Chapter 17 Poppy #4
Sylvia shook her head. What was this about a free man? What kind of cockamamie story? She turned to Debra. “It’s just not my father’s name.”
“What can you do?” said Debra.
Ah, you understand, Sylvia thought. You understand everything.
—
There were a few bare tables set up in the Social Hall. Doughnuts and boxes of coffee. Meanwhile, Heather disappeared to nurse the baby in the temple library.
Sylvia did not comment. She did not criticize at all—but she would not touch anything.
She watched Richard gobble up three doughnuts, one after the other, while his friends joked about how he’d been on the verge of fainting.
I wasn’t on the verge. I was all right, he insisted.
No, you weren’t, they told him. You were shook!
We were getting ready to scrape you off the floor.
“It was good of you to come,” Sylvia told her niece Wendy. “It was good of you to represent the family.”
Immediately, Sylvia’s niece embraced her. Her curly hair was long and gray, her body soft. Wendy had always been a hugger. Even now, in middle age, she remained affectionate, unlike others.
“Of course!” Wendy said. “I’m so happy to be here!” And she did look happy—until Sylvia asked, How is your mother?
“Well—” Wendy said.
“Is Helen sick!” Unconsciously, Sylvia clasped her hands together.
“No,” said Wendy. “She’s fine. The same as ever.”
“Thank God!” said Sylvia. “I sent her messages, but she never answered.”
Wendy sighed.
Sylvia asked, “Is something else the matter?”
“No,” said Wendy. “I’m just sad for you guys.”
“I reached out!” said Sylvia.
“I know.”
“She told you? What did she say?”
In that undecorated Social Hall, the friends were all departing. Debra and the girls were cleaning up, consolidating doughnuts into two large boxes. “She said she’s happy for you,” Wendy told Sylvia.
“Really?” Sylvia said. But she didn’t know what that meant without the tone of voice. Had there been a hint of joy, or had Helen been long-suffering? She could imagine Helen looking balefully at Wendy. “What else?”
“She sent a present.”
Of course, thought Sylvia. Helen always sent a gift. The most beautiful things. Plush elephants. Wooden trains. She remembered every child’s birthday.
“Let me take you to lunch,” Sylvia told Wendy.
“Good idea. Let’s find some real food,” said Lew.
“Come to our place!” Richard was stepping up at last, fortified with coffee.
“I’ll take you,” Debra said. Sylvia and Lew and Wendy and the girls piled into Debra’s minivan, and she drove through the snow. Sylvia hoped that she would stay, but heroic as she was, Debra had her limits. She dropped off the girls and drove away.
Sophie unlocked the door because they had arrived before Richard and Heather and the baby.
Was his name really Charlie? How could they?
And it was the same name as his Great-Uncle Charles.
Had they thought of that? It was bad luck to name a child for a living relative.
Sylvia would have warned Richard if she’d had the chance.
She would have stopped him—but now it was too late.
The girls bounded upstairs, and Wendy followed, brushing snow from her guitar case. Once inside, Sylvia saw a bouncy seat and several boxes blocking the entrance to the kitchen. She felt a little shiver as she read the return address on each. Three boxes. Four! All from Helen.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” said Richard as he burst through the door, carrying the car seat. There was the tiny baby fast asleep—his soft cheek resting on the seatbelt. A crocheted blanket trailed onto the floor, and Sylvia tucked it in immediately.
“Oh, this is beautiful.” She looked at the white stitches, fine as lace.
Heather said, “Wendy crocheted it.”
“We’re taking lunch orders,” Lew announced. “We’ve got one eggplant, two meatball subs, two house spaghetti.”
“Four boxes from my sister!” Sylvia told Richard.
“What do you want, Grandma?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia said.
“Get her the Cobb salad,” Lew told Sophie, who was placing the order on her phone.
Sylvia asked Wendy, “What did she send?”
“Let’s open them!” Richard was in an expansive mood. “Lily, get me the utility knife.”
“Be careful,” Sylvia said automatically.
“Last call,” said Lew.
“I’ll have the eggplant parm,” said Wendy.
“Me too,” said Heather.
“Okay, Grandpa, just give me your credit card,” said Sophie.
Lew said, “And eight cannoli.”
“They must be books,” said Richard. “The boxes are so heavy.”
“Then it’s a lot of them,” Heather said, a little nervously.
Richard was slicing through the packing tape. “Yup.” He drew out The Adventures of K’tonton: A Little Jewish Tom Thumb.
“I love that book,” said Heather.
Richard pulled out Tales of King David and then Tales of King Solomon. Ten and a Kid. Five hardbound volumes of All-of-a-Kind Family.
“Oh wow!” said Heather.
Richard handed her What the Moon Brought.
“That’s not even in print!” said Heather.
There were Yiddish folktales, and The Wise Men of Chelm.
There was an entire box of children’s biographies.
Pattern for a Heroine: The Life Story of Rebecca Gratz.
Embattled Justice: The Story of Louis Dembitz Brandeis.
Richard pulled them out one after another.
Henrietta Szold. Albert Einstein. Sholom Aleichem.
Lillian Wald. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Moe Berg.
“These are incredible,” said Heather.
“We’ll have to buy a new bookcase,” said Richard.
Sophie was the one who caught on first, because she remembered seeing the books in Brookline. She turned to Wendy on the couch and said, “They’re from your house, aren’t they?”
Wendy nodded. “They were ours. They belonged to Pam and me.”
And Sylvia thought, Of course Helen had done this. Sending her daughters’ books to Richard’s son. A gift and a reproach.
“But if they’re yours!” Heather told Wendy. “We would never take them from you and Pam.”
“We don’t need them,” Wendy said.
Heather said, “Seriously, Charlie shouldn’t have all these.”
Wendy looked at the baby and said, “He should have everything.”
How is it, Sylvia thought, that all my sister’s sweetness went to you? How are you the best part of Helen? Wendy was gentler, kinder, and a better knitter, to be honest. “You crochet as well as Grandma Lillian,” Sylvia said.
“Really?” Wendy reddened with pleasure.
Sylvia smiled, and then suddenly she felt lightheaded. “Oh, my goodness.”
“What’s wrong?” Richard asked.
“Nothing. I feel a little dizzy,” Sylvia said. “Don’t worry. I’m just hungry. That’s all.”
“Didn’t you eat anything at the temple?”
“There was nothing there,” Sylvia said—not in a judgmental way, just as a matter of record.
“That’s not true,” Richard said.
“You know I don’t eat doughnuts in the morning.”
“Oh, so you admit there was food.”
“Richard, we could have hired a caterer. I would have organized it,” Sylvia said, although she was officially not saying anything.
Lew lifted his hand to stop her. “That doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“We have some doughnuts left,” Richard said.
“No thank you,” Sylvia said, although she didn’t feel well, and lunch was taking so long.
By the time the food arrived, everyone was so hungry they would have eaten their sandwiches like wolves straight from the wrappers, except that Sylvia insisted on plates, and place mats, and proper napkins.
The cannoli were the best part. Lew had one, and Heather ate two.
Her parents called, and in her effusive way, Heather exclaimed, “I miss you so much!”
Meanwhile, Lily asked Wendy if she could try playing her guitar.
Wendy showed her how to pick out “Baby Mine” and Sylvia watched them croon to the baby nestled in his car seat.
Morris? Charlie? He didn’t know his name.
He had no knowledge of injustice or snowstorms, rifts or gifts.
Not yet. He did not know all the ways that you could hurt, and all the ways that you could love. Eyes shut, he was breathing softly.