The Boston Girl

by Anita Diamant

  Aaron said he’d get her. “She has to get used to me sometime.”

  When everyone was crowded into the living room, Aaron’s father shook his finger at me. “I bet I know what this is about,” he said. “And here comes the groom.”

  But the groom ran in looking very serious and said, “Somebody call an ambulance.”

  My world got very small.

  It was a stroke.

  They took Mameh to Beth Israel, the old brick one, which wasn’t far from where we lived in Roxbury. They opened the modern building a year later, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. There wasn’t much they could do for strokes in those days other than keep them warm and massage the muscles.

  It was hard to know what was happening in the hospital. The doctors didn’t tell you anything and patients were allowed only one visit a day and only one person at a time. When Papa went in, he couldn’t say if she seemed better or worse, but he always looked older when he came out.

  Betty brought clean nightgowns and said the sheets felt like wax paper, but she couldn’t tell if Mameh was in pain or comfortable or what. “Sometimes she opens her eyes, but I don’t know if she sees me.” She said her face wasn’t as bad as at the beginning, when the right side looked like it had melted off the bones.

  They only let me go once and it was pretty awful. The room was overheated and smelled like bleach. My mother’s face on the pillow was yellow and her hair was combed straight back and tucked under her head so I could see the shape of her skull under the skin. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyelids were twitching. I wasn’t sure if she was awake, so I whispered, “Mameh, it’s me, Addie. How are you feeling? Can I do anything for you?” I tried to sound cheerful but my stomach was in the same knot as always, waiting for her to wake up and demand to know what was I doing there, where was my father, who put her in this place?

  After a few weeks, she was a little better, opening her eyes, and drinking through a straw. She could sit up in bed if someone helped her and even though she didn’t say anything, we were sure she recognized us.

  The doctor said she might get back some use of her right arm and leg, but that could take months if it happened at all. She could start talking or maybe not. Like I said, they couldn’t do much for her in the hospital, so we took her home.

  Her right side stayed paralyzed and the right side of her mouth drooped so the words were garbled when she started to talk. She got agitated when we didn’t understand her, so we knew she was still all there inside her head.

  During the day, Papa and Betty took turns sitting with her. I came home straight from work and took over while Betty made supper and my father walked to shul.

  We were the only three she let in the room. Mildred and Rita offered to watch her, but when they came to visit, Mameh clamped her mouth shut and refused to open her eyes. If Levine, Aaron, or any of the boys came into the room, she muttered and grimaced until they left. She scared the little ones so much they wouldn’t come downstairs at all.

  My world got very small, the way it always does when someone in your family is sick. I was at work or at home, where I was either sitting with my mother or helping Betty with the boys. I didn’t go out on the weekends, either, so Aaron came to the house and taught me to play gin rummy and hearts, and, of course, we postponed the wedding.

  My new boss was very sympathetic when I got phone calls at the office. Gussie and Irene stayed in touch. And whenever he could, Aaron met me after work and rode the trolley home with me. He put his arm around me and there were a few times he had to wake me up when we got to my stop.

  It was about two months after the stroke, Jake’s best friend was having his bar mitzvah. Papa had been his teacher and Betty was friendly with his mother, so I said I’d stay home with Mameh and told them to have a nice time and not to hurry back.

  I hadn’t spent much time with her in the mornings. Betty said she usually woke up around ten o’clock, and that was when she seemed clearer in her mind and it was easier to understand if she tried to talk. But that day she didn’t open her eyes until noon. I offered her soup and tea but she shook her head and nodded toward the door, which meant she needed the bathroom.

  She hated the bedpan worse than anything, but she’d lost so much weight since the stroke, it wasn’t hard to carry her.

  She let me wash her face and hands, but she turned away when I offered a cup of tea or bread soaked in broth. I asked if she wanted me to read to her but she squeezed her eyes shut.

  I don’t know why it’s so exhausting to sit with a sick person. It’s not like you’re doing anything, but it’s a hundred times more tiring than hard work. Maybe it’s the helplessness or maybe it’s the strain of waiting for the body to decide if it’s going to get better or not.

  The sky had been overcast all day and when it started snowing, the room got dark. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, Mameh was sitting up straight, something we didn’t think she could do on her own. Her eyes were wide open and she was looking around the room as if she was trying to figure out where she was, like she was Rip Van Winkle. She frowned at the dirty glasses on the bureau and at the reading lamp I had moved in.

  In Yiddish, I said, “Mameh? Can I get you something? Do you know who I am, Mameh?”

  She searched my face and frowned. I could hear her breath get faster and I said, “Don’t worry. Just rest.”

  Her eyes got big and she reached out to me with her good arm. I sat down next to her on the bed and she whispered, “Of course I know my own daughter.” Her voice was raspy and the words were slow but I could understand her. “How can a mother not know her own beautiful daughter?”

  She ran her hand over my hair and let it rest on my cheek. “I didn’t know right away it was you, sweetheart, zieseleh. Your hair is so short. Have you been sick?”

  I told her I’d cut my hair and that I was fine and she didn’t have to worry. But she was anxious and started talking fast, as if she was in a hurry to say something before she forgot. “I want to tell you that I’m sorry. You were right and I was wrong. If I had listened to you, you would have been happier.”

  She started crying. “Ich bin moyl. I’m sorry. But you’ll forgive me; I know you will. You were always such a good girl, so pretty, so good . . .”

  I had never heard her apologize to anyone, not even once. I couldn’t remember my mother ever looking at me that way or telling me I was pretty or sweet. She never called me darling.

  It was like a miracle.

  All that talking wore her out and she sank back on the pillows. I kissed her hand and said not to worry about me, that I was getting married to a wonderful man. I asked if she remembered Aaron and she squeezed my fingers.

  I said how happy I was to talk to her like this and that I wished I had tried to explain myself to her before.

  She shook her head and whispered, “I thought I had lost you, but here you are, just like my mother, your grandmother. You have her golden hands, goldene hentz, like an angel with a needle and thread.

  “I was wrong to make you go. I chased you and beat you to force you, even when you were telling me you would die if I sent you away.

  “I thought he would keep you safe and that Bronia would look out for you but you knew better. You knew this country would kill you. I am sorry, little Sima. My poor, poor Simmaleh.”

  She sighed. Her breath slowed. When she fell asleep I let it sink in.

  I had waited my whole life to hear her say those things. That she was sorry. That I was a good girl. And pretty and sweet. But it was all for Celia: the tenderness, the apology, the love. She didn’t even know I was there.

  I was too sad to cry.

  —

  It was late when Betty came back from the party. She turned on the light and asked why I was sitting in the dark. “Did she sleep all day?”

  I said yes and that I was going for a walk. I ne
eded some fresh air.

  It was a beautiful, clear evening. The snow had stopped and the moon made everything look silver. I was walking a long time before I realized that I was going to Aaron’s house. From Roxbury to Brookline is a long way, five miles at least, and I took a few wrong turns on the way. It was so late by the time I got there, his house was dark except for one light in the living room. They never locked the door, so I just walked in. Aaron almost fell out of the chair.

  I said, “Don’t ask. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  | 1927 |

  All I felt was pain.

  My mother died a few weeks later. Levine took care of the funeral the same way he took care of most things—without anyone asking him and without much in the way of thanks.

  I had been to the cemetery when Myron and Lenny died, but burying Mameh was a completely different experience, like night and day. Even getting there wasn’t the same. The roads were better, so we got there in no time, and instead of three mourners, there were twenty people and a whole line of cars behind the hearse.

  The biggest difference was how “normal” it seemed. Mameh was sixty-five, which wasn’t so young in 1927. Nobody was shocked. She had been sick and died at home in her own bed, so it was sad but nothing like the tragedy it had been with Celia, or Myron and Lenny.

  Only Papa and Levine had been there for Celia’s funeral. That was probably because we didn’t know many people back then, but maybe it had something to do with how she died. There was so much guilt mixed in with the grief. And how do you explain a healthy young woman dying from a slip of a kitchen knife?

  With the flu epidemic, everyone was afraid, and walking into a cemetery seemed like tempting fate. I went to the boys’ funeral to stand in for Betty and it’s a good thing she didn’t come. The idea of her seeing those little coffins was so awful. Just remembering it still makes me feel like crying.

  Before the service for Mameh, I went to look at their graves and tried to think of my sister and nephews when they were young and healthy, but all I could remember was the blood on Celia’s hands and the look on Betty’s face when they took away her little boys. Standing by those gravestones, I didn’t get any comfort or what you’d call “closure” today. All I felt was pain.

  One thing hadn’t changed: the cemetery was just as bleak as I remembered. The trees had grown and they had planted bushes, but it was January and hard to believe that anything would ever be green again.

  I started to shiver when the service began. There wasn’t any wind and nobody else seemed bothered by the cold, but I could hear my teeth chattering. I had to lock my knees to keep from wobbling, and if Aaron hadn’t put his arm around me, I might have keeled over, honest to God. At least Jewish funerals are short.

  When they lowered the coffin into the ground, I remember thinking, She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.

  But when the first clump of dirt hit the coffin, I realized that I would never stop wanting my mother to tell me that I was all right and that’s when I started to cry.

  Life is more important than death.

  After we sat shiva, Papa told Betty and me that we were official mourners for a whole year, which meant we were supposed to stay away from celebrations and music or entertainment of any kind. So no parties, no going to the symphony, not even a movie.

  After the first month, Betty stopped paying attention to the rules. If her boys wanted to see the new Our Gang movie, she took them and stayed to watch. “You think I’m going to leave them in a dark theater all by themselves?”

  I felt like I was living “in the meantime” and I actually didn’t mind being quiet. Papa and I ate suppers upstairs with Betty and her family, then he would go to the synagogue and I usually went to my room to read. It was sort of like living in the boardinghouse.

  Not that I was a hermit. I was with people all day at work and I kept going to class. I think it was American history that term. My friends called on the phone and came to the house. Aaron and I saw each other all the time; we just didn’t talk about the wedding.

  But when the flowers started blooming and everyone put away their winter coats, I started to feel like a dog on a chain. Everywhere I went, I saw couples holding hands and whispering to each other. Aaron showed me an advertisement for an apartment we could afford. I got up my nerve and asked my father how soon we could get married.

  He said, “Anytime you want.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “You told me I had to wait a year.”

  “Did I say anything about weddings? According to the Talmud, if a funeral procession and a wedding procession cross paths, the wedding party goes first. Life is more important than death.”

  You’d think he could have told me that before.

  “Just don’t make it fancy,” Papa said. “No music or dancing.”

  That wasn’t a problem. I’d always wanted it to be simple, and Aaron didn’t care about fancy as long as it was soon. But when I told Betty and Mildred we were thinking about getting married at the beginning of May, which was just a few weeks off, they acted like it was a disaster only a littler smaller than the Titanic. Betty said that since she didn’t have a daughter, this was going to be her only chance to make a wedding. And why did I want to ruin it for her?

  For her, right?

  She and Mildred complained and noodged until we agreed to wait until June so they could make everything nice. Rita asked if she could give me a bridal shower to introduce me to the other women in the family before the wedding. I’d never been to a shower—it was a new fad at the time—but my sister-in-law-to-be had read an article about them in Ladies’ Home Journal and she had her heart set on doing it just like it said in the magazine—right down to pink icing and sugar roses on the cake. She wanted to invite my friends, too, so I gave her Gussie’s phone number and said she’d get in touch with everyone else.

  Rita planned it as a tea party on Saturday afternoon at three o’clock and told everyone to wear nice dresses and white gloves, if you can imagine.

  Irene called me to ask if she could come to my party even if she didn’t embroider a pillowcase, which Rita had asked all the guests to do. When I said I didn’t know anything about pillowcases she said, “Gussie didn’t tell me the pillowcases were supposed to be a surprise. Now I’ve ruined the whole goddamn thing.”

  The older Irene got, the more she swore. I remember when her grandson pooped in his diaper at his christening, she said, “Holy shit,” loud enough for everyone to hear. The look on that priest’s face!

  On the day of the shower, the Metsky house was full of doilies, lilacs, and a dozen aunts and second cousins. After they all got finished hugging me, I smelled like the perfume counter at Jordan’s.

  Rita presented me with a trousseau of pillowcases and towels embroidered with my new initials and I acted as if Irene hadn’t spilled the beans.

  There were some other surprises, though. I knew Irene and Helen would be there but I was bowled over when Miss Chevalier and Miss Green walked in with Katherine Walters, who I lost touch with after I left the Transcript.

  Miss Chevalier kissed my cheek and said, “I’m so happy for you, my dear.” Miss Green seemed to have shrunk two inches but she still had a twinkle in her eye. “I like to think we had something to do with your marriage, since you met your fiancé in our home.”

  The Ediths hadn’t been asked to embroider anything, thank goodness, but Miss Green brought me one of the lovely ceramic boxes she designed; you used to put Barbie shoes in it when you were little.

  Having all those women together in one place was like looking through a photo album of my life: from when I was a baby to the Saturday Club to Rockport Lodge to working at the newspaper to meeting Aaron.

  And it was amazing how well they got along. Miss Green, who had been to Ireland, talked to Irene about the town where she was born. Katherine and Betty
had a debate about who was funnier: Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. I could have told them it was Charlie Chaplin, but I didn’t want to butt in.

  I asked Helen where Gussie was. “She’s just a little late,” Helen said. Gussie gave me so much grief if I was even two minutes late, I looked forward to giving her a little of her own medicine. When she finally got there, she put up one hand like a stop sign. Then Irene sang, “Ta-da,” and Filomena appeared.

  I don’t know if I shrieked or just stood there with my mouth open, but everyone clapped and Betty shouted, “She didn’t have a clue!”

  As soon as we’d set a date for the wedding, I wrote to Filomena to ask if she could come. She wrote back that she couldn’t because that was the week she had promised to take her teacher to a powwow in the mountains and she couldn’t go back on her word or that would be the end of their friendship. I had figured it was a long shot and I could tell how bad she felt because it was the longest letter I ever got from her. Betty was there when I got her wedding present, which came with the note saying not to open it until the wedding day.

  They were all in on it: my friends, my sister, even my new in-laws. It might have been the only secret Betty ever kept. She’d rummaged around in my room for Filomena’s address, Gussie sent a telegram, and everyone chipped in for the train tickets.

  It had been more than ten years since I’d seen my best friend. Filomena still wore a long braid. Her hair wasn’t pure black anymore, but the streak of white next to her cheek made her look ­glamorous—not old. It was the same face, though, darker and a little weathered by the sun, but just as beautiful.

  She was dressed in a long skirt and a striped shawl, like the Indian girls in her picture postcards. There were stacks of turquoise and silver bracelets on both wrists and she smelled like something fresh and woody. She told me that it was sage, something the Indians used for health and good fortune. I’m making her sound like a cartoon hippie from the 1960s, but she didn’t look messy. No matter what she was wearing, Filomena carried herself like a queen.