My Grandmother's Braid by Alina Bronsky

Author:Alina Bronsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2020-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

LITTLE UNCLE

It wasn’t the sound of a baby screaming that woke me, because, in my deep sleep, I just incorporated the screaming into something unrelated to me, like the static from the television next door, on the other side of my thin wall. It was the much softer hissing of my grandmother that woke me with a start. I sat up in bed immediately, rubbed my eyes, and let myself fall back onto the pillows once I’d remembered that it wasn’t due to me this time. For outsiders the sound might have seemed threatening, but I knew the differences in the noises my grandmother made.

“Shshsh,” she’d say persistently and affectionately while swaying gently back and forth on the chair. She’d thrown a scarf over the lamp on the nightstand, which did dull the light but also cast spooky shadows on the wall. The milk gurgled from the bottle, the baby sighed. I closed my eyes.

“Good boy,” purred my grandmother. “No need to cry so loudly, you see you’ve woken Maxi. Maxi needs to go to school in the morning so he doesn’t stay so stupid. You’re a big boy, you’re seven months old now, you’ll go to school, too, and bring the best grades home to old Margo.”

I was no longer awake when she went back to the couch. The baby still slept in a cardboard moving box that served as a provisional bed for him. Grandfather wasn’t there.

“Back at the construction site, the wretch,” murmured Grandmother. “Takes every job just to get out of the house. As soon as the baby arrives the wife’s no longer any fun, eh?”

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