He nodded to Leora and Renée and the two small girls stepped forward and pulled lightly at the gauze veil which fluttered to the ground. The enamels sparkled in the sun’s brightness, their polished surfaces aglow, each tender design bathed in radiance. There was an almost communal intake of breath as the assembled group leaned forward, struggling for a better view. They nodded, touched each other’s hands, dabbed at their eyes.
Leora and Renée placed their flowers at the base of the mosaic.
Elaine bent to kiss her granddaughters and watched as they walked into the outstretched arms of their mothers. Then she began to speak, her voice trembling at first and slowly gathering strength.
“I think all of you know that Neil’s death, coming as it did with such suddenness, was a shock for me and for our children. Eighteen months have passed since he died in this very hospital and in the Jewish tradition the number eighteen means chai, life. I have spent these last eighteen months traveling, spending time with my children—our children.” Swiftly, she corrected herself and continued, “Revisiting vanished days, gleaning a new understanding of our shared past, new hope for our shared future. I thought about the many seasons of Neil’s life and the legacy he left us. Each tile of this mosaic reflects such a season. There are the days of his earliest childhood in Russia where our granddaughter Genia was born and where our daughter Lisa married her David. There is the skyscape of Jerusalem where he rejoiced with Sarah and Moshe and their children, the rolling hills of California and the expanse of the New Mexico desert where he hiked with his sons, with Peter, and Lauren, his wife, with Denis and Andrew, his partner. I tried to capture, in form and in color, the serenity of the home we shared, the grace of the tree he planted in our garden, the calm of his consulting room. Above all I wanted to emphasize the sweetness and generosity of the life he lived. It was a life interrupted but it will be remembered always by the children and grandchildren he nurtured, by all who knew him and felt the blessings of his hands, the tenderness of his heart, the wisdom of his mind. Neil is gone from us but his message endures and his memory will be for a blessing. For all of us.”
Her voice broke and she turned to look at the mural, at the sun-burnished work of her hands, the testament of her love. Peter and Denis, Lisa and Sarah, their hands linked, ascended the small platform and stood beside her. Their voices soft, their eyes moist, they intoned the Kaddish. Elaine herself remained silent until the final amen had been murmured. And then she found her own voice.
“L’Chaim,” she said. “To life.”
“L’Chaim. To life.”
The gentle chorus resonated through the garden as the evening sun slowly descended and pastel-tinged clouds floated across the sky.
They gathered again around the large dining room table, set for this meal with the snow-white linen cloth always reserved for holiday meals, the crystal glasses sparkling, the silverware polished to a high gleam. Renée and Leora marveled at the pale blue dinner plates patterned with whimsical butterflies of Elaine’s own design.
“They look like party plates,” Renée enthused. “My friend had butterfly plates at her party. Are we having a party, Grandma?”
“Renée,” Lauren said warningly but Elaine smiled.
“I suppose in a way we are. We’re having a celebration. A celebration of all of us being together.”
They relaxed then, the melancholy of the afternoon slowly lifting, as they savored the golden chicken soup, wiped up the children’s spills, hurried in and out of the kitchen to help Elaine bring out the platters piled high with the favored foods of their childhood, chickens roasted to a crisp, brisket cloaked in mushroom and onions, potato and zucchini puddings. They ate fast and talked fast, each dish summoning up a memory.
“Remember how Dad made us draw lots for the drum-stick at Thanksgiving?”
“Remember that holiday dinner when Sarah dropped the platter with the brisket?”
“It wasn’t Sarah. It was Lisa,” Denis recalled.
“It couldn’t have been me. I never helped,” Lisa retorted.
They laughed, carried empty dishes in the kitchen, refilled salad plates. Herb circled the table refilling water glasses. Eric spilled his juice, cried in embarrassment and was consoled by Lauren and Peter, the soothing cadences of their voices perfectly matched. Andrew took pictures, moving swiftly to capture Moshe cutting Renée’s meat, Lisa cuddling Noam, Denis fashioning his napkin into an airplane causing Yuval, Ephraim and Leah to break out in wild laughter.
“Babies,” Leora said contemptuously to Renée. The two older girls had formed a swift alliance. Already Renée had implored her mother to allow her to visit her cousin in Jerusalem and Lauren and Peter had glanced at each other and smiled, with the patience born of their new and magical togetherness.
Elaine, flushed with pleasure, stared down the long table, as though memorizing the bright faces of her grandchildren, mentally recording her children’s laughter, their ease with her and with each other. She caught Herb Glasser’s eye, registered his approving nod, his reassuring smile. She nodded back, smiled back, carried in the cakes, chocolate for Lisa and Sarah, apple for Peter and Denis, frosted cupcakes for the children, childhood preferences remembered and satisfied. Only then did she suggest that the children play in the garden.
“The swings are up. There are balls. Battered but still bouncing.”
They scurried out, eager to race through the dying light of the long bewildering day, to play with the toys that had belonged to their parents, to toss the faded balls high into the branches of the tree and watch them bounce onto the hard leaf-shadowed earth.
Elaine refilled their coffee cups and her own, although she did not lift it to her lips. They were silent, the quiet of the room an expectant void that they waited patiently for her to fill.
“Mom, please.” Denis spoke for all of them, his voice gentle, yet insistent.
“Yes. Of course.” She took a single sip of the coffee, felt its bitterness upon her tongue. She had neglected to sweeten it. “I wanted you all to be together when I told you what I’ve decided. This will be the last time that we will all be together in this house, this home. I’m selling it to a wonderful young family, a doctor and his wife who have two young children. He worked with your father at the hospital. He and his wife, who is pregnant with their third child, love the house, love its history, or what they see as its history—by that I think they mean our family. The wife is a painter. I think the studio clinched it for them.”
She looked at her children, saw how Moshe moved closer to Sarah, David to Lisa, how Lauren put her hand protectively on Peter’s arm and how Andrew shifted position so that his shoulder brushed against Denis’s. Gestures of reassurance against the impact of her words, reminders to the brothers and sisters that they were safe, their lives intact, sheltered by love, even as this house, the fortress of their childhood, was forfeit. Noam, who had been asleep in Sarah’s arms, wakened then and cried softly. It seemed only natural that Herb take the baby from her and calm him while walking back and forth with a measured pace.
“I don’t think any of you are surprised by this decision,” she said softly and one by one they nodded in assent.
“I think each of us assumed as much,” Peter affirmed, speaking for all of them. “None of us liked the idea of your living here alone. We worried. It’s sad, of course. We’ve all loved this house just as you and Dad did but you’re doing the right thing.”
Again they nodded. They were in agreement. Their mother’s decision had been inevitable. They looked at each other, each of them recalling her visits to their homes, her transient incursions into their lives, the truths that had been revealed, the hurts too long held secret exposed and healed. They had felt her yearning, recognized her strength, and matched it with their own.
“How is she? How does she seem?” they had asked each other, speaking from Jerusalem and Los Angeles, Santa Fe and Moscow, never acknowledging that they really meant “What has she decided? Who has hit the jack
pot in the lottery of maternal affection?” Would the haunting question of childhood ever be resolved? “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best loved child of us all?” Ruefully they acknowledged that it should no longer matter. And yet it lingered teasingly.
It was Sarah who asked the question, speaking so softly that they strained to hear her.
“But where will you live, Mom?”
They clasped and unclasped their hands, sat more erect, their eyes fixed on their mother’s face.
“There’s a community almost at the northern border of the county. A development really, but quite a beautiful one. It’s not a retirement village. I wouldn’t want that. I’m hardly ready to retire. Younger families live there but there are many residents who are my age, a bit younger perhaps, a bit older perhaps, but everyone active and quite friendly. I visited several times. Alone and with Serena. She’s considering a smaller unit there but I’ve already closed on a town house. I think you’ll all love it. Three bedrooms and a large den so there’s plenty of room for visitors—overnight or long term. There are lots of windows so the light is wonderful, and a big kitchen.” Her voice gathered strength, grew vibrant with a new excitement. “I have some terrific ideas about how to furnish it. Lots of blues in the living room. Cream-colored drapes perhaps.”
Her enthusiasm dazed them. They tried to imagine her in an unfamiliar room, in a home that would belong only to her, looking out at a landscape she had not shared with their father.
“You closed on it? Alone?”
Denis, the lawyer, skilled at closings, aware of the perils of real estate deals, was astonished.
“With a lawyer, of course.” She flashed him a reassuring smile. “Reputable. Referred by the Realtor, vetted by an attorney at the hospital. It just had to be done quickly. Someone else was interested in the house.”
“But your work. Where will you work?” Sarah asked.
“Ah—there’s a huge studio in the development. Fully fitted. Worktables, potter’s wheels, kilns. I’ll move the oven for my enamels there. I’ve been asked to teach workshops and I’m going to try it.”
“It sounds wonderful.” Lisa spoke with an approving firmness. “But just how rural is the development?”
They cringed at the word but Elaine smiled.
“Rural enough but close to major highways. And thus to airports,” she replied teasingly.
“Convenient for both the boarding of planes and the meeting of them,” Herb Glasser said.
They turned. They had all but forgotten his presence in the room, all but forgotten his odd and undefined role in their mother’s life. They turned and smiled at Lauren’s grave-eyed father, the tall man, slightly stooped now, his iron-gray hair tousled by Noam’s small hands. They acknowledged finally what they had each supposed might be the case. Herb Glasser would be their mother’s sometime companion. They would await each other at terminals and they would, perhaps board planes together. Lauren rose and went to stand beside her father, to kiss him on the cheek, to smile as he placed his large hand on her head.
“Good for you, Mom. You did it.”
Sarah’s softly spoken words encompassed all their thoughts. They had each wanted to lay claim to their mother but they recognized, with admiration and gratitude, that she had reclaimed her own life. She had, through the long months since their father’s death, urged them each toward difficult choices and now her own choice has been made. Their disappointment was assuaged. Their pleasure was palpable.
Moshe lifted his water glass.
“L’Chaim, Elaine. To your new life.”
For the second time that day, the word was repeated in a soft and melodic chorus.
“L’Chaim.”
Elaine smiled and gently took Noam from Herb. She walked with him to the large picture window and looked out at the garden where her grandchildren dashed after a large red ball. She remembered the sunswept afternoons when she and Neil had stood together at this very window and watched their own children at play. She cuddled Noam, the child named for Neil, her Jerusalem-born grandson whose name meant pleasantness. She looked into his eyes, deep-set and agate-blue—Neil’s eyes.
“Noam,” she whispered. “Neil. My Noam. My Neil.”
Tears she had not anticipated streaked her cheeks. Denis came to stand beside her.
“Are you all right, Mom?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
She held Noam closer and realized that she spoke the truth.
About the Author
Gloria Goldreich is the critically acclaimed author of several national bestselling novels, including Walking Home, Dinner with Anna Karenina and Leah’s Journey, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Her stories have also appeared in numerous magazines, such as McCall’s, Redbook, Ms. and Ladies’ Home Journal. Gloria and her family live in Tuckahoe, New York.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4815-1
OPEN DOORS
Copyright © 2008 by Gloria Goldreich.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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