A Narrow Bridge

by J. J. Gesher

“…most of the time.”

  Miriam piped in, “I can make free throws.”

  “She grannies,” Yossi teased. He bent at the waist with the ball between his legs, mimicking an underhanded free throw.

  “Big deal! They go in more than yours do,” Miriam answered defiantly.

  Before the fight could escalate, a bus approached. Sarah tugged on Jacob’s hand.

  “Can we see the monkeys and the seals too, Daddy?”

  “The monkeys are my favorite,” Jacob confided.

  Miriam noticed a liquor store, “Daddy, buy me some gum. You promised to teach me how to blow bubbles,” she whined.

  Jacob looked up and saw the bus approaching. “Not now, honey. The bus is here.”

  The bus’s brakes squealed as it came to a stop. Miriam and Yossi arrived at the steps at the same time as a man with a Batman backpack. Yossi accidentally bumped into him, and the man dropped his brown paper bag.

  Miriam shoved her brother, “Look what you did. Say you’re sorry.”

  “No problem,” the man answered as he picked up the bag. Carefully adjusting the backpack, he noted the rest of the family. “After you,” he muttered. Then he waited for them to board.

  “We’ll see you after the game,” Julia said as she climbed the bus steps, with Yossi and Miriam ahead of her.

  “The back is empty. I call it!” Yossi yelled as he charged to the rear.

  “I called it first,” said Miriam.

  “No, you didn’t!”

  “Yes, I did. I whispered it.”

  “Will the two of you stop it? You’re embarrassing me,” Julia said as she waited for Jacob to lift Sarah up the steps.

  Sarah tugged Jacob’s hand and said in her tiny voice. “I’m going to go to the back of the bus, and I’m going to wave to you.”

  Jacob bent down so she could hear him over the noise of the boulevard. “Okay. I’ll wave back.”

  “Until you can’t see me anymore?” she said softly.

  “Until you disappear,” he replied, kissing the top of her head.

  With Jacob’s help, Sarah boarded the bus and took her mother’s hand, followed by the man with the Batman backpack. The doors closed. Jacob stood on the sidewalk and watched his family work their way back on the bus as it pulled away from the stop. He was immediately relieved that he had some time to himself to watch the game. The cacophony of three children was relentless. He saw Julia, Miriam, and Yossi take their seats in the back row. Sarah climbed on her mother’s lap, pressed her face against the window, and waved to her father. They fixed on each other as Jacob waved back. Jacob continued to wave as the bus maneuvered into the busy intersection.

  And then—the unthinkable.

  An ear-piercing blast assaulted him. The bus exploded, igniting in a ball of flame.

  Wounded pedestrians covered their faces and recoiled with terror. Drivers of nearby vehicles got out of their cars, examining themselves for damage. Everywhere was evidence of fire, shrapnel, and bloody body parts. The air smelled of charred flesh and burnt rubber. The bus was a smoldering skeleton. Complete annihilation.

  Jacob’s face was a mixture of horror and disbelief. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Nobody on that bus could have survived. He fell to his knees. He did not hear the high-pitched sirens of the ambulances and police cars or the cries of the wounded witnesses.

  Jacob’s world went silent.

  CHAPTER 5

  Rosie wasn’t surprised by the message on her cellphone from the after-school daycare. Robert hadn’t arrived to pick up Langston—again. Rosie felt a hot flush, not sure if it was the weather or her anger. Birmingham was miserable in the summer. She cranked up the air conditioning in her ten-year-old Toyota. Between the 95-degree temperature outside and the aggravation from dealing with her ex-husband, she thought she’d go mad.

  Rosie lost count of the times she had driven across town to pick up her sad-faced little boy. There he stood, lunch box in hand, impatient teacher’s aide by his side, relieved to see her but disappointed that his dad hadn’t been in her place. Rosie often wondered how she could have chosen Robert to father her son. She remembered reading in some banal fashion magazine that a woman in her twenties subliminally chooses a man for his genes and his parenting potential. Robert’s genes had proved an excellent choice: Langston was good-looking and bright. Robert’s parenting, however, left much to be desired. He meant well, but he always put himself first. How could her judgment have been so off?

  Two years after their divorce, Rosie was feeling overwhelmed. Being a single mother was hard work. She was always on the run, dragging stacks of papers to grade to Langston’s T-ball practices. Her mood cycled from angry to despondent. Robert’s failed promises to Langston didn’t ease her burden. Langston’s relationship with his father—or lack thereof—was making her son a guarded little boy.

  Rosie yearned for a simpler life, a place where Langston could grow up with time to roam and discover the world for himself—as she had in her childhood. So she’d decided to move back home. Her late parents’ old house wasn’t a palace, but it was paid for, and Uncle Mo could help her raise Langston. There was plenty of time for her son to have a city in his life. She felt that he needed the safety and familiarity of a small town.

  Rosie had told herself that she was moving for Langston, but she knew she was doing it for her own sanity as well. She’d moved back to Brent so she could remember who she was before she’d ever met Robert. The decade in Birmingham had depleted her reserves, both financial and emotional. Enough of Birmingham, its traffic, its strip centers and shopping malls, enough of the rushing and fast food for dinner. She had yearned for the quiet of Brent, where she could spend a Saturday on the porch with a book, or sing in the church choir, or bake a pie.

  She was young and vital. She wasn’t defeated—she just needed a change.

  That’s what she kept telling herself as she sat in the teachers’ lounge between classes. Rosie found her new job at Brent High challenging. Most of her students came from undereducated families who worked all day and let the television blare all night. The parents were so consumed by daily survival that they couldn’t monitor their children’s development. Rosie had to reduce her expectations, but she was more determined than ever to reach these kids.

  In Birmingham, Rosie had been the hip teacher—the one who heard the girls’ confessions of first loves or heartbreaks, the one whose classroom was always open during lunch. She demanded a lot from her English students—novels by Jane Austen and Ralph Ellison, poems by Emily Dickinson and her favorite, Langston Hughes. Rosie was a kind but diligent taskmaster. She knew that most students rose to the expectations of their teachers. The zone for real learning existed in the balance between demanding excellence and understanding limitations.

  Or at least that’s the way it had been in Birmingham. Rosie wasn’t confident in this new environment. She made a point to keep to herself in the teachers’ room during nutrition and lunch, purposefully placing stacks of student assignments in front of her to stifle other teachers’ attempts at conversation.

  Most of the teachers seemed settled into mediocrity. If the district was going to crowd forty-plus students in a classroom and not pay teachers adequately, then they’d do the bare minimum to keep their jobs—and they weren’t ashamed to admit it. Afraid that their apathy would infect her, Rosie kept her distance.

  Sometime in the second week of school, she noticed a fellow teacher in his forties. His head was buzzed to the skin, the badge of a man who was losing his hair and claimed it. He was broad shouldered, and even though he was lean, his shorter than average stature and wide shoulders made him look stocky. His pale green eyes indicated a mixed-race heritage. His face was open, intelligent, and kind. He, too, kept to himself, grading math tests and listening to music on his phone. It didn’t take much snooping to find out that his name was Edmond Scott, and that he was also a recent arrival to Brent High. They smiled politely at each other when they met a
t the coffee pot, and Rosie noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. She wondered if he was divorced, or never married, or if he just didn’t like jewelry. That she was thinking about the marital status of a man, any man, caught her off guard.

  Rosie waved at Kala Patel, the school counselor, when she entered the teachers’ lounge. Although Rosie had been working at Brent High for only a short time, she already felt a connection to the diminutive, coffee-colored spitfire. Kala represented all the good that Rosie saw in America, a fascinating amalgamation of cultures and backgrounds.

  Kala was married to Dr. Patel, the town pediatrician. He’d been assigned as a resident to a large hospital in Birmingham, and when a practice became available in Brent, he bought it and set up shop. The locals were wary at first, but now Aadit Patel was simply called Doc. From the moment Rosie met Kala, she identified her as a potential friend. Rosie delighted in Kala’s willingness to explain Hinduism, her humorous stories of her family in India, and her knowledge of an exotic world wildly different from Alabama. Kala headed over to talk to Rosie.

  Edmond gathered his papers, put his phone away, and approached Rosie. Kala, noticing his intent, veered away, leaving him room to make a move.

  Edmond stood in front of Rosie’s table. “Don’t I know you from church?”

  “First Baptist?”

  “Right. You’re in the choir.”

  “Yes. I sing soprano.”

  “You know, I’m a baritone. Pretty good too.”

  Rosie sensed that he was waiting for an invitation. “We always welcome another voice in praise. Tuesday evenings, seven o’clock.”

  Rosie wanted to sink into the ground. She sounded like some old auntie: “another voice in praise.” What was she doing?

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Rosie straightened the piles of papers in front of her.

  Edmond shifted his weight from one foot to the other and continued, “So…do you like teaching English?”

  “I love teaching English. The problem is reading all these assignments. I want my students to write so they’ll improve. But I can never keep up with all the grading.”

  “That’s the beauty of mathematics. It’s either right or wrong.”

  Rosie rushed to fill the air between them. “And there’s lesson plans and rereading the texts and…” Her voice trailed off, implying a never-ending to-do list.

  Edmond smiled. “Almost forgot what I was doing. Coffee.”

  He poured and took a sip. “This may be the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had.”

  Rosie kept her head down and continued to fuss with her papers. He spoke quickly, “You know, we’re close to last bell. I think I’ll grab a cup at the bakery on the corner. Might get a doughnut while I’m at it. Would you like to join me?”

  Rosie looked up, connecting with Kala, who stood nearby pretending to make a cup of tea. Kala flashed her a thumbs-up.

  Rosie fidgeted, unsure how to respond. She didn’t want to appear eager, but she didn’t want to discourage him either.

  “Thank you, but I’ve got to get home. My son…I have a son.”

  She fumbled as she went back to her essays.

  After a long, uncomfortable moment, Edmond asked, “And a husband?”

  Rosie kept her attention on her papers. “No. No husband.”

  “Well then, maybe another day?”

  “That would be nice.” She smiled. The bell rang and the madness of a school day’s end filled the hallway. She put on her cardigan and threw her purse over her shoulder. Edmond held the door open for her.

  Rosie was embarrassed. What was wrong with her? Had she forgotten how to flirt?

  When Rosie got home from school, Langston was busy digging for worms in the front yard. The door was open, and she could see Mo puttering around the kitchen.

  Langston looked up. “Uncle Mo said he’d take me fishing, just like he used to take you.”

  Rosie had always drawn on her childhood memories as bedtime stories for Langston. He loved the tales about Nosy Rosie. Uncle Mo had been the first one to call her that. As a child she had always wanted to know why something happened, or what the people said, or where everyone was going. Her questions had been so persistent that Mo had made up a series of bedtime stories that he called “Nosy Rosie.” They were long, meandering yarns about a girl detective and her bumbling sleuthing abilities. Each story ended with Nosy Rosie getting herself in a fix and having to be rescued by her “there-in-the-nick-of-time” uncle.

  Langston loved the true stories best. He particularly loved to hear the account of his mother digging up worms for bait the first time she went fishing with Uncle Mo. Tunneling through the sandy soil, she’d searched for the right worm; the engorged ones were perfect. She’d put each harvested worm, still alive, in an old coffee can filled with dirt and guarded that can on her lap. As Uncle Mo drove over rough roads to his favorite fishing spot by the Cahaba River, she’d lifted the lid to check on her squirming hostages. Each time she’d get a whiff of the fresh dirt and count the worms to make sure none had escaped their Maxwell House prison. By the end of the ride, they were no longer anonymous worms but named and cooed-over pets. The only problem with this idyllic expedition was that Rosie couldn’t stand to thread her new friends on the hook. It was more than unfair—it was cruel. That was when Uncle Mo had taught her the expression “a means to an end.”

  He’d deftly threaded the condemned worm as he explained, “If you’re hungry, you want to catch a fish to eat, don’t you? How you fixin’ to do that if you don’t use a wigglin’ worm?”

  Rosie had tried to slide the worm onto the hook. Impossible. All she did was prick her finger. This whole fishing thing didn’t make sense to her. Why did she have to sacrifice one life for another? Without a second thought, she’d dumped the whole can out in the mud and watched each of her potential worm victims break free and burrow back into the earth. Mo had stood next to her sucking his back tooth.

  When the last night crawler had disappeared he’d put his hand on her shoulder and announced: “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  Rosie nodded her head. She was famished. Mo rummaged through his fishing bag. “How about some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? That’s also a means to an end.”

  They ate the sandwiches in silence and watched the sun shimmer on the river. That memory meant a lot to her. Rosie loved her Uncle Mo.

  As she watched Langston hunt for worms, she realized that the story must have stuck with him, too. He’d been digging for some time, and still no success. Instead, he found a perfectly smooth slate rock, about the size of his thumb. He washed the rock with the hose and dried it on his shirt. The slate was black and shiny, with veins of white.

  “This is gonna be my lucky rock,” he announced as Mo joined them in the front yard.

  “Don’t see why not,” Mo replied.

  “Can we go now, Uncle Mo?”

  Mo mopped his brow with a well-worn handkerchief. “It’s too damn hot. Fish don’t bite when the weather’s like this.”

  Langston piped up. “Damn is a bad word.”

  Rosie hid her amusement. She must be doing something right.

  “I promise we’ll go on Saturday, real early.” Mo crossed his heart.

  “I think we all need a break from this heat. Let’s get some dinner,” Rosie said. “Leave everything where it is.”

  Langston and Mo followed her to the car. Minutes later, they turned into the parking lot of the McDonald’s on the interstate. Langston wiggled with anticipation.

  “I thought you don’t like these places,” Mo questioned. “I recall ‘no fast food’ as one of your highfalutin child-rearing rules.”

  “Yeah, well I break that rule too often,” Rosie said with a sigh as they got in line.

  They approached the counter, and Rosie waited for her son to place his order. Langston stared at the young man working behind the counter. The boy had the worst case of acne that Rosie had ever seen—giant, angry blemishes covere
d his face and neck. She recognized him as the sulky, quiet boy who sat in the back row of her World Literature class.

  “Hansom—it is Hansom, right?” she asked tentatively. The boy nodded. “Nice to see you working.”

  The boy mumbled an embarrassed “Hello, Mrs. Yarber” and then looked down. Langston was tongue-tied, gaping at the boy’s disfigured face.

  “Langston, place your order,” Rosie said in her schoolteacher voice.

  Mo admonished Langston under his breath. “Stop staring.”

  They got their food and brought their trays to a table.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Langston asked.

  “It’s acne. It happens to some people when they’re teenagers,” Rosie said.

  “Will I get it?”

  “It goes away,” Mo chimed in. “Eventually.”

  Rosie could see that Langston was anxious, stealing glimpses of the boy behind the counter. “No, you won’t get it. Eat your fries.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Hava had a pounding headache. Even the act of walking made her brain bang around in her skull. She needed a cup of coffee, but the thought of it made her queasy. The past twenty-four hours were a blur. Yesterday she was a defined entity, a grandmother and mother-in-law. Today, a pitiful afterthought. Jacob had to be her only concern. She was his mother and once-removed from the horror. Her job was to be strong for her son, no matter the open wounds she had herself sustained.

  By the second day of shiva, the Jewish mourning period of seven days following the death of a loved one, the living room of Hava’s Brooklyn apartment had been transformed. Furniture was moved to one side and replaced by low stools and cushions for the mourners and guests. This was an outward sign of being struck down by grief, humbled by pain and the finality of death. The gilded mirror that hung over the dining room table was covered with a sheet, a custom designed to discourage vanity and encourage inner reflection during the first week of intense sorrow.

  Guests entered the apartment without knocking, the unlocked door another sign of mourning—so that the grieving family was not disturbed. Most callers brought food: a bag from the bakery, a casserole, a pot of soup. Feeding the grieving family was a community obligation. The women organized meals and made sure the family wanted for nothing during shiva. They came together to nourish the family and to acknowledge that life can and will go on.