“Oh my God, please kill me,” Tal says, and with a thump her forehead hits the table as she hides her face like an ostrich. She looks like she’s doing a Roslyn impression.
“Mother, cut it out, or I’m leaving. Just stop. Just stop now.”
“My daughter thinks I’m a racist. Ever since I voted for McCain.”
“You are not a racist. So stop acting like one.”
“This is why I never had kids.” Art laughs.
“You’re gay. That’s why you didn’t have kids,” Tal mumbles into the table, but we all hear it. Oh dear. Oh my. My daughter is a homophobe.
“Tal!” both mother and daughter yell together. This family, they yell. Now mother and daughter are united. They look at each other silently, and the look says, The demon is back. Art gets up, asks if anyone wants anything from the kitchen, and leaves. Then, no one talks.
Dot reaches for her drink, then finally mutters, “Not true. And mean.” Elissa excuses herself to escape to the kitchen as well. On my side of the table, I’m the only one sitting upright to witness this disaster.
“My brother has always lived alone. Always has. That’s the problem with being a single man of maturity. People cast aspersions. It’s as if, despite all of the overcrowding on this planet, the environment and all that, somehow living the life of a bachelor is suspect, perverted. Now that’s racist.”
“Yes,” Art says, returning with a glass of Irv’s whiskey in hand, looking me straight in the eye. He winks at me.
“And because he chose to work in the theater. He’s just creative,” Dot adds.
“Sure,” Art, rolling his eyes at someone, agrees with her.
“I mean: even his name is Art!” Dot says, and we all laugh too hard, because we are back on script again.
—
Horseradish is hot sauce for Eastern European Jews. These guys put it on everything, even apples. When the food comes, Tal lifts her head up, acts like nothing has ever happened, and thereby joins the rest of us. I turn to Roslyn.
“It’s dinnertime,” I tell her, just to not be rude, and a miracle takes place. Roslyn’s head lifts. The hair pulls back, and that face pops back into play.
“Starved,” she says, and we’re back to single syllables, but this is still an improvement. The others look over at her, grin and nod, but keep talking, as if she only left to take a little nap, a little necessary self-indulgence, and now she’s right as rain and not reaching all the way across the table to violently yank a chunk off the challah. Roslyn says no more after that, but it’s okay because I don’t talk either, and Tal barely does, even when asked direct questions. Seeing her interacting with them, I realize how honored I am. In my presence, she has been downright gregarious in comparison. Tal catches me staring at her, and her tongue sticks out in my direction. There are bits of bread on it that look like little brown slugs and I flinch in disgust. Tal looks at her reflection in her spoon, giggles. I smile with her. Irv looks over at her, me, grins too. His face is red. He is completely lit. In a second, he’s up to get even more wine, but he leans over and whispers into my ear, “So what, I’m drunk. Tonight’s the night I got to tell my granddaughter I’m dying.”
—
I feel tipsy, decide to slow down. For my daughter. And so I can drive out of here. The door’s closed to the study and I can see it from the table and Tal went in there with Irv and after ten minutes I know she knows he’s battling cancer. I strain to listen for crying. The table is loud, though. Because they’re all drinking, too. Just a few bottles of malbec, but enough to get things lubricated. I stare at the door, and I keep one of the bottles in front of me and when the family is distracted I pour back the rest of my glass.
“This school you have Tal at, the one for all black kids, what’s that all about?” Dot asks. I don’t really hear the sentence at first, it’s background noise, something I have to go back and decipher once I realize it’s aimed at me.
“It’s a special program for biracial children.”
“Black, kinda black, black-ish — you know what I’m talking about.”
“Mother, please. I will leave. You’re being a boor.”
“No, you always say I treat you like a child — you love saying that — well don’t treat me as one. We’re all adults. We’re all adults here. This is an adult conversation. We’re all supposed to be ‘post-racial’ now, right? Everyone’s saying we have to be ‘post-racial.’ It’s segregation. I don’t know why Tal couldn’t just go to Kadima like Cindy and you did.”
“ ‘A school for open Jews who want their children to have it all.’ ” It comes from Roslyn, who’s looking up at Dot. Dot stares back, speechless. I can’t tell what she’s more surprised about: what Roslyn said, that she’s not mentally impaired, or that she’s even talking.
Roslyn looks fine now. Groggy, but fine. I have not killed her. So there’s that.
“That’s offensive,” Dot says, and I agree with her. I would say I agree with her, but my mortification has moved me past verbal expression.
“That’s the motto, Mom.” Elissa smacks her own head. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a real person do that.
“Class of ’74,” Roslyn tells them. “I did all thirteen years at Kadima. Well, twelve really, I did my junior year abroad at Kibbutz Lotan, in the Arava Valley. That’s where the concept for the Mélange Center comes from: a holistic community of outreach, a society of ideals, a home for the wanderers. What I set out to do was give mixed-raced people that same vision my faith gave me.” Roslyn keeps going. She is just starting, and she’s already going. There’s a speech coming; this is the preamble.
A text message that appears on my phone says, Come to the door.
I go to the door Irv closed. I try to open it again, do so as loudly as I can, but nothing follows. So I knock. Tal opens it. She’s been crying. She knows. Past her, I see Irv sitting on the edge of a made bed, head in hands.
“Never mind. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? I’m here. I’m here for you. You know that, right?”
“I’m going to spend the weekend here,” she says, staring off. Then, looking back at my eyes again. “I mean, I want to spend the weekend here. I need to. With Irv. Is that okay?” my daughter asks me, and of course it is.
When I come back to the table, the wheelchair is empty. Roslyn is standing. Roslyn is talking with Elissa; Dot leans in too. Art sits on a chair in front of them, legs folded, taking it in.
“We create our communities, our identities, but we do it by maintaining our heritage,” and Roslyn makes it sound like something she has never said before, like she’s just thinking it up on the fly. I wait, listen to the whole spiel one more time, just like I listened to it at the campfire days before. After a while, Roslyn pauses for air, and I lean in to tell her it’s time to go.
Goodnight, Pops, my phone’s display tells me. I look back at Irv’s door, it’s closed again. I want to text her that I love her. Because I do. But I haven’t told her this truth to her face, and a text is no way to begin.
I take the wheelchair out to the car, then come back for Roslyn, who’s still going. She ends with, “As Rabbi Hillel said, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?’ ”
The first contribution comes from Elissa. It’s written out leaning the checkbook high against the wall, and with a look to her mother as soon as she puts it in Roslyn’s hand in exchange for thank-yous. The older lady follows.