Looking for Me (6 page)

 

I race up the street
as the ambulance drives off
with Mom in the back
holding a bundle
wrapped in a blue blanket.
I'm thinking it's the baby.

 

My stomach churns
as I run up the marble steps to our house.
The door's wide open.
The house is quiet.
But then I hear crying start upstairs.

 

Baby Sherry's in her crib
and Lenny's standing next to it,
his arm poking through the crib bars,
holding the baby's hand,
and now he's crying so hard
he can't even catch his breath
to answer my questions.

 

And I'm left wondering
who was wrapped in the blue blanket.

Dad's lumbering around the parlor,
hunched over like an old man,
and every once in a while
he stops to wrap his arms around Mom,
who's leaving a trail of tissues on the floor
from wiping her red, puffy eyes
and runny nose.

 

She hands us each a penny
and sends us outside.
“Go buy something
for yourselves,” she says.

 

So we take our pennies
and each other's hands
and trudge to the corner candy store
that stays open until late.

 

We don't know what to say to one another,
so we just stare at the sidewalk,
and nobody
buys any candy.

Nothing can take away our sadness
on this night when we learned
that we'll never hold hands
with Melvin again.

Today
Mom and Dad made me come to school
even though I wanted to be
at Melvin's funeral.

 

Miss Connelly asks me why I am crying.
I tell her
that the day before yesterday
my little brother Melvin with
his floppy brown ringlets
was wrapping his arms around my legs
like he always does,

 

that the day before yesterday
he was walking beside me
when I took the baby for a stroll,
keeping his little hands on the carriage,
trying to help me push it.

 

I tell her that the day before yesterday
my little brother Melvin
had bronchitis
and we didn't know it,
but then all of a sudden
he couldn't breathe,
so Mom took him to the hospital,
and he died there.

 

And I tell her
that the day before yesterday
I thought my family
was way too big,

 

but now
my family
is one
too
small.

Sylvia got to go
because she's the oldest.
She told me how cute he looked
in his white suit
and his yarmulke.

 

I wasn't allowed to go,
because Mom and Dad
said a cemetery
is no place for children.

 

If that's true,
then why are they
leaving my little brother there
forever?

The funeral was yesterday.
Tonight Passover begins.
Dad says we'll still
have our Passover dinner
even though no one's in the mood.

 

He brings home a chicken
and tells me to stuff it and cook it.
Mom's too sad to make dinner.
I've watched Mom do it
a million times,
but I've never cooked a chicken myself.

 

I notice at dinner
that nobody is eating.
“It's much too salty,”
Marian says.

 

“Eat it anyway,” Dad tells us.
“You've lost so much salt
from all the crying.”

Sometimes when I come home from school
I expect Melvin to race to the door
and wrap himself around me
like a snug skirt.

 

Sometimes when I open the door,
so much noise rushes at me
from Lenny, Sol, Jack, and baby Sherry
that I even think I hear Melvin.

 

Sometimes when I come in,
someone brushes by me
and I'm sure it's Melvin's floppy curls
I feel tickling my arm.

 

But then I remember,
and the house
feels too quiet,
too still,
and I can hardly breathe.

Mom should be lighting the candles,
but she's not.

 

She should be pulling in the candlelight
with her hands
just before she covers her eyes
and says the Shabbos blessing,
but she's not.

 

She should be setting the lit candles
on the dining table
before she serves the meal,
but she's not.

 

“I cannot thank God
for the Shabbos light
when he has left me
in such darkness,” she says.

Up until Melvin died,
Mom was working at the diner
while us older kids
were staying home after school
to take care of the younger ones.

 

But now Mom says
that when Melvin died,
God was telling her
to stay home and be with her children.

 

So
she's
going to stop working at the diner
and
I
have to start.

 

I wish
I
could be
one of those children
she's staying home
to be with.

Mom's in the kitchen
dipping apples in gooey caramel.

 

She hands me one on a stick
even before the caramel's had a chance to harden.

 

I ask her if today is a special day,
like maybe somebody's birthday that I forgot.

 

“Yes, Edith,” she says, her voice cracking.
“It is a special day.

 

“Today we're celebrating the sweetness
that was Melvin.”

 

I bite down hard on the sticky apple,
trying to enjoy its sweetness

 

while my eyes well up
with bitter tears.

Every day after school
I walk through the ballpark
on my way to work
at the diner,
and every day
I pray
that one of those balls
will hit me so hard
it'll break some part of me
and I'll get to stop working
and stay home after school and just play
every day.

Since I haven't gotten hit
by a baseball yet,
I come up with a plan.

 

I lie and tell Dad
that I've joined lots of clubs
this semester in school—

 

the Coach Club and Yearbook
and Glee Club
and Farewell Assembly Committee
and Victory Corps–Office Emergency Squad.

 

I don't know what any of these clubs do,
and I only heard about them
from my big sister Sylvia,
because you have to be in high school
to join them,

 

but Dad doesn't have to know that.
I'll just tell him I have to stay
so late after school every day,

 

meeting with all these clubs I've joined,
that I won't have time
to work at the diner.

 

When I tell Dad
about the clubs,
he scowls at me.

 

“Clubs, shmubs—
you're too young to join.
You'll work for me after school,” he says.

 

I guess I need a new plan.

Now I have an answer for Miss Connelly,
who asked me
at the start of the school year
who I am in this family.

 

I used to think I was
“the good little mother,”
taking care of my sisters and brothers,
but I'm really
just one of Dad's work slaves.
That's who I am.

 

Every day after school
I drag myself to the diner,
wishing the police would come
and haul my dad off in chains
for making us kids work all the time.

 

I wish they'd throw him
into a cold stone cell
and feed him nothing
but lima beans.

 

And if Dad begged his jailers
to let him out,
to give him another chance
so he could change his ways,
and even promised
never to make any of us kids
work in the diner again,
they'd just sneer at him
and say, “You'd better get used to
lima beans, buddy,
because you're gonna be in here so long
you'll rot!”

Before Melvin died
and Mom started staying home,
Sylvia was already working at the diner,
and so were Daniel and Raymond
in between their other jobs,
but not my big sister Mildred.
Even now that Marian and I
have to work there, too,
Mildred still doesn't have to.

 

She told Dad it would be bad for business
because her many boyfriends
(practically every boy in Baltimore, I think)
would crowd into the restaurant,
sitting around drinking sodas,
taking up tables
just to get a glimpse of her,
and they'd never order a crumb of food.

 

Maybe Mildred
should work in Bubby Anne's store
since she seems to have a knack
for selling things.
She sold Dad
a bunch of baloney
that he wouldn't have bought
from anybody else.

I hate nights like tonight,
when I have to close up the diner
all by myself
because Marian's too young to stay late
and Daniel's working a double shift
at the factory
and Raymond's working
at the service station
and Sylvia's out with her boyfriend
and Mildred never has to work
and Dad is driving his cab.

 

After I clean off the counters
and put the food away,
I stuff the cash into a brown paper bag,
lock the door, then give it a hard pull
and dash into the black night
with the bag hidden inside my coat.

 

As I hurry onto the empty bus,
I can feel my heart thumping
like it's going to pop right out of my chest
any minute.

 

At my stop, I jump off
and race down my street
in case a robber is lurking in the darkness.

 

And not until I reach the house,
yank the door shut behind me,
and lock it
can I start to breathe again.

I come home from work
long after midnight,
when the house is silent,
to find a dim light
still on in the kitchen,
and Mom,
with a hot iron in her hand,
working her arm
back and forth,
back and forth
in a rhythm,
and the two of us
talk and talk,
just us,
and I don't
have to share
her

 

with anyone.

There's a question that I can't shake
out of my head,
so I use this time alone with Mom
to ask her,
because she always has good answers.

 

“Remember when you told me
that on Rosh Hashanah
we need to think about the bad things
we've done
and to say we're sorry?

 

“And remember how you told me
that God decides what will happen
to each of us
in the coming year?”

 

“Yes, yes,” she says. “I remember.”

 

“Since Melvin was too little
to have done anything very bad,
why did God decide to let him die?”
I ask her.

 

But this time
she doesn't answer.
She just hugs me tight.

I can't stay awake in school,
but thank goodness for Eunice,
who pokes me from behind
when it's my turn to read.

 

Miss Connelly doesn't understand.
She probably thinks I'm lazy.

 

If only
I could speak up to teachers
like Marian can,
I could tell her that I fall asleep in class
because right after school
I work at Paul's Luncheonette
serving burgers and fries
until the late-night movie closes down
and the ushers come around
for something to eat,
and that I don't get home
till almost 2:00.

 

If only
Miss Connelly knew.

Sylvia, Marian, and I are working today.
Before Dad leaves the diner,
he warns Sylvia,
“Don't let your sisters get into the pies,
you hear me!”

 

As soon as he walks out the door,
Marian and I ask Sylvia for some pie.
“Sure,” she says,
and serves each of us a thick slice.