“You shouldn’t miss this opportunity,” she insisted. “You’ll be sorry for the rest of your life.”
It hardly seemed possible that I would ever regret not going to the senior prom with Elliot, but I saw it meant a lot to her, and also to my friend Phyllis, so I went.
“We have to hurry or that one will take my seat.” She pointed with her head.
“Which one is that one?” I asked, like it mattered.
“The one with the farbissener pisk, the sourpuss.”
I looked over and saw whom she meant. This short, fierce lady with slightly bowed legs and a face that looked like she’d been sucking a lemon was elbowing her way to the front. My mother, realizing I couldn’t move fast enough, dropped my wrist and beat her to the chair. She plunked down her purse on the chair next to her and waited for me to catch up. By the time I got there, I felt like I had run a marathon. I plopped into the chair. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as my mother furtively started pulling something out of her purse. It was a small rubber troll with flyaway orange hair.
“What is that? What are you doing with that? Isn’t that the toy you gave to David?” I asked. My son David was five. He was already a collector of strange objects, and he liked that troll. “Did he give it back to you?”
“He won’t miss it,” she said. “I’ll get him another one. Why are you looking at me? I said I’d get him another one!” Whenever my mother felt guilty, she got adamant.
“That isn’t even the point. Why is it here?” Then I looked around and I saw that many of the women were doing the same thing, pulling these weird objects out of their purses and setting them up like talismans before a shrine.
“It’s my lucky charm,” she explained. “I’m a big winner here. Three times I won the jackpot. Five hundred dollars a shot, and I didn’t even have to split it. Everybody hates me,” she said. “Do I give a damn? Let them hate me. I’m the winner. It’s worth it.”
I began to understand the lure of the bingo parlor. A parlor in a church is where the monastic are allowed to speak. It was there in that church that my mother, silenced by my father, had found a voice. I looked around, and I saw that she was being eyed and envied. For two and a half hours a day, four days a week—she mattered. It was less about the money and more about accruing the envy. I didn’t know what to say to her—I’m glad you win. It’s nice to be a winner. Anything I’d said would have been a lie, because what I really wanted to say was, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to come here at all.
Ushers came around the room selling lapboards. Each board held two bingo cards—my mother bought twelve. She took ten and gave me two.
“That’s quite an investment,” I chided.
“Not really, I sometimes play fifteen. You want more? Here take another two.”
I told her two was enough. “Where are your discs to cover the numbers?”
“I don’t use any.”
I was stunned. “How do you keep track?”
“Your mother’s a smart lady,” she answered. “Go tell that to your father.”
I ignored the dig at my father. “I know you’re smart, but still you’re going to play …”
A hush came over the room as a priest took the podium. I thought he was going to bless the proceedings. I turned to ask my mother, but she shushed me.
He mumbled a few words then reached into the basket. There was a tension in the room as he was about to drop the first ball.
“B-4,” he called. “B-4,” he repeated. My mother looked down at her board and eyeballed her Bs to see if she had any fours. She looked over at my boards.
“You don’t have any,” she stated.
“I can see that. Are you going to play my boards too?” I was beginning to get into it.
“Don’t get testy with me. You haven’t played before.”
“It’s bingo, Mom,” I said. “It’s not rocket science.”
“B-2,” called the priest. “B-2.”
And so went the afternoon—two and a half hours of bingo. My mother won about one hundred dollars. I still didn’t understand how she had done it without the discs, but she sure knew when she won. She stood up and waved madly until she was seen, and then she would sit down, self-satisfied, look around at all the losers, and wait for the usher to bring her booty. Only once did she have to share the pot with the woman who sucked lemons. My mother shrugged. “I’ll let her have a few. She shouldn’t think I don’t care,” she said, laughing.
As we filed out of the church, we were hit again by the late summer heat.
“Come on.” my mother said. “I’ll blow you to a soda. It’s right around the corner.
“No, Ma. I can’t.” I told her. “I’ve got to get back.”
She knew I wasn’t just leaving—I was escaping. I’d had enough. There was something about the whole afternoon that made me terribly sad. It was more like a cult gathering than an afternoon’s distraction. My mother’s emotional pain was contagious. I knew that my father was close to leaving her again—they were killing each other. I thought that he stood a chance at happiness without her. I hoped, beyond hope, that she would find some too. She was only fifty-two years old—young enough to start a new life. Meanwhile, my own marriage was in shambles.
My father kept calling me. “You’ve got to talk to your mother. She’s driving me crazy.” She kept calling me and crying that she’d been a saint, but he was killing her. I’d had it. Enough. Even if she didn’t want out from under, I did.
We were standing on the steps of the church.
“Do you think …?” she started to ask, and I knew what was coming. “Your father … what do you think? I’m asking you, Linda, what do you think? I’m telling you he has somebody. He doesn’t come home till late. Every night… two, three in the morning. What does he tell you? You must know,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know why you think he talks to me.”
“You’re the only one he talks to except maybe his sister. He’ll listen to you. Tell him to cut it out once and for all and be a husband. If he has to live a lie, so let him live a lie. Tell him,” she pleaded. “You at least owe me that.”
“Mom, please,” I begged. “Give me a break.”
“What am I asking?” Her eyes got dark. “I’m only asking you to do what a good daughter should do—help her mother.”
Monkey in the middle, I thought.
“I’ve got to go … the kids. But thanks for the afternoon. It was really fun,” I lied.
“Here,” she said, resigned, “take a cab. Don’t take a bus. You’re tired. It’s too hot.”
I accepted the cash, even knowing it came with a dose of guilt. I was tired, and I was sad. Had I won at bingo, I would have paid my own way home.
I left my mother standing on the steps of the church.
Parent’s Wedding
dead serious
The first time my mother tried to kill herself, I wasn’t even born. It was when my father broke off their engagement and ran off with Eva Mike, the shiksa. Her attempt succeeded in lassoing him in, and the wedding went ahead as planned. They walked down the aisle, made their vows, and broke the glass. According to my mother, her wedding was perfect.
“If you don’t believe me,” she’d say, “then look at the pictures. Your father couldn’t have been happier.”
My father looks directly into the camera with the expression of a man who knows he is handsome. My mother, thin like a model, blonde hair swept up in the fashion of the day—is beautiful. Her smile is not forced. Her eyes are not desperate. Her rented, white, satin gown with the pointed coller, cinched waist is elegant. It had sleeves like an artist’s smock, tight at the wrist with wide cuffs. In one picture, the long train swirls around her feet like icing at the bottom of a cake, and resting there on the train is a large bouquet of white calla lilies, the symbol of purity, of union, and of death.
The pictures were perfect, but the marriage was not. Six years later, my father took off with Lillian, the
secretary. My mother, having promised until death do us part, made a second suicide attempt.
I hadn’t learned about those earlier attempts until years later, after I was married to Howard. It was December 31, 1962. We had just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and we were getting dressed to go to a New Year’s Eve party when there was a knock at the door. My mother was standing there, holding a suitcase.
“I just wanted to say goodbye,” she said. “I’m on my way to a hotel to jump out the window.”
She said this without inflection, as if she’d come to tell me she was going to throw out a favorite dress because it no longer fit. I stood at the door and stared at her. Howard, having heard what she said, moved me aside and invited her in. She sat down at the dining room table and started to cry. I sat at the other end of the room behind the desk, feet up, arms embracing my knees, looking up at the ceiling.
“Your father has left me. I’m going to a hotel to jump out the window. That’s it, Linda, I’ve had it. I’ve been a saint, a saint,” she said, “but enough is enough.”
The importance of what she was saying didn’t register, or maybe it hit a pocket of pain that I could only manage with black humor, but I wondered aloud what the point of the suitcase was.
“Do you have a reservation at a hotel?” I asked. “It’s New Year’s Eve. If you don’t have a reservation, then forget it. You can’t jump out the window without a reservation.”
Howard leaned down and whispered, “What’s the matter with you? Look at her,” he said. “Go put your arm around her.”
He was right, I should go give her a hug, but I couldn’t move. I just sat and stared at her. I felt guilty, angry, helpless, but I didn’t feel loving.
Aunt Laura called to see if my mother was with me. She must have spoken to her earlier in the day. In cryptic bursts, she told me about my mother’s earlier attempts. The memory from first grade and the meaning of the message I was to give my father suddenly registered—and the realization that she would have left me when I was just a little kid hit hard. I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t let her leave,” Aunt Laura said.
“Okay,” I muttered and hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” my mother asked.
“Aunt Laura. She wanted to know if you were here and if you were all right.”
“Yeah, I’m just fine. Did she say anything about your father?”
“No. She just wanted to know about you.”
“He’s probably right there in her house. She’s protecting him. She always protected him.”
“He’s her brother, Ma. What do you expect?”
“What I expect is that someone should stick up for me. You should stick up for me. Tell your father to come home, take care of his wife—be a mensch.”
It took several hours before my mother calmed down. She agreed to let Howard drive her home, but only if I once again promised to plead her case to my father.
“Tell him your mother’s a saint for putting up with him,” she said. “Tell him he should kiss the ground I walk on.”
This was a litany I’d heard many times.
“Dad, Mom wants you to come home and kiss the ground she walks on,” I’d say.
“Yeah? Well, you can tell your mother I ain’t kissing no ground. She’s crazy but she’s your mother. I’m not going to say anything bad about your mother.” But he already had. And the contempt in his voice spoke volumes.
I never believed it was because we had talked, but my father always came back. He’d be affectionate and attentive, and my mother would smile again, but then he’d start coming home later and later from work. The steak would burn, my mother would seethe, and it would all blow up again. I felt used and manipulated. I swore many times that I was going to stay out of it. They could kill each other for all I cared. But after I learned that my mother had actually attempted suicide, I no longer believed I had that option.
“Yes, Ma,” I said, “I will speak to my father.”
The repetition of their discord exhausted me. Once Howard left to take her home, I collapsed on the sofa.
“Get dressed,” Howard said when he got back, “we’re going to the party.”
I looked at him as if he were crazy. “Get dressed,” he said again. “What are you going to do? Sit there and look at the walls?”
I couldn’t move.
“Get dressed,” he yelled. “I’m not going to sit in the house. It’s New Year’s Eve. Gail and Lenny are expecting us. Ronny and Florie will be there. Come on. Get up.”
I got dressed. We went. I put on a smile. I was a mannequin at a party. Lenny came over and brought me a drink. We spoke for a few minutes, but then he was off, and I was relieved to not have to make conversation. When I finished the drink, I wandered into their den, lay down on the couch, and fell into a stupor. When it was time to leave, no one could rouse me.
“Sprinkle water on her face,” someone said.
“How much did she have to drink?” asked another.
“Call an ambulance,” someone suggested.
I heard their voices, but I couldn’t respond. The distance between them and me felt huge. I was lost in a memory.
I’m four years old and standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing my pajamas with the little red valentine hearts. My mother holds a long knife. She is screaming at my father. She is wearing her old flannel nightgown. Her feet are bare. Her hair is scrambled. Her lips are stretched tight across her teeth. She looks crazy.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” she shrieks at my father.
“What are you doing, Tessie? Put the knife down.” He gestures with his hand like a trainer to a puppy. “Down. Tessie, put the knife down.”
“Get out or I’ll kill you,” she hisses, and leaps towards him.
He turns, sees me, hesitates for one second, and then runs out of the house. The door slams.
“You’ll be the death of me,” she screams after him.
My mother’s eyes are wild. She is turning round and round. Suddenly she sees me and stops.
“Go. Lock yourself in the bedroom. Go, or I’ll kill you. Go!” she orders. “Don’t open the door. Do you hear me? Don’t open the door. Don’t let me in.”
I stare at the knife. I want to run to her and put my arms around her waist, take the knife and put it safely in the drawer, but I am too frightened to move.
She thrusts the knife at me.
“Go!” she screams.
I run to my room. Lock the door and sit on my bed, straight like an arrow. I do not move one inch.
“I’m telling you, call an ambulance,” someone said again.
When I managed to open my eyes, Howard was leaning over me, his face red with shame, thinking I was drunk.
“Get up. Let’s go,” was all he said.
It was December 18, 1970. My mother was calling me several times a day, every day, but this day was an exception. I got one call, in the morning.
“Don’t call me today,” she said. “I’m going to take a nap.”
“That’s it, Ma? You’re calling to tell me you’re taking a nap? Fine, have a good sleep. I won’t call you.”
I hung up, and though I was puzzled, I resisted the impulse to call her back. She’d been phoning four and five times a day. I’d tried to get Howard to run interference—tell her I’m not home, out at the supermarket, anything to give me a break—but instead he’d pick up the phone and say, “She’s right here.”
As desperate as my mother was to keep her husband, I was desperate to get rid of mine. I would have walked out on Howard in a minute, but with no job, no college, no profession, and no idea how I would raise three kids on my own, I felt stuck.
The night before, I’d lain awake thinking of the many times, as I was growing up, that she’d yell at me that I’d be happy when she was six feet under.
“Admit it, Linda. Don’t lie. Admit it,” she’d demand.
Terrified that it was true, I’d bury my feelings. But the previ
ous night, I’d decided to take the risk and tell her to stop calling me. If she kills herself, she kills herself, I thought. At least the phone will stop ringing.
I was getting the kids ready for bed when the phone rang. I braced myself.
“You have to stop,” I blurted. “You can’t keep calling me all day long. I have three little children. You just can’t keep doing this, Ma. Please understand.”
“Understand, Linda? You don’t understand. If you understood what he’s putting me through, you’d talk to him. He’s your father. He’ll listen to you.”
“Ma, he’s a grown man.”
“A grown man? Your father, a grown man? Don’t make me laugh.”
“If he’s such an idiot, then why don’t you let him go and make your own life?”
“I’ve told you—he is my life. Do you hear me? Your father is my life.”
“This is no life, Ma, you’re miserable.”
“Don’t tell me what’s a life. Just tell me if he’s coming back. That’s all I want to know.”
My mother didn’t know that this time I’d been urging him to stay away. If they couldn’t find a life together, then maybe he could find a life alone. I told my mother what I hoped would be the truth.
“No, Ma. I don’t think he’s coming back. It’s been three months.”
“It’s been almost four months,” she corrected.
“Okay, four months. I think you have to face it.”
“Face it? What should I face, that I don’t have a husband?” she cried. “I should sit back while he runs off with some slut?”
“Ma, you don’t know that—”
“What? I don’t know that he has somebody? Are you crazy?” she yelled. “You always believed your father. It doesn’t matter if the proof was right in front of your nose, you believed him. I showed you lipstick on his collar? You still believed him.”
“I was fourteen, Ma, and you were telling me that my father was running around. Why would I want to believe that? I was just a kid.”
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