by Tamar Myers
‘Mags,’ said my Dearly Beloved, for he was a mind-reader, as well as my stud-muffin, ‘you have had a lot on your mind. As soon as I wipe this slop off Bruiser’s face we’ll saddle up the horses and collect his big sister.’
Bruiser was the Babester’s pet name for our cute little boy. It was totally inappropriate, if you ask me. Alison insisted on being called Alison; she always had. Alison had come into our lives just two years ago, but she is now our legally adopted daughter. A nosy person might ask about our daughter’s origins, and if they did, they would get an earful. We happy hicks of Hernia are always delighted to speak at great length on topics of intensely personal stuff.
For instance, as I’ve said before, I was an inadvertent adulteress. It is, however, important that the word ‘inadvertent’ be stressed. I didn’t know that Aaron Miller was married, much less had a child, until long after his horse broke loose from the barn – so to speak. Even now I shudder when I recall that awful night and my first glimpse of a totally naked man. To this day I am unable to look at a turkey neck without blushing. Thanksgiving is forever ruined.
As for Aaron, after he’d had his way with me, he suddenly remembered his much younger, prettier wife that he’d left up in frozen Minnesota. So then the lying lowlife lolled lazily back up north to do the Lindy with his lass in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Well, one might ask, how low could two lowlifes go? The answer would be so low that they ship their only daughter off to stay on a ‘farm’ with the pseudo-ex-wife of the very inadvertent adulterer.
Call me crazy – the list is already incalculably long – but Alison was literally dropped off in the middle of the night. She was eleven years old with a note pinned to her collar, and she was clutching a pillow case containing an extra set of clothes and the Miller family Bible. She was clueless as to where she was, or who I might be. She had been under the impression that they were driving from Minnesota to Disneyworld in Florida – a trip of over fifteen hundred miles – and suddenly she was put out of the car. ‘Here you go, sweetheart, Auntie Magdalena will take care of you for a while.’
Of course, I called the police. Back then Hernia was served by ‘Melvin the Mantis’ Stoltzfus and his sidekick Zelda Root. Together they were as competent as a pair of garden slugs on tranquilizers. I called children’s services in Bedford, and they asked me if I could possibly keep the child for another night – long story short, I fell in love with a spunky kid whose mouth was more than a match for my own. Sadly, the reason for that is genetics.
Aaron Miller grew up on Hertzler Lane, the farm directly across from ours. He was every sort of cousin to me – except a first which, some would reckon, made him either my brother or a member of the British Royal Family. Hence, his daughter Alison was a cousin of some rank as well, although since she was harder to force into a bath than a cat, sometimes she was just plain rank. But we got along famously – just as long as we weren’t talking about boys (her favourite subject) or religion (mine). When Gabriel came into the picture, it was mutual love at first sight and when Little Jacob was born – well, Alison was over the moon with joy!
Alison slid into the role of doting big sister, even changing his dirty nappies. What truly astounded us was that rather than feeling threatened by the arrival of the baby, she seemed to feel more secure. It was as if adding an infant sibling was the cement that solidified the family. This is not to say that raising a teenybopper was a bed of roses, especially when said child was a state champion eye-roller. (Much to her shame, Alison placed only second in the Pouty Face Division.)
Now I will admit that I was disappointed when Alison decided to follow Gabe’s religion instead of mine. She had been raised without any religious instruction, and perhaps I should have been happy that she accepted the idea of one God, but that’s where she stopped. Try as I might, I could not coax her into believing in the concept of God in three persons: the Trinity.
‘That’s three persons,’ she said. ‘That’s not one God. You’re supposed to believe in one God.’
‘That’s three in one,’ I said. ‘That’s like rain, ice, fog – they’re all forms of H2O.’
‘What?’
‘Well, if you don’t believe in Jesus—’
‘Mags,’ Gabe said, ‘you’re better off letting her make up her own mind. You’re not going to brow-beat her into your idea of Heaven.’
So that was that, I’m afraid. Gabe found a Reform rabbi who performed a bris – a ritual circumcision – on our son, and voila, suddenly this Mennonite woman of Amish heritage was now the mother of two Jewish children. Ach du Leiber, as Freni would say. Was this the American ‘melting pot’ or what?
Of course, I hadn’t a clue as how to raise a Jewish child, and if he were honest, Gabe would admit that Alison really didn’t know her own mind at that stage of her life. Nevertheless, he did a little research and found a Jewish camp for ‘tweens’ just outside of Pittsburgh called Camp Hora Galore. Initially, I didn’t know that the hora was a Jewish folk dance (of course, the Babester knew) and was ‘hora-ified’ when I heard the camp’s name. At any rate, Gabe had signed Alison up for six weeks, and even though she claimed to be homesick I couldn’t pry her out of there.
But all good things must end, even Camp Hora Galore. ‘How long is it until next summer?’ Alison asked, before we’d even driven as far as the turnpike.
‘Ten years,’ I said. In my defense, I thought she was joking.
‘Mom!’
‘One year, honey,’ Gabe said over his shoulder, but with a wink to me. ‘Why do you ask?’
Alison sighed so hard she sent a flurry of dust motes into the front of the car. ‘Geez Louise, do I hafta tell ya everything?’
‘You do if you’re going to swear, dear,’ I said.
‘Never mind the bad grammar,’ Gabe said.
‘Geez ain’t hardly swearing, Mom,’ Alison protested. ‘Ya’d know that if ya ever went out anywhere except for Mennoniteville.’
My first reaction was to reach back with a long, gangly arm and brace the baby’s car seat, which was already buckled in securely, because the Babester immediately stomped on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder of the road. It’s a good thing that we enforce a seatbelt rule, or else we would have instantly become a buzzard buffet, having been tossed out of the car like so many rag dolls. After our heads stopped bobbing and we’d all managed to catch a modicum of breath, Gabe released himself and turned his full attention to our daughter.
‘Now apologize to your mother,’ he said.
Alison’s eyes narrowed and her bottom lip projected a finger’s-width in front of its companion.
Gabe waited a few seconds, but the only sounds to be heard were the purring of the engine, our continued heavy breathing and some rather noisy cicadas in the trees outside. ‘I said “apologize,” ’ he said again.
Her eyes opened and rolled upwards until mostly the whites showed. ‘Oh, all right. Saw-reeee!’
‘Again.’
‘What? I said I was sorry.’
‘Now say it like you mean it.’
‘Darling,’ I whispered to my husband, ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.’
‘Hey! Don’tcha be calling me no names, Mom! Last time I checked it was you that had the horse’s head – not me. And just so ya know, everyone thinks that ya laugh like a horse, too.’
I turned away from my dear daughter and focused my attention on a smudge of something on the dashboard upholstery. It was supposed to be fine-grain leather and it had cost an arm and a leg – well, not one of my gangly arms and legs; we couldn’t have bought even a cheap plastic dashboard in exchange for one of my spindly limbs. Why, I once had a guest check into the PennDutch who owned a yacht (nothing new there). However, this gentleman’s yacht came equipped with a bar, and the bar stools were upholstered with the foreskins of unborn whales. He claimed that whale foreskins were the softest leather on the planet, softer than the softest chamois …
‘Earth to Magdalena; com
e in Magdalena.’
‘Earth to Mom, come in Mom.’
I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. When I turned I could see that my sweet young daughter had replaced her doppelgänger in the backseat. Hair, forehead, nose, chin – they were all the same. It was only the eyes and the set of the mouth that were different, and oh what a difference.
‘Alison has something to say,’ Gabe said without further ado.
‘Mom, I’m sorry that I was such a stinkpot,’ Alison said, and I could feel that she meant it.
I smiled. ‘Welcome back.’
We pulled back onto the highway and had driven all of five miles when I felt another sigh blow across my neck. ‘Mom, ya know, like I’m so in love. Ya ever been in love, mom?’
‘I is now,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Alison, dear, your grammar is atrocious. Is that the way the other children spoke at camp?’
‘So then ya ain’t never been in love!’
‘Hold it,’ Gabe roared. ‘Her lover is sitting right here.’
‘Gross,’ Alison said. ‘Yinz are my mom and dad; that don’t count.’
‘Just for that, daughter,’ Gabe said, ‘I will quote my favourite biblical passage, which I memorized when I was just about your age. It’s from the Song of Songs.
“How fair and how pleasant you are
O love, with your delights!
This stature of yours is like a palm tree,
And your breasts like its clusters.”’
‘Oh, sweetheart, how romantic,’ I said.
‘Double gross,’ Alison said. She was quiet for all of two minutes. ‘Doesn’t anyone want to know about my boyfriend?’
‘Of course, dear,’ I said. ‘Tell us all about this nice young fellow.’
Alison chortled. ‘Yeah, well, he ain’t so young. Sheldon is like twenty or something. Like a real adult who has to shave every day, and he doesn’t forget to use deodorant either.’
I glanced over at the Babester. To his credit, he was keeping a steady foot on the accelerator, but the movement of his jaw suggested that he was chewing rocks. Also, I feared for the steering wheel, which was made of some polymer material, and therefore not good old-fashioned steel like the Good Lord intended. At any moment Gabe’s grip might snap the ding-dang thing in two as he subconsciously did a number on Sheldon’s skull.
‘Are you sure,’ I said. ‘Twenty? I thought the camp was for children aged twelve to fifteen.’
‘Mom, I ain’t no kid! Them counsellors called us “young adults.” And if ya gotta know, Sheldon weren’t even one of us young adults, on account of he was a real adult. Sheldon had him an official badge and everything.’
‘You don’t say,’ the Babester said.
‘Hey Mom,’ Alison said. ‘Dad just used sarcasm. I recognized it because you’re always using it on me.’
‘And you just spoke correctly. I am pleased to acknowledge that.’
‘Whatever,’ Alison said sarcastically.
I found the last number dialled and put it on speed dial. I made sure it was on ‘speaker.’ Our family rule is that a passenger may use a phone; the driver may not unless the car has stopped and the engine is off.
‘Sheldon,’ was the immediate response.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘This is Alison Rosen’s mother. We just picked her up from camp, um, about half an hour ago.’
‘Yeah, I remember. You’re the Amish lady with the little white hat and the good-looking dude for a husband.’
‘Good memory, son,’ Gabe said.
Alison, who was by then rolled up in a ball like a hedgehog, groaned. ‘I’m so embarrassed, I think I’m gonna die.’
‘What was that?’ Sheldon said.
‘Your summer crush,’ Gabe said. ‘She thinks she’s going to die.’
‘Oh that,’ Sheldon said.
‘Yes, that,’ I said. ‘Alison is only thirteen; I demand to know what went on.’
‘Mom, pleeeease,’ the dying girl pleaded from the rear seat.
‘No problem, Mrs Rosen. There’s no need for you to worry; I have a girlfriend whom I met at the University of Pittsburgh. She was a counsellor here as well. We’re finishing up some paperwork – as a matter of fact, here’s Deborah now. Would you like to speak with her?’
‘No,’ Alison wailed.
‘Yes, please,’ I prevailed.
‘Good afternoon,’ Deborah said.
‘Hello, dear. Did you have a good summer?’
‘Umm, pretty good. Kind of busy, really. Frankly, I can’t wait until classes resume – and I have a double major, so when school starts I don’t have a second to spare! But that’s nothing compared to Camp Hora Galore. I’m not meaning to kvetch, Mrs Rosen, but teens today – whew!’
‘I’ll say.’ I bit my tongue until my toes curled. ‘But I hear that you and Sheldon are a couple. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you find time for dating?’
‘Well, we – uh—’
‘We live together off campus,’ Sheldon said, getting back on the phone.
‘No way,’ Alison moaned, her hands over her ears.
‘My kid’s freaking out,’ I said. ‘She thought that you two were an item.’
Sheldon laughed. Laughed. Fortunately Deborah had the good grace to take the phone from her boyfriend’s hand.
‘Mrs Rosen, you didn’t get a chance to meet Sheldon properly, did you?’
‘No, dear, I did not.’
‘Well, it’s like this: Sheldon Epstein is very hot. Every straight girl at camp wanted him for herself. It happened last year as well. He got letters, text messages and phone calls all the way to Christmas. But he’s mine, Mrs Rosen, all mine.’
‘Soon it will be “til death do us part,”’ I heard Sheldon say in the background.
‘Mazel tov,’ the Babester said.
‘Alison, dear, please quit kicking my seat so hard,’ I said kindly.
It is my contention that a sullen peace is better than no peace at all, and I would have been content to count the freckles on my hands and speculate as to which ones were the likeliest to turn into bona fide liver spots – if indeed there is a difference – when I heard the sound of a cow expire in the rear seat. If you have never witnessed a head of cattle being slaughtered, then don’t. If you wish to experience the sound, without the fury, then take a bored teenager with you on a road trip.
The air suddenly became impossible to breathe as our daughter sucked out all the oxygen. With that extra enrichment in her blood she let loose a bellow worthy of an elephant, much less a male bovine. It was a sound honored throughout time, and across species, as a warning to intruders that this turf, this mate, or these young were not to be violated. Stay away, a bellow of this caliber blared.
Alison, however, was prone to get her signals crossed. ‘I’m bored,’ was what she actually said.
Gabriel and I exchanged smiles of contentment. A bored child is a healthy child in today’s world of constant stimulation. It was a sign that we were doing at least something right. Needless to say, we were careful not to spoil the moment by acknowledging it.
‘Hey, you guys, didn’t ya hear me? Can’t ya turn on the radio, or something? Ya don’t want me dying of boredom back here, do ya?’
‘Of course not, dear,’ I said pleasantly. ‘That’s why I packed some library books in that paper bag on the floor, in front of your brother’s car seat.’
‘You’re kidding, Mom, ain’t ya? How am I supposed to concentrate at a time like this?’
‘Trust me,’ Gabe said, ‘it’s the number one remedy we doctors prescribe for broken hearts.’
‘You guys don’t understand,’ our dejected teenybopper wailed. ‘I’m so over that creep, Sheldon. That was then; this is now. But what am I gonna do the rest of this summer? We ain’t even home yet, and I am, like, majorly bored. B-O-A-R-D!’
Then again, a bored child who is healthy enough to whine incessantly is akin to a tiny pebble in one’s shoes, a pebble that can’t be located
without removing said shoe, and one is in a place where footwear must remain on. The very thought of having a flouncing, flopping, flailing, faux femme fatal flinging herself about the farm for the next fortnight like one of the demented film stars of the silent screen of whom the Babester is so fond was too much to bear. I just broke down and got it over with. I caved, like a politician’s morals the day after elections.
‘You can help me solve the murder,’ I said, throwing myself under the bus. Her bus.
‘What murder?’ Alison asked.
‘Mags,’ my husband whispered, ‘there’s still time to save yourself.’
What point was there in stalling for a few hours? Grandma Ida would spill the beans by suppertime anyway, and then Alison would be sullen for having been shut out. Yes, she would stop talking – temporarily – but her door-slamming would more than make up for that.
‘Do you remember the beautiful foreign writer who stayed with us last year?’ I said.
‘Yeah, and Dad thought she was really hot and couldn’t hardly keep his eyes from popping out.’
‘That’s enough,’ the Babester said with a smile.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Just when did dad say that she was “really hot?”’
‘Hmm, well let me see,’ Alison said, ham that she was, ‘could it be one of them times when that woman lay out sun-tanning with her store-bought parts rolling around like beach balls in a breeze?’
‘Those were your words, by the way, Mags,’ my husband said quickly, ‘not mine. I barely noticed her store-bought parts.’
‘Yeah, ya did, Dad,’ Alison said. ‘Ya even said that ya didn’t see how that itsy-bitsy string bikini managed to keep ’em all containerized.’
‘Contained,’ I said.
‘That’s what I said,’ Alison said. ‘Ya wanna know something else?’
‘Not if it has to do with her parts,’ I said uncharitably. I know that the Good Lord said that we’re supposed to turn the other cheek, but He said nothing that pertains to the bottom pair of cheeks.