Careers for Women by Joanna Scott

Author:Joanna Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

Sonia’s mother always pushed to the front of the crowd no matter what. Once there, she set Sonia on her feet and held her hand tight. The parade was approaching. Sonia couldn’t wait! What were people shouting?

“The Port Authority has no authority to take away our livelihoods!”

“Stop the demolition!”

“Stop the trade center!”

“Stand up for the little guys!”

“Save our neighborhood!”

“Save our shops!”

Remember the photograph of the funeral for Mr. Small Businessman? Well, here was Mr. Small Businessman himself, smartly dressed and laid to rest against the satin cushions of a very fine oak casket on loan for the day.

A man in a box. What did it mean? Sonia thought he looked like a girl. Maybe he was a girl. A wide-eyed girl dressed up as a man, lying in a box. Boxes were for funerals. Funerals were for dying. What was dying? It was not coming back again—everyone knew that, even Sonia. The girl-man in the box was not coming back again. As soon as people said good-bye, she-he would be taken away and put in the ground. There would be dirt over the box. This was a parade for saying good-bye.

Ta-dum meant “good-bye.”

Good-bye meant forever.

Sonia, not quite four and with obvious developmental impairment, wasn’t stupid. Far from it. She had an active brain and could make leaps impossible for other children her age. With a running start, her thoughts jumped and flew from the casket containing Mr. Small Businessman to the empty bed where Mrs. Clayborne wasn’t. Right then, she fathomed the eternity of Mrs. Clayborne’s absence, felt in her heart the truth of death and understood within the fuzzy sphere of her consciousness the sadness of life.

Poor Mr. Small Businessman.

Poor Mrs. Clayborne.

Little Sonia shivered, though her mother didn’t notice. Little Sonia gripped her mother’s hand, determined never to let go.

Remember those two shadows, one bigger than the other, in the photograph of the funeral on Radio Row?

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