet desperation about her these last few days.

She wants something else for me.

And I do too.

The words blur, and I see us in them, beyond them; we, Mom and I, are the women on the way, limping and straining on a journey too long. The sun is harsh in our eyes, on my clothes, I am an outcast, not quite fitting anywhere. I shudder. And my mother, she’s shaking her head, pushing me gently off the road, pointing to the distant hills.

Chairs creak and scrape back. V’Yishai hoilid es Dovid, the megillah reaches a triumphant end. And just then Mom unclasps her hand from mine.

My hand is empty, cold. I feel hollow inside.

Someone passes around Yizkor cards and I take two automatically, putting one near Mom just as she takes one for herself.

You need her to need you.

The room empties, Sadie patting Mom then me on the shoulder as she leaves. A touch, both sympathetic and genteel. It barely registers, my mind is stuck a thousand years back, to Dovid, to where it all began. Rus knew when to be at Naomi’s side, and when to leave her and forge her own path.

And me?

Stifling a chance that comes after two years. Clutching onto Mom like my life depends on it. I see us grow old and weary on the road, one woman clenching onto the other, and fading, fading into the dusk.

Doris

“Good morning, Golden Years, Sonia speaking.”

Ahem. I find my voice. “Good morning, I’d like to know where to send the completed, uh… application packet.”

Let’s pretend this is seminary.

“Okay, hang on a moment.”

Hold music comes through the line, uber calm, zen style.

I haven’t breathed a word to Heddie about this, about meeting Tuvia Mayers. But I’m not taking it sitting down. I’m not letting her kill her chances because of me. But she’s not going to go down without a fight. I’ve got to be clever about this, tell her when it’s all set and signed.

The music ripples on, it’s nice and all — can you tell a place by its hold music? — but I want to get this done before she comes home.

I should put up a coffee while I wait. I press speakerphone and lean onto the walker, inching toward the kitchen. The music becomes staticky, sweaty in the hand that is also clutching the bar of the walker. It goes flying, the phone, and my hand wavers, flails in the air, sliding past the bar, so slow, so fast, onto the rising carpet.

The world swims beneath me; shooting pain in my arm, in my hip; the music like cruel, calm waves. I am thrashing in a sea of pain.

Heddie, Heddie, come home.

In the distance comes a chirpy voice. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sonia speaking.”

I can’t talk, I can’t move.

“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Can’t I do even this without Heddie?

Heddie

The paramedics bound through the door, and I am tall and small and useless.

I watch them lift Mom onto a stretcher, my poor, whimpering Mom, holding onto her hip for dear life.

I follow them out and into the ambulance, taking her weak hand.

She squeezes it. She needs me. Oh, how she needs me.

They sedate her and I watch gratefully as the peace of oblivion settles over her face.

So I was right after all. How could I even think of dating? Till, till she’s recovered from the hip replacement at least. And even then, she’s not getting any younger, and she’s not in the best of health. A quick phone call to Avi. He’ll call Menachem, they’re coming down. They won’t be here before midnight.

At the hospital, they take Mom in for X-rays. I sit in a hard plastic chair, a tired fan blowing hot air and time around. There is no time in hospitals, only waiting. Waiting to hear what happened to Mom. Waiting for my brothers, for the evening to turn into night.

The gray-blue of city twilight shows in the panes, the gray giving in to the blue, feeding it darkness, and when it is almost night they come, finally, with the update.

“No damage to the new hip, but a nasty sprain to the arm,” the nurse says.

Poor Mom.

“We’ve given her some pain relief and are weaning her off the sedation. But we need to keep her overnight for observation. We’ve put her on the ward — you okay to come along there, honey?”

I am too old to be called honey by a stranger. But I nod and follow her; of course I’m okay, this is my place, beside Mom. Is it not, hasn’t it always been?

The cloying heat of the cubicle presses my thoughts in on me. So this will be my fate, running after her, pretending to myself that this is all that I want and need, that loyalty is more than love?

I couldn’t do this, be there for her like this, with a husband, with kids, to go back home to.

I look over at her, at the creases in the face I know as well as my own.

Now I am resentful? Now, as she lies fallen and pale? Fickle minds. Why?

She breathes heavily; me and her and the hamster on a wheel in my brain. I am suffocating.

I stroke her arm too hard. Slowly, she comes to, groggy, rubbing her eyes.

What, Mom, what do you want? What do you need?

She wants you to move on.

I sit there, shivering in the heat, wondering why the thought gives me goose pimples all over.

And the boys burst in through the curtain.

“Menachem? Avi?”

She is disoriented, but they come over, bending themselves almost in half over the hospital bed, these two beanstalks, pecking her cheek, adjusting her blanket.

When they sit, she is grinning. Nothing like a Mom with her grown sons.

“What happened, Mom?” Menachem asks.

“I was on the phone with…” Her eyes widen, remembering, her face closes. “Never mind, trying to use my walker at the same time, silly me.”

“But the doctor says your hip is fine. It’s your hand, it’s been badly sprained,” I say.

She looks at it, considering the bruise. With her other hand, she pats her hip, “New models don’t break so fast.”

We laugh. Good old Mom.

But she’s the first to stop, growing pensive. “You know we should talk now, with all of you here, even though the boys have heard some of it.”

Avi shifts in his seat.

“Look, it’s clear I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be on my own all day, look what I get up to…”

“So you’re saying you think I should cut my hours at the dental practice?” I say this very fast, my thoughts careening. “We’re doing all right really, what with the insurance money and all, and…”

“No, no, Heddie.” Mom looks stricken, “That’s not what I meant at all. You’ve got to live, Heddie, live.”

She says this like a sigh, like a plea.

“No, this is what I meant.” She fumbles in the pocket of her sweater. “Here, look.”

A sheaf of papers, filled in Mom’s hard capital letters. The letterhead reads Golden Years Senior and Rehabilitation Facility.

I am cold.

I turn on my brothers. They nod at each other, as if conspiring, and rise.

“You knew?”

“Maariv,” Avi says, and they slink away behind the curtain.

Maariv. Yeah, right.

Doris

Oh, boys. Unsubtle as anything, but they’re right, this is a conversation we need to have, just Heddie and I.

I force my mind away from my wincing hand and tell her about finding Tuvia, cornering him to tell me what went wrong.

“No, you didn’t, you didn’t ask him.” Heddie puts head in slender arms. “Mortification.”

“And so I did, your old Mom’s something, isn’t she?” She shakes her head.

“I heard about your condition, Heddie.” She blushes. “But Heddale, I don’t want this, never asked for it. He tells me I have a lovely daughter. Heddie, you know he didn’t end off because of you.”

“But, but—”

“Listen, I’ve been thinking about this. Heddie, I’ve spoken to the boys. Avi can take me in but I don’t want to go, I don’t want to move away now. I’ve asked around this past week and I’m happy with what I’ve found at Golden Years. It sounds right for now, for the rehab at least, and maybe for longer.”

“Longer?”

“Yes, because you have your own life. Forget conditions about me, Heddie, you have a life, no strings attached, your old Mom will take care of herself.”

As I say it I know that that’s what I want to do. Have to do. But Heddie, she’s holding onto the railing of the hospital bed, her knuckles white and sharp. For a moment I see myself floundering, trying for the walker bar, missing, falling, falling through the air. I see it on her face, the terror of the fall, as the wall of excuses crumbles away before her, and she only has herself to face.

She is quiet, so quiet. Breathing hard.

Should I take it all back?

But maybe we underestimate our children, because she turns to me and says quietly, sheepish, “You okay there, Mom, can I step out a moment? I have a call to make.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 592)