The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

Author:Gwendolen Gross
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307395146
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2007-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

January

13

Amanda

At the beginning of January, we drove to my mother’s apartment in Cambridge for a late Chanukah dinner. Since she’d moved from the big house in Auburndale, I’d always felt uncomfortable in her space, and the feeling intensified when I was there with Malena. Out the huge cold windows, I could see the Charles River lined with naked trees. Traffic on Storrow Drive hummed by, and the sky and river were the same gray. The kitchen was marble; the toilets were faux marble, and the bathroom fixtures real brass: furnishings my father would’ve felt uncomfortable around, until he remarried into money. The floors were clean wide oak, the tables sharp-cornered glass; there was nowhere to safely rest the baby. My mother’s couch sported thin cream-colored wool on a dark mahogany frame. It bruised me as I sat, and I couldn’t look up for the intense halogen track lights that broke the room into universes with tiny unbearable suns.

My mother, who had let my father do most of the cooking when they were still married, made beets and brisket. She bought the rest of the Chanukah items from a fabulous gourmet shop in Porter Square, except the because-you-missed-Thanksgiving, out-of-season strawberry-rhubarb pie, which my sister Jane and Cornelius made together, an event I could hardly imagine. Once Aaron and I had cooked together, but now the idea was laughable. Who’d hold Malena? Who’d be able to stay standing long enough to roll a crust? The edges were meticulously crimped and Jane’s hair smelled of coconut shampoo and sleep when I hugged her.

This is my family, I thought, sitting at the table with an unfamiliar ornate crystal goblet in my hand. The wine tasted rich and good—just a few sips, I promised myself (and Aaron, who had developed an annoying habit of mentioning how much I liked to “get the baby sauced” whenever there was alcohol in our midst) as we toasted another year.

“To possibilities,” my mother said. I looked at my husband and daughter and felt right and proud.

“Can you take her now?” Aaron asked. He started leaning Malena on my shoulder before I could answer. She coughed a little white blotch onto my black sweater.

I watched Aaron spooning kugel into his mouth and envied his taste buds the little burned bits.

“So, darling, you know I’d have you here for a while, what with your disaster and all,” said my mother. She paused for a big mouthful of latke. Sour cream. Applesauce. I wanted to eat, but all I’d had time for in my baby-free shift was that single sip of wine and one forkful of beets. I tried to hold Malena and reach the brisket at the same time. Impossible. I managed a big wad of bread but swallowed too fast and felt the lump, an antelope in an anaconda’s belly. I was a slob for having hunger.

“Oh, or we could have you.” Jane’s face was rosy. She held Cornelius’s hand under the table; I could tell from the way her body overlapped his.

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