Chapter 23

                                    

                                              
Copyright (c) 2015 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
                          
All rights reserved.
                          


                          
The National Commission on Working Women reports that 80 percent of all working women are employed in low-paying, low-status jobs. – June 4, 1978
                          


                          
St. Louis 1978
                          
     My mother is coming this weekend to visit. To check on how we are surviving without a man in the house. Marcia, Leah, and I have been cleaning for days.
                          
     After the children are in bed I carry discarded toys up into the attic.  I'll donate the toys to the next rummage sale at our synagogue.
                          
     My grandmother's rocking chair sits in the middle of the space. I painted it white in a frenzy of motherhood. But I didn't prepare the surface correctly and the maple winks through in patches where the paint has chipped.
                          
     My grandmother died in that chair in her nursing home room.  She was speaking to my mother, reiterating for the umpteeth time her funeral arrangements, when she slumped over. "Give the chair to Jennifer," she said. Then she died.
                          
     Kenneth rang an hour ago. His wife is out of town, visiting her sister. Could he spend the night? I said no, I'm cleaning for my mother's visit. I would have said no anyway. I don't want the children to know I'm sleeping with someone – and a married someone at that.
                          
     Seated in the rocking chair I eye the ruins of my married life. Over in the far corner is the special cleaners box preserving my wedding dress. I won't let the girls wear the dress even if they ask. It didn't bring me good luck.
                          
     And here's the box of old photos my mother gave me after my grandmother died. My mother brought the box with her when she and my father first visited me here in St. Louis.
                          
     I lift off the top – the dust catches in my throat – and grab a fistful of faded black-and-white pictures. They are the formal studio ones taken in the early part of the century both here and in the Old Country. The names of the people are written on the back of each photo in my grandmother's European handwriting. 
                          
     On one photo her notations punch me in the face:  My sister Leah and her daughter Tamara and grandsons Reuven and Judah. Warsaw, 1937. Died in Auschwitz, date unknown.
                          
     I named Leah after this sister, while Marcia was named after Steve's maternal grandmother.  Laura had once asked if Jennifer was for Judith, my grandmother's name.  But as Ashkenazi Jews don't name after living relatives, I told her no.  My mother had just liked the name Jennifer.
                          
     The door chimes reach me in the attic. It can't be my mother. She's not due till tomorrow afternoon. I force myself out of the chair.
                          
     It's Kenneth.
                          
     "Surprise, surprise," he says. "I brought you something." 

                          
     He flits past me into the foyer. From above Marcia calls down, "Who's there, Mom?"
                          
     "Just someone delivering student papers," I call back.
                          
     Kenneth traps me against the flowered wallpaper. "I couldn't stay away," he says. His hands are on the zipper of my jeans.
                          
     I shove him away. "You'll have to leave. I told you not to come."
                          
     "You haven't seen my surprise."
                          
     He pulls a crumpled lavender silk nightgown from his jacket pocket.
                          
     I'm about to ask him if he got this from his wife's dresser.  But I hear Marcia coming down the stairs.
                          
     I push him towards the front door, stuffing the nightgown back in his pocket as he crosses the threshold.
                          
     He's too startled to say anything as I close the door in his face.
                          
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