Since You Left Me

by Allen Zadoff

  He doesn’t say it directly, but everyone knows he’s talking about Zadie. It’s not like I’m the only grandchild of a survivor in the school. There are a few of us, and everyone knows who we are.

  “Now this family is going through another trial,” he says. “And we as a community are called to action.”

  Applause spreads through the gymnasium. I look around and see that practically the whole school is here. The professors, the head of school, the dean, and all the students. Tyler stands in the front row with tears in his eyes, clapping his hands.

  Everyone is here except Herschel. It looks like my old friend has boycotted my fund-raiser. He’s the only one who knows the truth, so I can’t say I’m surprised.

  “We do not act out of goodness,” Rabbi Silberstein says, “though we may indeed be good. We act because it is our duty. As we celebrate the Passover holiday this year and remember how God brought our people out of bondage in Egypt, we will remember, too, the debt we owe to him for this gift. It is our responsibility to act in the lives of others. We are the hands of HaShem in this world. This is the essence of tzedakah. You, the young people in our community, are practicing it today. And I’m proud of you.”

  Another long round of applause.

  Judi waves her hand in the air, getting the dean’s attention. He motions us over.

  The dean steps up to the podium and says, “Thank you, Rabbi Silberstein, for that inspiring call to action. Speaking of calls, our annual building fund drive is coming up after Pesach, and your phones are going to ring—”

  The students groan.

  “I admit, it was a bad segue,” the dean says. “But it’s my job to remind you.”

  The students laugh.

  “It’s good to laugh at times like these,” he says. “But now let’s turn our attention to the serious matter at hand. It’s time for me to introduce the real hero of the evening, Aaron Zuckerman.”

  Judi hooks her arm in mine and walks me to the microphone.

  “I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Sanskrit over the last few days,” she says to the crowd. She smiles at me. “To be honest, we hadn’t spoken much in the last few years. It’s strange how that happens. You can be so close to someone yet drift away from them. Childhood friends become strangers, best friends become acquaintances. We lose touch with each other, even when—when it may not be what we intended.”

  She looks me in the eye.

  She says, “How sad that it took something like this to bring us back together.”

  My chest gets tight. This is what she wants to talk to me about after the event. Getting back together. She’s giving me a preview in front of the whole school.

  I look over at Barry Goldwasser, and I laugh to myself. Why was I so worried about him? He’s nothing, insubstantial. I thought he was standing in the way, but it turns out he’s not in the way at all.

  Maybe that week in second grade wasn’t the end of my love life but the beginning, like an appetizer that happened long before the meal. And now the rest of high school is going to be the meal of a lifetime.

  Judi finishes and steps away from the microphone.

  I hesitate.

  I just have to get through this event, then Judi and I will be together. That’s what I tell myself.

  I step up to the podium.

  “I am the grandson of a survivor,” I say.

  The crowd goes silent. I don’t talk about this in school because I don’t want people to ask me about it. It’s one of those things that gives you instant credibility, but a lot of responsibility, too. You’re not just Jewish. You are one of the miracles. Why did your family survive when so many did not? It’s not enough that you’re alive; you have to do something to prove that you’re worth it.

  It’s a lot of pressure, and I don’t want it. Not usually, at least.

  But tonight I don’t care. I tell everyone who I am, not because I’m proud of it or even because I’m humbled. I tell them because I want them to feel bad for me.

  “My family has had many trials,” I say. “But I’m no different than any of you. We all have trials. I don’t know why God has chosen me for this test so young. It’s hard to think of yourself as lucky in this sort of situation. But I have to look for the spiritual in it, in all things.”

  I’m so full of crap, I can’t believe it. The rabbi is smiling and nodding, urging me on. I can see he’s surprised, too. He probably thinks I’ve had some kind of conversion. I almost think so myself.

  So I keep going.

  I’m listening to myself speak, but I have no idea what I’m saying. I’m parroting Herschel, the Bible, Moses, some lecture I vaguely remember from Hebrew school when I was ten. It’s a performance par excellence, and all during it, I’m waiting for HaShem to strike me down, send a lightning bolt, cut the power, do something to put an end to it. If there were a God, he would surely stop me.

  But nothing happens.

  I finish to rousing applause. The dean steps up and hugs me in front of the whole school. He waits for the crowd to quiet down, and then he says, “Could you tell us a little about your mom’s condition? None of us have been able to see her, and it would help us to know.”

  He steps away from the podium, and I burst into tears.

  The dean is shocked. He puts his arm around me, which just makes me cry harder.

  I don’t know why I’m crying. Maybe it’s because I’m such a liar. Maybe it’s because I’m really losing my mother, just not in the way people think, not in some noble and terrible way like a car accident, but in an embarrassing way via YouTube and yoga.

  Maybe I’m crying because I have to figure out what I’m going to do next. Even as I stand up here in front of all these people, my mind is coming up with another plan to get me out of this.

  A bigger plan. The exit strategy.

  I’m going to wait until Mom goes to India, and then I’m going to lie again.

  I’m going to say that she died.

  It’s terrible and yet it’s perfect. Mom will be in India, so nobody will see her. Sweet Caroline and I will be staying with Dad, just like we would if it really happened. I can even say the funeral was held in Boston, where Mom was born.

  It’s a crazy idea, but no crazier than the ideas that got me here in the first place.

  I wipe the tears from my eyes. I clear my throat. I lean into the microphone.

  “My mother is not well,” I say to the crowd. “The doctor says the prognosis is—” I choke on the sentence, clear my throat again. “The prognosis is very grave.”

  The entire gymnasium is silent, maybe five hundred people with their heads bowed.

  Just then I hear a hinge squeak in the back of the gym. The double doors swing open, and Herschel walks in. He’s in full Jewish regalia, the black suit and hat I’ve come to know so well.

  He’s not alone. There’s a woman with him.

  “This is Mrs. Zuckerman,” Herschel announces to the room loudly. “Sanskrit’s mother.”

  Heads turn, necks crane, all focus shifts to the double doors at the back of the room.

  Mom stands there in her party dress, light from the hallway streaming in around her. I can see Sweet Caroline a couple steps behind her in the hall.

  “Sanskrit, what are you telling these people?” Mom says.

  I look at her, then I look at the school, the five hundred or so people now staring at me.

  “It’s a miracle!” I say.

  “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  Mom is calm as she says it, which just makes it worse. We’re heading home from school after an hour-long interrogation in front of a group of administrators and prominent faculty members. I had no choice but to tell them the whole story of my lie. Needless to say, it did not go over well.

  “I thought you were a good kid,” Mom says.

  “I was. I am.”

  She shakes her head like I’m wrong. I have to bite my lip to keep from saying more.

  There’s an accident
on San Vicente, and traffic isn’t moving. Mom beeps the horn and she’s met with a chorus of answering beeps.

  “You told everyone your mother was in an accident? That’s like a wish. You put that energy out into the universe—what if it came true?”

  I glance in the backseat. Sweet Caroline is quiet for one of the few times in her life.

  “Don’t look at your sister. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “She knew what was going on.”

  “That’s your excuse?” Mom says. “You’re going to blame a twelve-year-old?”

  I shake my head no.

  A siren blares as an ambulance slowly makes its way through traffic.

  Cars attempt to get out of the way, but there’s nowhere to go.

  Mom slaps the wheel with an open palm. “You told them I was dying?”

  “You’re leaving,” I say. “That’s like dying.”

  “No it’s not, Sanskrit. It’s the opposite.”

  “Not to me.”

  I look to Sweet Caroline for some support, but she’s got her headphones on. Her eyes are shut and her head is bopping to music.

  I say, “I don’t understand how you could still go with him after what happened.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Mom says.

  “Explain it to me. Explain how you could know about the guru—”

  “It’s not about the guru!” Mom says. “It’s never really been about the guru.”

  I look at Mom, her fingers clenched white against the steering wheel.

  “Then what’s it about?” I say.

  “It’s about me,” Mom says.

  She beeps the horn hard, and the car in front of us puts a hand out the window and gives her the finger.

  “When I imagined my life, I didn’t imagine it like this,” Mom says.

  “Like what?”

  “This, Sanskrit! This car. This job. This stupid community we live in. Going to parent-professor conferences and teaching yoga to spoiled housewives.”

  “Wow.”

  “I had dreams, Sanskrit. Bigger dreams.”

  “But you had a family,” I say.

  “I did. For your father’s sake. And for your zadie.”

  I imagine the pressure on Mom to have kids. The children of survivors have to have kids. If not, the family line is wiped out. It’s like spitting in God’s face. That’s what some people think.

  “So you didn’t want us?” I say.

  “That’s not true. I did it for other people, but I did it for myself, too. I wanted to be a mother.”

  “But you don’t want to be our mother.”

  “I want to be your mother. I just—”

  The ambulance whoops. It’s a foot away, passing by my window. I see the driver’s face frozen in concentration.

  “I just want more,” Mom says.

  “More than us?”

  Mom takes a long breath.

  “Yes,” she says.

  The accident comes into view in front of us. A car is upside down on the median, surrounded by firefighters.

  “What do you want, Sanskrit?”

  The lights of the fire trucks turn Mom’s face red, then dark, then red again.

  I don’t answer Mom’s question, and she doesn’t press me.

  “Terrible accident,” Mom says as she looks out the window. “I hope they’ll be alright.”

  “I hope so, too,” I say.

  “A betrayal.”

  That’s what the dean calls it at the review board meeting the next day. As it turns out, last night’s stand and deliver was just the preliminaries. The formal hearing is today. Right now.

  This would be the time for me to mount a defense. If only I had one.

  The dean says, “You embarrassed the entire school, your family, and most of all, yourself.”

  He doesn’t stop there. In fact, he’s just getting started.

  According to Jewish law, part of what makes meat kosher is the manner in which the animal is killed. It must die without experiencing pain or fear.

  Evidently, I will not be kosher. Because my execution drags on for another hour.

  When the dean finishes, each member of the review board takes a crack at me. Even Rabbi Silberstein is there, lecturing me on how many of God’s mitzvahs I’ve broken. Dozens of them, according to the rabbi.

  I don’t doubt it.

  When they’ve finished, I’m sent out of the room while they debate my fate.

  I step out and Dorit, the Israeli office lady, won’t even look at me.

  “You can wait outside,” she says, pointing to the door.

  I step out of the office and sit on the bench in the hall.

  Students pass by between classes. Nobody says a word to me. In one night I’ve gone from the most loved and pitied kid in school to the most shunned. I can’t say I blame them.

  I put my head down and wait.

  “That was messed up on levels I can’t even comprehend,” Judi says. She’s glaring down at me.

  Last night she ran out of the gym when I tried to explain. Shouted and ran.

  Now she looks down at me, her lips clenched, her hands on her hips

  “You’re a son of a bitch,” she says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Worse than that. Worse than anything.”

  “You’re right.”

  She starts to walk away. Then she comes back quickly.

  “What really pisses me off is that you did it to me again,” she says. “I let you do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” she says.

  “You said I did it again. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Second grade, you jerk. You broke my heart.”

  “You’re confused.”

  “I’m not confused. I know what happened,” she says.

  “Not that it matters now,” I say, “but you broke up with me.”

  “That’s what you think?”

  “That’s what I know. You stopped talking to me, and it destroyed me. I’ve spent the last eight years thinking about you.”

  “When did I break up with you?” she says.

  “After Valentine’s Day.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  I try to remember the exact moment, but it was so long ago. I’ve thought about it a million times, of course, but it’s still fuzzy. I only know it became the defining week of my life.

  “Let’s hear it,” Judi says.

  “I don’t remember every detail,” I say.

  “That’s convenient, isn’t it? Since you’re the one who left me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It’s so true, you don’t even know.”

  I try to think back to that time. Something is bothering me, some memory that I can’t quite connect to.

  “We were supposed to meet on the Tuesday after Valentine’s Day,” Judi says. “After school.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  “We planned it,” Judi says. “Remember the slide?”

  “Oh my God,” I say.

  I remember. The playground at Douglas Park. They had a new jungle gym with a slide set. There was a little secret room under the slide. Our favorite place to meet. We used to hold hands in there and talk about everything.

  “We planned to have our first kiss that day,” Judi says, “and you never showed up. I waited all afternoon for you, and you didn’t come.”

  How is that possible? I was crazy about Judi. I would never stand her up, even in second grade.

  What was I doing that day? I try to remember.

  Mom was having a big fight with Dad. He’d forgotten Valentine’s Day, and she spent the week freaking out. She needed someone to talk to. Even in second grade, I was that person. Her little man.

  I wanted Mom to take me to meet Judi, but I couldn’t ask her. She was going through too much. No matter how badly I wanted to be with Judi, I wouldn’t leave Mom. She needed me. That’s what I th
ought.

  “You barely remember,” Judi says. “It was just second grade, so what’s the big deal, right? But it was a big deal to me. A very big deal.”

  “I remember now,” I say.

  “You do.”

  “Yes.”

  “It only took you, like, nine years.”

  “I’m sorry, Judi.”

  She studies my face, trying to see if I’m telling the truth.

  “You stood me up for my first kiss, Sanskrit. Then you pretended you didn’t know me in school the next day. That’s not the kind of thing I can forgive.”

  “I was embarrassed,” I say.

  And I think my mind played some kind of trick on me. It told me Judi broke up with me so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility. I spent years believing my own story.

  “You said you loved me last night,” Judi says. “That’s why I was confused. But now I know that you lied.”

  “Not about that,” I say.

  “I see, so you only selectively lie? It doesn’t work like that. You’re a liar, Sanskrit. I can never trust you again. None of us can.”

  “You sound like Herschel.”

  The office door opens.

  “Mr. Zuckerman,” Dorit says. “They’re ready for you.”

  “Time to throw myself on the mercy of the court,” I say.

  “You don’t deserve mercy,” Judi says, and she walks away.

  She’s right. I don’t deserve it.

  That’s exactly what the review board says when I go back in. I don’t deserve mercy, but they’ve decided to give it to me anyway.

  They stop short of expelling me. They don’t want to destroy my chances for college and with it my opportunity to redeem myself. Since there are only eight weeks left in junior year, they allow me to finish them from home.

  And after that?

  I’m not invited back.

  “You got what you wanted.”

  “What did I want?” Herschel says.

  “They threw me out of school,” I say. “Only in slow motion.”

  He stands next to me as I sort through my cabinet. Books that belong to me in one box, books that belong to the school in another.