A Castle in Brooklyn(32)

“Mommy, am I going to die?”

Of all the questions her child could have posed, Esther thought, this was one that she was completely unprepared for.

“Gary, oh Gary, why would you even be thinking of such a thing?”

The boy only stared up at her, his lip quivering as if he were about to cry anew. She wrapped him in her arms.

“Of course, you are not going to die,” she assured him, as she inhaled the scent of her son, a mixture of chocolate candy and sweat. She stroked his hair, which had just begun to lighten with the new season.

“Tell me, are you thinking such things because of what happened two years ago? Because of your zayde Boris?”

He pulled back from her and shrugged.

Children are such funny creatures, Esther thought. Gary had barely reacted to Boris’s sudden death; he hadn’t even shed a tear. He was only six years old then, and she had considered him too young to comprehend it all.

“Gary, look at me,” she said, tipping his chin with her finger so that his eyes were directly in line with her own. “Your zayde Boris was very sick and very, very old. You are a young boy with many, many more years ahead before you can think about dying.”

“But I don’t want to die ever!”

“My baby, please listen to your mother,” she began, trying to find the right words as she spoke. “You do not need to worry about this, I promise you. The only worries you should have are to get a good grade on tomorrow’s spelling test and how to earn your next badge for Cub Scouts. That’s all. Trust that Mommy and Daddy will always take care of you. And so will God.”

She moved toward him again then and felt his body relax as she encircled him in her arms.

“I love you so much, my baby,” she murmured in his ear, and then tucked the blanket tight around him as he rested his head on the pillow.

As she closed the door behind her, Esther didn’t worry so much about what Gary had confided in her, but rather her own words. Would the trust he had in her and Jacob be enough to quell her child’s fears? Would trust in God be enough? She realized then that her son’s words had matched her own unspoken fears, the fears that, now that she was a mother, she would always keep to herself. And again, she thought only about how much she loved this boy. And how she could never allow herself to think of the void in her life again, the missed opportunities, the children yet unborn.

Esther followed the aroma of baking raisin bread down the stairs and went into the dark kitchen, where she waited for the ding that would signal the end of the cooking cycle.

But that night, her cheek pressed next to the soft cotton of Jacob’s T-shirt, Esther found it difficult to fall asleep. While her body was steeped in exhaustion, her mind was working overtime. Gary had planted a seed in her mind, and now as she lay staring into the shards of moonlight against the ceiling, she recalled the last time she’d spoken with Boris, the last time she saw his hands one atop the other, forever in death.

It was an uneventful conversation after her mother had handed the receiver over to Boris, prodding him to say hello.

“How are you feeling, Papou?” she’d said, half listening as she washed out a dish of applesauce.

“Okay,” was the curt reply.

“Would you like to say hello to your grandson?” She knew she could always get an animated response from Boris when it came to Gary. Before he could answer, she stretched the extension cord as much as she could, bringing it into the living room. She waved to her son, who was seated on the rug counting his baseball cards.

“Come quick, Gary. Zayde’s on the phone.”

Gary took the receiver from her hand and listened as his grandfather posed the usual questions. How are you? How’s school? What’s new? And although the answers were always the same (Fine. Fine. Nothing.), Esther knew that just speaking with the child could lift Boris’s spirits. The conversation always ended the same way.

“Do you know that you are my best boy?”

“Thank you, Zayde.”

Gary handed the receiver back to Esther before plopping back down on the rug.

“Papou?”

“What a special boy you have!”

Esther smiled as she dried the dish and placed it in the cabinet.

“Thanks, Papou, but are you sure you’re okay? Mommy says that you’re not eating well. You barely ate supper tonight. And she made mushroom-and-barley soup, your favorite!”

She heard him bristle over the phone, picturing the scowl on his face.

“So what? If I’m not hungry, do I have to stuff myself? Did she tell you what else she cooked? Chicken. Boiled chicken and a potato. Every night the same thing.”

“Mommy’s cooking the foods that are best for you. We don’t want you to get sick.”

“You don’t want. Humph. Everyone thinks they know what is best for me. I’m old enough to know what’s best for me. And if I tell you I am not hungry, then I’m not hungry!”

Esther knew better than to insist.

“Okay, Papou, just be well.”

“You too. You and your son and your husband. That’s all I care about.”

After hanging up, Esther joined her son in the living room. She picked up a copy of Life Magazine and perused the glossy pages, thinking how very difficult all this must be for her mother. By the time she had tucked Gary into bed that night, she had forgotten all about the conversation with her father. She remembered it only the next day when she got the phone call.