Allen Zadoff: Since You Left Me

There’s no way Mom could afford my school. Tuition this year was nearly thirty thousand dollars. Without Zadie Zuckerman’s money, I’d be a public school kid, and Mom would be panicked about paying for college in two years. Mom hated Zadie Zuckerman and she refuses to admit his money is still running our life. It’s not just my education money either. If Zadie hadn’t bought this house when my parents got married, we’d be living in an apartment in some crappy suburb instead of the posh slums of Brentwood.

And if Zadie hadn’t survived the Holocaust, none of us would be here in the first place.

Not quite true. Mom would be here, but the rest of us wouldn’t.

“I think you can relax about all of this,” Mom says. “They don’t throw students out of private school.”

“We signed a contract, Mom.”

Mom’s phone powers up and buzzes several times.

“How many calls …?” Mom starts to say, and then looks at me. “You called me twenty-five times?”

I’m thinking I called Mom about five times. That means there are twenty or so calls from school. A couple dozen messages asking about her accident.

It’s time to tell her what happened before I get in real trouble.

I’ll tell her the truth and we can figure out how to deal with the situation together. That’s what parents and children are supposed to do. Problem solve. Talk it out.

“I only called you a few times,” I tell Mom.

“Then who are all these people?” she says.

She holds the phone towards me like I’m going to decode it for her. Then she looks at it again.

She squints, trying to decide which message to listen to first.

I have to tell her now. It’s always better to hear bad news from the source rather than second-hand. I know from experience. I learned about my parents’ divorce when the process server handed Mom papers at the house one afternoon after I’d gotten home from school.

Mom starts to press her phone—

“Mom, when you didn’t show up at school, I might have said something I shouldn’t have—”

Mom tosses her phone on the table.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she says.

It vibrates against the wood, another call coming in.

“It’s too much. I need my music,” Mom says, and heads for the living room.

I brace for an onslaught of yogic chanting. Mom puts it on every time she gets overwhelmed.

Her phone buzzes away on the table.

I turn it off.

I go into the living room. Mom is lying on a yoga mat on the floor, the chanting playing in the background.

Mom can practice yoga in the living room because we barely have any furniture. I have a bed, so I’m not exactly neglected, but if you want to relax in our house and you’re not sleeping, you have to sit on a pillow on the floor. I’d kill for a soft chair. Cool leather that warms up when you sit in it for a while. If I told Mom I wanted a leather armchair, she’d accuse me of animal murder. But I figure you can make a leather chair out of a deceased cow. You don’t have to kill it and steal its skin like Mom says. You just let it die peacefully and quietly, then you use it as a resource. Would the Great Spirit be angry about that?

Great Spirit . That’s Mom’s phrase.

Mom opens her eyes, her meditation ended.

“I’m back,” she says. “Back and better than ever. Now, what did you want to tell me?”

“About tonight at school—”

“Sanskrit. I said I’m sorry I missed your conference. Can’t we let bygones be bygones?”

“It isn’t bygone. It’s by-here.”

Mom lifts her legs, presses with her hands, and effortlessly lifts herself up into a headstand.

Which leaves me looking at her butt.

“Mom. I’m trying to talk to you.”

“I’m listening,” she says.

“But you’re upside down.”

“Upside down is a matter of perspective. How do you know you’re not the one who’s upside down?”

“Because gravity is my friend right now. It’s your enemy.”

“It’s both of our enemies. I’m just using it to my advantage.”

This is our little game. Who is upside down, who is right side up? What’s it all mean?

“I’m very upset—” I start to say.

“My son,” Mom says, cutting me off.

It’s formal and weird, but it does the trick. I’m a sucker for my son .

I take a step towards her.

Mom smiles at me from her headstand. People don’t look the same upside down as they do right side up. Sometimes they look like monsters.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” Mom says. “I’ll call school tomorrow and talk to them. I’ll beg them for forgiveness. I’ll get on my hands and knees—”

“It’s not funny, Mom—”

“I’ll tell them you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to them. The best thing that’s happened to the Jewish race since sliced matzoh.”

“We’re not a race,” I say.

“Whatever we are,” Mom says.

“I don’t want you to call,” I say, because I can’t have her calling school before I tell her what I did tonight. Then it occurs to me that maybe I don’t have to tell her at all. I could just go into school and deal with the situation myself, leave Mom out of it entirely.

The more I think about it, the better the idea sounds to me.

“I’ll take care of school,” I say.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Positive.”

“Thank you, honey. Maybe you’ll do a Dog with me before bed?”

Mom wants me to do the yoga pose Downward Facing Dog. I hate the Dog.

“Pretty please,” she says.

I sigh, go down on all fours.

“Now tuck into a crouch,” Mom says, going into teacher mode.

I tuck, but I feel my body fighting me. My head would like to do what Mom wants, but my flesh resists. It doesn’t like being folded up. It wants to expand. It wants to breathe freely.

“Can you roll over and up?” Mom says.

I try, but I don’t have enough strength in my core. That’s what Mom calls your middle section.

“Sorry,” I say, after I fall twice.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mom says. “You’ll get it eventually. It’s not about perfection. It’s about the fact that we keep trying.”

She’s making an effort to sound patient, but I hear the frustration. Mom’s a yoga teacher. She should be able to teach her son yoga.

“Do a modified,” she says.

I do a modified headstand, first leaning forward, then climbing my feet up the back of the wall behind me. When I’m nearly upside down, Mom says:

“I have to tell you what happened tonight at the Center.”

Mom works at the Center for Yogic Expression in Brentwood. It’s more than a yoga studio. It’s a movement. A community. A way of life. Forty other things, too, at least according to their brochure.

“It’s so exciting,” Mom says. “Maybe you’ll understand why I forgot about your conference.”

I doubt it , I think. Then I say, “Tell me everything, Mom.”

That earns me a huge smile. Mom loves it when she’s the center of attention.

“We had our monthly meeting, and they asked me to teach a prenatal class!” Mom says. “Can you believe it?”

“Is that good?”

“It’s amazing. So many things are coming towards me right now—in my personal life, at work. I’m very open to receiving gifts from the universe.”

“What’s happening in your personal life?” I crane my neck to look at Mom from the headstand.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be personal,” she says with a wink.

Does Mom have a new boyfriend? The idea makes my stomach turn. Mom isn’t known for her primo choices when it comes to love. Every few months she crashes and burns with some loser, and Sweet Caroline and I are left to pick up the pieces.