Allen Zadoff: Since You Left Me

“We fell for each other, Sanskrit.” He lowers his voice and leans towards me. “We even slept together.”

“Newsflash: you’re a virgin.”

“No.”

“How could you keep something like that a secret? That’s the most important thing in the world.”

“Not so important.”

“What?! We’ve talked about sex for years. You never told me you knew how to do it.”

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“You did it.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. It just happened.”

“Once?”

“A few times.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say. Herschel winces. “The cursing—”

“What do you want from me? This is unbelievable news.”

“It’s not—You’re not understanding me,” Herschel says.

“I understand that you had sex,” I say. “Though I admit I’m lacking certain critical details which you’re more than welcome to describe to me.”

“It’s not what you think,” he says.

“Well, what was it? What happened to the mysterious Chana?”

“She was from England. She went back home.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“She had to.”

“What am I missing?”

“She was with child.”

“What?”

Herschel is speaking in biblical terms. But I know what he means. Pregnant.

“You have a kid?” I say.

“I don’t.”

“Wait. I’m confused. You said she was pregnant.”

“We terminated the pregnancy.”

“Oh my God.”

“I took the life of a child,” Herschel says.

His whole body changes. He leans against the wall, holding himself up with both arms.

“This is unbelievable,” I say. “You didn’t tell me any of this.”

“It was a secret,” he says.

He lets out a moan and slumps down to the floor, sitting with his back against the wall.

I think of Herschel when he came back from Israel. He was different, but I thought it was because of the religious conversion. Formal words, formal dress, services every day…

I sit on the floor next to Herschel, up close so our shoulders are touching.

“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been,” I say. “But it’s not like abortion is illegal in Israel. And it was your freshman summer. Nobody would blame you for not wanting to be a father.”

“Why not a father?” Herschel says. “Who says I’m supposed to be free and doing whatever I want in the world? Nobody. Judaism does not say we are free. We are bound to God.”

“You were a child. You didn’t know.”

“I was bar mitzvahed!” he says.

He means he was a man. He was responsible for his actions.

“You ask how I found God?” he says. “This is how. After it was done, my child came to me in a dream. Only he wasn’t mine anymore. He was HaShem’s child.”

Herschel bites at his lip.

“I can never undo what I did, but I can spend my life making amends. I can cleave myself to his will. That’s why I bought your mother to school. I was trying to do the right thing. I’m sorry if I caused you harm.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I say. “I got what I deserved.”

He pats my forearm.

“God will find us, one way or the other,” he says. “Some of us are stubborn, and the journey to him is hard. I pray it goes more easily for you than it did for me, my friend.”

Herschel pulls himself up. He puts out a hand to help me up.

“Now you know everything,” he says.

We hug briefly, and he pats me on the cheek.

I laugh a little. “You’re like my zadie,” I say.

“When is your mother leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Let me know if I can help in any way.” He forces a half smile, then walks away down the hall.

It’s Mom, calling to us from the living room.

Saturday morning. Moving day.

“Kids, I’m leaving,” she says.

Sweet Caroline is crying in her bedroom. I hear the muffled sobs through the wall. Mom walks down the hall and goes into Sweet Caroline’s room. I can’t hear what they’re saying exactly, but I can imagine it.

After a few minutes, Sweet Caroline’s door opens, and Mom taps on my door.

“Sanskrit?”

I don’t answer.

“I’m leaving now.”

I hold my breath.

“Can I say good-bye?” Mom says.

She turns my doorknob, even though she’s not allowed to come in without my permission. It’s locked. I made sure of it.

“Please, Sanskrit.”

My lungs are burning. I want to take a breath, inhale so hard that I pull Mom into the room.

“Your father is on his way over,” Mom says. “Late as always. I have to leave or I’m going to miss my flight.”

I press my face into the pillow and take a breath. My nose fills with the scent of lavender. That’s the stuff Mom spritzes on the sheets when she gets them back from fluff-and-fold. Her little personal touch.

“I left a curry stew in the refrigerator,” Mom says.

I don’t acknowledge her.

“Sanskrit,” Mom says, her face pressed close to my door. “I want to tell you—”

A taxi blows its horn in front of the house.

I want Mom to finish the sentence. What was she going to say?

I love you .

I’m sorry .

I don’t want to go .

I’ll never know.

I wait for the scraping at my door to stop. For Mom’s footsteps to move away down the hall. For the front door to open and close. For the squeak of the cab’s brakes as it pulls away on the street.

For the house to go quiet.

It does.

A few minutes later, there’s a tap on my door.

I go over and pop the lock.

Sweet Caroline doesn’t say anything. She just stands there looking at the ground and chewing on a fingernail.

I go back and lay on my bed, look up at the ceiling. It needs paint. Mom’s been saying she was going to get the house painted for two years, but it never happens.

Sweet Caroline comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. The mattress creaks a little. Not much. She doesn’t weigh much.

Without a word, she lies down and presses her body into mine. I turn on my side and wrap my arm around her.

I smell the trace of lavender oil on the pillow mixing with the fruit shampoo scent of Sweet Caroline’s hair. It’s the smell of my family.

After a while, I hear the sound of a key in the front door followed by Dad cursing.

“How the hell does this thing—”

He doesn’t know the lock is old and doesn’t work right. You have to turn the knob half a turn or the key won’t engage.

Finally, he gets it, and the door swings open and slams against the wall too hard. Mom hates it when we slam the door. I told her she should install a doorstop instead of yelling all the time, but she said it was our responsibility to take care of our home, not some piece of rubber’s.

Dad curses again and closes the door.

Sweet Caroline is snoring softly in the bed next to me.

I press her shoulder.

“Dad’s here,” I say.

“Okay,” she says.

But she doesn’t move.

“We should go,” I say.

“To Dad’s.”

“We can make it work.”

“We make it work two days a month, Sanskrit. I’m not naïve. I know it’s not a thirty days per month kind of experience.”

She’s right. But I don’t say it. I say, “Let’s go and find out.”

She rolls away from me.

That’s what Dad says. He stands there patting his pockets while Sweet Caroline and I wait for him.

We’re in the living room surrounded by boxes.

“Everything we need to do is on the list,” Dad says. “The packing, the organizing, the whatchamacallits. I just need to remember where I put it.”