by Ed Ifkovic
My voice trembled. “I’m sorry for you, Molly. Of course, I am. For your family. For Ad. You are people I care about. You have to believe that. But I’m not sorry for what I did. Leah had to have that black stain taken off her.”
“Leah! Temptress. Look what she did to Adolph.”
I stared back, stupefied. “Look what he did to her, Molly.”
Footsteps in the hallway, a door slammed, an ebullient Ad bursting in, giving Molly a peck on the cheek. She held up her hand.
“What?” he demanded. “The two of you are so serious…”
Molly took his hand in hers, held it, squeezed it. “I’ve told Edna.” She started to cry.
He knew then, he had to.
His jaw dropped. He spun around, maddened, glanced toward the back door. A coward, I thought—a callow man, a bounder. Worse…a killer.
“But…no.” He yelled out the word. It sailed across the kitchen.
“It’s over, my Adolph. I’m old and I’m tired.”
“What?”
She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away. “Edna knows what you did.”
“No.”
“I told her.”
“No.”
“Sit down, Ad.” I pointed to a chair. He debated what to do, but finally he did, hunched over. “Now tell me.”
For a moment there was a flash of anger and resentment, of utter dislike, but it passed. What surfaced was the little boy, the town bully who hopes you’ll pity him, console, forgive. My excuse is weakness, frailty, I’m all too human. I didn’t know…Forgive me. Love me. It wasn’t my fault. It was an accident.
Believe me. I—
So he blubbered, ugly, but I reached over and gripped his arm. Steely-eyed, I demanded, “Tell me.”
“He made fun of me.”
Molly patted the back of his wrist. “Adolph, my Adolph.”
He refused to look at her. “That day, yes, but it wasn’t the first time. He was a hard man—cruel. What he did to Jacob. To me. ‘You look at my wife, you lousy creep.’ He struck me once. I never told you that—I was so ashamed. And that morning, the fight. Horrible. Leah crying and crying—the sobs carrying across the yards. I was so afraid he’d hurt her. So when we got back from shopping, I snuck over.”
Molly frowned, “You didn’t have to, Adolph. I stopped you that morning, but that’s all you talked about with me. You got so crazy.” A sigh. “Always a hitsiger, my boy.” A hothead.
“I had to. You were napping. I heard Leah crying on the back porch, and then I saw her go into the back garden. She was sobbing in her garden. Pitiful.” His voice became a whine. “When I walked in the front door, he was there—on the sofa. He laughed at me. Again.” He swallowed. “He’s sick and irritated and…and…I snapped. He was doubled over, but suddenly he reached out and pushed me. I snapped. I had the dumb pocketknife I always carried. Lord, we all carried them, and I pulled it out, opened it. I waved it at him. He laughed and laughed, tears in his eyes. ‘That little knife. You’ll never be a butcher if you use a knife like that. Oh, you’ll never be nothing.’ I don’t remember what happened. I don’t. But all of a sudden that knife was in his neck, a vein, and all this blood was gushing out, and he was choking, gagging. One loud shout, I remember, and then this gurgling sound, desperate. His hands pulled at his neck—all the blood. It was awful. Awful. I folded the knife, covered with blood, and tucked it into my pocket. I rolled up my sleeves, soaked with his blood. I wrapped my handkerchief around my fingers. I got out of there.”
“Adolph.” Panic in Molly’s voice. “Adolph.”
Ad watched his grandmother. “Yeah, you heard me running up the stairs. I knew that. That ruined everything. You saw what a mess I was—I could see the question in your eyes. That hurt me.”
“So Jacob suspected you? He avoided you.”
He nodded. “I was stupid. Crazy, he said to me, ‘A knife. There was no knife.’ And I said that maybe the killer took it with him. ‘Yeah, running out the door with a cleaver?’ But I said—maybe a small knife, a pocket knife.’ A blunder, really. We both carried pocketknives, and he gave me the strangest look. It chilled me.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He walked away. But I thought—Christ, trouble.”
“Ad,” I began, “why didn’t you speak up when it happened? Years ago?”
He ignored that. He was still staring at his grandmother, his eyes moist. “I haven’t been happy since that day.”
“Happy?” I screamed. “Ad, no…sense of honor…or proportion. Ad, do you hear yourself?”
Surprised, mouth twitching, growl of barely suppressed anger. “You shouldn’t have come here, Edna.”
“No, Ad…”
Suddenly he stood, so abruptly I started. His fingertips rapped the table nervously. “I need air.”
“Sit down, Ad,” I told him.
He shook his head, his eyes white with panic. “This kitchen is too hot. It’s too damn hot. No one ever opens the goddamn windows here. You can’t breathe in here. No one can breathe in this house. What’s the matter with you people? How do you expect a man to breathe in this house?”
“Sit down, Ad,” I repeated. “We have to talk to the police in the morning…”
He started. “No.”
“We have no choice.”
Molly made a choking sound. “No, Edna, all the years.”
“No.” My voice firm. “It’s over, Ad.”
He looked down at his grandmother and mouthed the word—over.
“Over,” he said out loud. Then, in a small, tinny voice he rambled, sputtered nonsense, but dark, frightening. At one point he mouthed the name Jacob—“Oh Jacob, Jacob”—and he sobbed. Then, his eyes weepy, he said, “I always knew my story would have a bad ending.”
He bumped into the cabinet, banged his fist on the sink top. Blindly, furiously, he stared out the window at the black night.
He rushed to the door, though Molly screamed, “No, no. Don’t go.”
“Not this way,” I pleaded. “No, Adolph.”
But he was gone, the door slamming behind him.
Molly had her eyes closed. When she opened them—when she caught my eye—it was as if she’d seen a ghost. Her hands flew to her neck as she struggled for breath. Her fingers rubbed the right side of her face—the sagging jaw from her stoke—and she rocked in her chair.
The look we shared was horrible. In that moment we both understood that there would be a dreadful knock on the door the next morning.
Her face was ravaged now, ancient, the map of wrinkles deeply rutted, a dull purple. She tried to stand, reaching for the cane, but her elbow knocked it away, and it clattered to the linoleum floor. She stared absently at it but made no effort to bend for it. With one foot, jerking out, she kicked it across the room. It banged against the stove, a thud, the white enamel chipped. “Good.”
“You did a horrible thing, Molly.”
She spat out her words, an epitaph. “My own grandson, Edna.” She sighed. “A mane hot oygen fun gloz.” A mother has glass eyes.
I shook my head. “No, Molly. You can’t close your eyes to this.”
“Edna…”
“You let an innocent woman suffer for fifteen years. You condemned her to ridicule and exile and shame and…”
She pounded a fist on the table. The teacup slid off, crashing to the floor. A ragged voice, icy. “And I didn’t suffer all these years, Edna? You don’t think I suffered? Every waking moment of these years has been my hell. Tell me I haven’t suffered, Edna. You can’t, can you?” She started to cry, thin, breathless gasps. “You can’t. You can’t.”
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