Elisa Albert - After Birth

They have “forgiven” us for not having Walker circumcised, though Sheryl recoils from diaper changes as though in protest.

Sheryl runs an organization that promotes Jewish books. Books about Jewish mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, reclaiming Yiddish, moving to Israel. Bread-and-butter books about the one and only genocide, my favorite of which is, I kid you not even a little, The Holocaust Survivors’ Cookbook . Books about children of Survivors and books wondering at the emotional well-being of children of children of Survivors. Books about Jews who marry non-Jews, Jews who abhor the marrying of non-Jews, Jews ambivalent about being Jewish, people or entities accused of not liking Jews and/or Israel. Humor books about Jews who undereat/overeat, Jews who date online. Swoony debut novels of mystical redress for gassed lovers. Literary doorstops in which unlikely entities — bowling, Zionism — are united in metaphor. Post-apocalyptic sagas in which there is Only! One! Jew! Left! In! The! World!

It’s all a little up its own butthole. And the thing is, Sheryl hasn’t read a whole lot of like anything else. I mean, lady’s not so well acquainted with Malamud or Bellow. She doesn’t know who Gertrude Stein is. She’s never heard of Paul Celan. She often gets fiction and nonfiction confused. When Philip Roth won the Pulitzer, she shook her head vehemently: self-hater .

My father is Ophthalmologist to the Stars. Immediately (and I do mean immediately) after my mother died he married a social-climbing German émigré ten years his junior with a thing for Jews (o-ho, they love us now, don’t you know), but that ended within a year when he realized he had married a social-climbing German émigré fourteen years his junior with a thing for Jews. And of course it turned out Astrid wanted to have children, whereas I guess old Norman felt he was done with the having of children. Astrid spoke of converting to Judaism but made no progress toward this end. She had the sharpest jawline I’ve ever seen. We didn’t have much in common, Astrid and I, though she was given to offering me stagy hugs when my father was around. My father, the blind ophthalmologist.

She hates me , I once heard Astrid say, weeping, through the wall.

Give it some time, darling.

No, Norman. She hates me, Norman. She hates me.

I was fifteen, glad my mother’s whole dying rigmarole was over with, ready to move on, ready for life to begin. I didn’t hate Astrid. Hate requires love. Also, hello, classic stepparent mistake: it’s not about you .

Then, bam , a matter of months after Astrid disappears, Norman runs into a woman he remembers vaguely from high school in the Bronx, and wow, they’ve reconnected and hey, isn’t it amazing how life brings you back around to people and Arlene’s separated with a sixteen-year-old daughter, Lindsay. They took us to lunch at Rumpelmayer’s in the spring. Seriously, I shit you not at all: Rumpelmayer’s . For ice cream sundaes with cherries on top, though we were both already wearing tampons, and Lindsay was rehearsing her first fellatio.

I like your sweatshirt , she said.

The translation of which, if you aren’t fluent in Girl, is: I won’t try to ruin your life if you won’t try to ruin mine.

Thanks. Cool shoes.

Deal.

Arlene and Norman beamed, pretended to examine their menus. That love story lasted about six months before Arlene decided to get back together with her husband, Lindsay’s father. Lindsay said they pretend the whole thing never happened.

Then came a few years of the saddest dating you’ve ever seen. Then the Internet came along and at last he found Sheryl. The Internet! Palace of miracles. They seem happy. I’m glad. She’s got two greasy forty-something sons in Westchester I’ve met like three times total; I get their wives and kids mixed up. One’s Lauren, one’s Fiona. And they have little Cayden Hayden Jaden Braedons.

Sheryl insists they get on the road before dark. Sheryl hates coming up here, hates driving, is convinced that driving in the dark is akin to putting a loaded gun in your mouth.

Love you, Daddy.

Think about Thanksgiving.

I will.

Maybe we’ll come up next weekend.

No, Norm, dinner with Jody and Harry next weekend.

Tomorrow, incidentally, is seventeen years since we buried my mother. My father doesn’t mention it. I can’t tell if he thinks about it and won’t talk about it or if in fact he doesn’t think about it at all. And I don’t say anything about it either, so.

You okay? Paul asks. Unspooling floss. He knows he’s required to ask when he senses that I am, in fact, not. It’s sort of cute, how jumpy and tentative he gets when he has to inquire about my emotional state, like I’m the possible explosive device and he’s the military German shepherd.

I spit toothpaste into the sink. Anniversary.

It’d be creepy if he kept track, but I’m weirdly hurt he’s unaware. Comes around every year, and we’ve been together for what, now, three? It’s like, don’t make me say it, okay? Just stick your proverbial tit in my proverbial mouth, make me feel better. Curl up next to me like a faithful pet, stay close, breathe. Tell me a joke, bring me chocolate and some tea, kiss me, rub my back, make me laugh, wrap your arms around me good and tight, shut up and stay close.

It dawns on him. Your mom . He approaches with his arms open. Oh, babe .

It’s fine , I say, because it’s not like I’m reminded she’s dead or newly sad she’s dead or anything as simple as that. She’s always dead, and time does a pretty good job on whatever the hell that means. It’s more like I get yanked back into the shit, forever eleven, twelve, thirteen, caught in the fray. Not logical. No explaining it.

It’s a spiral , I tell him. It’s the eye of the tornado. It’s time and space inverted in a nightmare. It’s being trapped in a mine.

Of course he doesn’t get it. How could he? His hundred-and-two-year-old grandfather just got upgraded to the wing of the nursing home from which you leave in a bag, and that’s the worst of it in his family so far.

He gives me that look, the one he always gets just before he suggests I go get a massage or treat myself to a day of galleries and boutiques in Hudson or maybe it’s time to see someone, Ari; maybe you need some help .

Useless.

Wonder if Mina’s given birth. Maybe I’ll knock on her door with a plate of baked goods — vegan pear almond cinnamon, say, though I’ve never successfully baked jack in my life. She’ll be in early labor, dancing, some Neil Young on, sage burning, a party, a happening, her friends over, a circle. Raft of women, Mina in the middle, and they’ll invite me in, tell me to stay, and help, join the circle. We’ll move together around her in some primal dance called forth from anonymous foremothers, the ones who came before the ones who came before the ones who came before.

We’ll calm and soothe her— mmm-hmmm, yes , we’ll say, yes, yes, good, good —hold her all the way through, share in the sweat and strain and glory. Unwavering, unflinching, rooted, brave. We’ll accomplish the impossible act and emerge sisters.

Can’t sleep. Raccoon or squirrel or whatever is moving around in there, scratching at the insides of our walls. Thump, knock, thump .

Kind of silly to keep pretending I have a dissertation in the works. Anything at all in the works.

My mother’s mother was prone to miscarriage. She had a bunch, I don’t know how many. More than a few. Maybe it was genetic, maybe it was war trauma, maybe it was psychic, maybe the Good Lord in His Infinite Wisdom simply did not want her bearing children, not after what she had been through, what she had survived.