Since You Left Me

by Allen Zadoff

  It’s Friday night, a few minutes before sundown. All over the city, observant Jews are rushing home before Shabbat starts. Jewish mothers are putting pots on the stove in timed pressure cookers, setting the table for a big family dinner. Kids are taking showers and changing. Final calls are being made and important messages returned. From sunset to sunset, there will be no work done, no power used. There will be services and prayer and community. People remembering and honoring God.

  At the same time all over the city, non-observant Jews are not observing, not setting timers or preparing, not even remembering Shabbat until they see the black hats walking to shul in their neighborhoods. What do they think then?

  Do they feel guilty that they’re not observant like their brothers and sisters?

  Do they feel embarrassed that they belong to a religion where some people wear furry hats and long black coats and walk through the streets on Friday night and Saturday morning?

  All religions have extremists, people who have drifted from the center towards the edges, others who have drifted from the edges back to the center. And still others like us who have drifted so far away that they don’t remember who they are anymore.

  Maybe that’s what Zadie Zuckerman was worried about. Once he was no longer around, who would be there to urge us towards Judaism? Only his money is left to keep the fires lit at the Temple.

  But how long will that last?

  “Mom is in love.”

  I say it gravely, so Sweet Caroline will understand how serious the situation is.

  “What does that have to do with our dinner?” Sweet Caroline says.

  “We’re not getting any dinner. We have an absentee mother. I’m trying to explain the situation to you.”

  “She gave you a twenty, didn’t she?” Sweet Caroline says.

  She knows how Mom works. Instead of taking care of us, she gives us the means to take care of ourselves. It’s like the United Nations food program.

  “We can go to Whole Foods,” Sweet Caroline says.

  “With twenty dollars? So much for dessert. Besides, if we go to Whole Foods, we’ll run into people from the neighborhood, which means we’ll run into people from school, which means we’ll have to do a lot of lying about Mom. So let’s just make something here.”

  “Fine,” Sweet Caroline says. She snatches the twenty out of my hands. “I’ll take it as payment. You’re good for this week. But Monday is coming up fast.”

  “Mom is in love, and you’re worried about blackmailing me.”

  “Mom’s always in love,” she says.

  Sweet Caroline has a point.

  Mom falls in love with things all the time. She fell in love with hot yoga, then elastic band yoga, then, briefly, nude yoga. Nude yoga was rough on me. I couldn’t use the bathroom in our house for three months. Mom would be in there nude and sweaty, the hot water running on full, steam pouring out the crack at the bottom of the door. By the time that trend passed, the floorboards outside the bathroom door were warped.

  Mom fell in love with poetry for five minutes when she took a class at UCLA. The house was filled with notebooks, scraps of paper, even parchment when she thought writing on parchment with a feather would make her more creative.

  She fell in love with a particular juice at a local health food store. But it was too expensive, so she started juicing at home. For six months, I was woken up at 4:30 every morning by the growl of a juicing machine engine revving in our kitchen. We all had to drink it, to the point where our toilet bowl turned green from all the chlorophyll.

  Mom falls in love with many things, all of them briefly but intensely.

  Maybe that’s what love is. You lose yourself. You go insane. But it’s temporary insanity.

  So why does this time feel different to me?

  “Did Mom tell you she’s in love?” Sweet Caroline says.

  “No. But I can tell.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “He’s weird.”

  “The last one was weird. They’re all weird.”

  The last one was a middle-aged, out-of-work actor who served juice samples at Erewhon, the natural food market near The Grove. I blame him for bringing wheat grass into our lives.

  “This one is an Indian guru,” I say.

  “That’s a racist thing to say.”

  Sweet Caroline’s class did a unit on racism last month, and now she sees it everywhere she looks.

  “I’m not racist,” I say.

  “If you hate Indians, you’re racist.”

  “I don’t hate Indians. I hate gurus.”

  “Then you’re prejudiced.”

  I think about that for a second. Do I hate the guru because he’s a guru? Because he hasn’t cut his hair in ten years? Or do I hate him because Mom likes him?

  “He came all the way from India to visit Mom,” I say.

  “That is weird,” Sweet Caroline says, thinking it over.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “You worry too much,” Sweet Caroline says.

  “You don’t worry enough.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Mom will be a freak for a couple weeks, then she’ll go back to being our mom.”

  The doorbell rings.

  I look through the peephole. It’s a man with a giant gift basket. I open the door and take it from him.

  I look at the card.

  GET WELL SOON,

  FROM YOUR FRIENDS

  AT THE BRENTWOOD JEWISH ACADEMY

  I bring it into the kitchen.

  “What’s that?” Sweet Caroline says.

  “Our dinner is here,” I say.

  I put the basket down and pull off the plastic wrap. The basket is overflowing with fruit and chocolate. I take the card and rip it into little pieces so it’s unreadable. Then I start to separate out the chocolate.

  “Is this because of Mom’s accident?” Sweet Caroline says.

  “Yes. And it won’t be the last time we get one. We need a plan.”

  “You need a plan. I don’t need anything.”

  “You’re not getting twenty dollars a week to watch me do all the work.”

  “Okay, we can pretend I have a rich boyfriend.”

  I think of the love letter I found in Sweet Caroline’s room. Levi. I want to ask her who he is, but I don’t.

  “You’re too young to have a boyfriend,” I say.

  “I am not,” she says. “Anyway, Mom is different about dating. She’s not like those other mothers.”

  “Which mothers?”

  “The ones who care about things like that.”

  “I care,” I say, because the idea of my kid sister dating at twelve seems wrong. “I don’t think you should be dating.”

  “You’re not my parent,” she says.

  “I know that.”

  “So stop trying.”

  “My pleasure,” I say.

  She says, “If we say I have a boyfriend, it explains the gift baskets coming in.”

  I think about that for a second.

  “Admit it. It’s a good idea,” she says.

  “It’s okay.”

  It’s actually a brilliant idea, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of telling her.

  Sweet Caroline picks through the basket, sniffing at a few things. She settles on a mini-bar of Toblerone. She takes it into her bedroom, even though we’re not allowed to have food in our rooms.

  I look through the basket, coming up with an expensive chocolate-and-caramel thing. I bite into it, and it’s so good I have to sit down. I’ve spent my childhood eating Mom’s equivalent of candy—chunky globs of carob sweetened with fruit juice. Compared to that, a real piece of candy is like heaven.

  I think about Mom eating dinner at A Votre Sante right now.

  Maybe Sweet Caroline is right, and I’m worried about Mom and the guru for nothing.

  But something in my gut tells me that this is different, and I should be worried. Even more w
orried than I already am.

  I decide I’ll talk to Mom about it when she gets back from dinner. More than just talk. I’ll sit her down and ask her point-blank what’s going on.

  I go to my room and wait for her. I study for a while so I don’t fall behind from missing school.

  Eight o’clock becomes nine, nine becomes ten.

  Mom doesn’t get back.

  I finally get into bed after eleven.

  I can’t sleep. I toss and turn, thinking about Mom at dinner for all these hours. She doesn’t eat enough to spend four hours at a restaurant. So what is she doing for so long?

  I think about God. In the Old Testament if you were having a crisis, you could pray to him and he might show himself.

  Other times he would pop up completely unexpectedly, appearing in front of people to tell them what to do. Sometimes he told them they were in trouble, struck them down, or messed with their life in some way. That’s not a God you want to have around on a regular basis, but at least you knew where you stood with him.

  Now he never shows up. He doesn’t appear, he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t punish or reward.

  He does nothing. We’re supposed to believe in him, have faith that he exists when there’s no evidence at all.

  I drift off to sleep wishing God would just show up and tell me what to do.

  “He’s come for you.”

  That’s what the voice says, followed by loud knocking on my door.

  I sit up fast in bed, waking from a deep sleep.

  “Sanskrit. Wake up. He’s here.” Mom’s voice.

  The sun is shining through my blinds. It’s morning.

  “Who’s here?” I say.

  “It’s your friend from down the street,” Mom says. “The one who got really Jewish.”

  “Herschel? What’s he doing here?”

  I stumble out of bed, throw on some sweats.

  I crack the door, but Mom is gone. I walk into the living room.

  Herschel is standing there in a full suit, the white tzitzit threads hanging out, a black fedora on his head.

  “I could get you some juice,” Mom is saying to him.

  “No, thank you,” Herschel says.

  Mom is setting the table, pulling items from a Whole Foods bag and setting them out on plates like real mothers do in the morning. Or so I’ve heard.

  Mom never sets the table, and we never get breakfast at home. Mom usually fasts in the morning or has a glass of juice. I can drink my breakfast or get something on the way to school. If I want to chew in the morning, I have to smuggle solid food into my room the night before. Pop-Tarts, bagels, muffins. It’s like the Underground Railroad for breakfast pastries.

  “Would you like a mango?” Mom asks Herschel.

  He’s looking at the gift basket on the counter.

  “I’d offer you something from the basket, but—” She looks around, confused. “Sanskrit, what’s this basket doing here?”

  “A kid at Sweet Caroline’s school. He’s in love with her.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Mom says without so much as a blink, “but you know I don’t allow sugar in the house.”

  “I guess her boyfriend didn’t know that.”

  “We’ll talk about this later.” Mom frowns at the basket and spoons something green into a bowl. “Herschel, I bought some nice seaweed salad.”

  “I can’t. Really.”

  “Why not?”

  I say, “I hate to burst your bubble, Mom, but your food isn’t kosher.”

  “Seaweed is kosher, isn’t it? There’s no meat in it.”

  “We’re not kosher,” I say. “Our kitchen isn’t kosher.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and goes back to whatever she’s doing with the Whole Foods bags.

  “What are you doing here?” I say to Herschel.

  “I thought you might like to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To shul.”

  “Shul? That’s a terrible idea.”

  “But it’s Shabbat,” he says, like that’s going to motivate me. “We could go to the synagogue at school if that would make you more comfortable.”

  “The whole idea makes me uncomfortable.”

  I try to remember the last time I went to a Shabbat service voluntarily.

  Sweet Caroline walks in, still in her pajamas.

  She looks from the food on the table, to Herschel, to me.

  “Who died?” she says.

  “Nobody.”

  “Why is there food in our house?”

  “Mom is making breakfast.”

  “Is she on a new antidepressant?”

  “Jesus. Give us a second, would you?” I say.

  “Lord’s name!” she says. She shakes a warning finger at me, then stamps off.

  Herschel says, “Sorry to intrude. It’s early.”

  “You’re inviting me to services? That’s why you came over?”

  “I didn’t plan it,” Herschel says. “I was walking, and something led me here.”

  “Kind of you to offer,” I say, “but—”

  “Don’t but. Just come with.”

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  I glance at the fruit-and-chocolate gift basket on the kitchen counter.

  “You didn’t take care of the thing at school,” Herschel says.

  “Shhh,” I say, lowering my voice. “I will. First thing next week.”

  “Don’t wait until next week. You’ve got everyone worried.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “They don’t know that. You’re causing them tsuris.”

  Tsuris. Yiddish for pain.

  “Come to shul with me, Sanskrit. I think you want to.”

  “If you think that, then you don’t know me as well as you used to,” I say.

  “Maybe not.”

  “You want to go to services, Herschel. You like it. I wish I could believe like you do.”

  “I don’t just believe,” Herschel says. “I question. I wonder. Just like you.”

  “Maybe so. But when you’re done with all that questioning, where are you?”

  “I’m with God.”

  “That’s the difference between us. When I’m done …”

  I look out into the living room at Mom’s yoga mat, her Tibetan singing bowl, the little altar she’s set up in the corner for meditation.

  “Where are you when you’re done?” Herschel says.

  “I’m alone.”

  He rolls a tzitzi thread between his fingers.

  “I didn’t come to beg,” he says. “Only to extend the offer.”

  “I pass.”

  He shrugs and heads for the door. “If you change your mind …,” he says, and then he’s gone.

  Mom putters in and goes back to setting the table. The timing is a little too perfect. Was she listening at the door?

  “It’s nice to see Herschel,” she says, “even if he doesn’t look like Herschel anymore.”

  “He looks like Super Jew.”

  “That’s not nice. He’s a boy on a spiritual journey.”

  “That’s not what I’d call it.”

  “Because you’re jealous.”

  “Why would I be jealous? I just want my old friend back.”

  “I see,” Mom says.

  “You don’t see.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  I hate when Mom won’t fight with me. She goes into this mode where she refuses to argue. She calls it her surrender mode, her Dead Bug pose. That’s an actual pose in yoga where you lie on your back and put your hands and feet in the air like a suffocated cockroach. But she only does it when she doesn’t want to deal with something. Usually me.

  “What time did you get home last night?” I say.

  “That’s a rude question.”

  “When I go to sleep and my mother isn’t home yet, it raises a few questions.
That’s fair, isn’t it? To ask the question?”

  “You’re worse than your father.”

  “Maybe if you two communicated better, he wouldn’t have left.”

  “Don’t you—” Mom shakes with anger. She points her finger at me. “Don’t you talk to your mother like that.”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “This is why I don’t usually make breakfast,” Mom says. “Because you don’t appreciate me.”

  “Seaweed salad and mangoes isn’t breakfast, Mom. It’s what people eat after a shipwreck.”

  “For your information, there are also whole wheat bagels and Tofutti spread.”

  “Why are you making breakfast anyway?”

  Sweet Caroline comes in. She’s changed into sweats and a pink hoodie.

  She takes one look at the seaweed salad and says, “I’m not hungry.”

  “Did this whole family wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Mom says.

  That’s when the toilet flushes down the hall. A door opens and shuts followed by footsteps.

  “What the hell?” I say, and I jump up.

  The guru walks into our living room. Today, he’s wrapped in bright orange robes and a turban.

  “Mom!” Sweet Caroline screams, jumping behind her for protection.

  “Sat nam, Zuckerman family,” the guru says. He looks at our surprised expressions. “Was I not expected?”

  “I was trying to tell them,” Mom says.

  “Who the hell is that?” Sweet Caroline says.

  “This is my guru,” Mom says. “He’s come all the way from India to spend time with us.”

  My guru? When did he become her personal guru?

  Mom smiles and opens her arms wide, like she’s presenting us with a gift.

  Sweet Caroline looks at me, concerned. I nod. This is the one I was telling you about.

  “Guru, you remember Sanskrit,” Mom says.

  “I seem to have a habit of shocking him,” the guru says with a smile.

  “You keep showing up where you’re not wanted,” I say. “That’s pretty shocking.”

  “Sanskrit!” Mom says.

  “No, no. He has a point,” the guru says. “It’s not easy to open your heart to a stranger.”

  “It’s not my heart. It’s my bathrooms that are off limits.”

  I’d like to see the guru lose his temper, but I’m not sure he has one. No matter what I say he grins and looks calm. I was right. He’s definitely got Barry Goldwasser syndrome.