Sputterpub's Blog

I try to observe all holidays. Religious, national, even commercial. I hear folks disparage Valentine’s Day, or Mother’s Day, as being promoted by retailers, but I don’t care. I think it’s nice, to take a May Sunday and make it about family.

My ancestors have different ideas about Mother’s Day. Neither my mom nor my grandma make a big deal out of it, but I just learned how unalike their personal attitudes are. Big surprise: Mom and Grandma don’t agree about much.

I always knew about my great-grandmother’s untimely death. Her name was Esther, and she came to America from Poland when she was 12. That was around 1902. She worked in a New York sweat shop to earn passage for her family. She slept in a corner of a cousin’s kitchen and spent her time cleaning the cousin’s house and cooking, when she wasn’t laboring for a pathetic garment industry wage. She married at the appropriate age, bore five live children and raised four of them to adulthood (my grandmother Miriam was the youngest), and died of a major heart attack when she was 60. She left four married children and seven grandbabies. My mother was then in utero.

The heart attack happened on Mother’s Day. My grandmother had just learned she was pregnant (with my mom) and Esther had arranged to accompany her to the first prenatal exam the following day. Esther wouldn’t let Miriam see her on Mother’s Day because the family was gathering at my great aunt’s and her baby daughter was sick. Esther took no chances with a pregnancy.

On the drive home from my great aunt’s house, my great grandfather crashed the car. The accident brought on the coronary event from which Esther didn’t recover. Late that Mother’s Day night, my grandmother lost her mom. Grandma always lit a Yahrzeit candle on the calendar anniversary (May 7). It wasn’t till two years ago that my grandmother told my mother the death occurred on Mother’s Day.

So Grandma had a mixed pregnancy with my mom. She was healthy and happy about the baby, but she was stricken with grief about losing her mother. She named my mother for her mother (Eve, with the same initial E and the same Hebrew name), and she raised my mother (and probably herself) under the banner of Esther’s perfection and tragically short life.

It really was short. Esther lived from 1890 to 1950. My grandmother Miriam was born in 1925 and is still going strong at 90. My mother Eve arrived in 1950 and at 66 she’s far younger-seeming than Esther ever was. Mom had me in 1976.

Esther was traditionally Jewish in the Ashkenazi way. She didn’t wear a wig and her marriage wasn’t arranged, but she kept Kosher, her first language was Yiddish, she was submissive to her husband, she lived for her children, and she was an encyclopedia of old-wives’ lines and superstitions.

Miriam was much more modern. Born in this country (the only one of Esther’s kids to be delivered in a hospital), Miriam was an American Jew. She understood Yiddish but spoke English. She tried shrimp and bacon in restaurants. She married a Jewish man less Yiddische than herself, bore three children, ran a Jewish household but only took the kids to temple on high holy days. She worshiped Esther’s memory like she was a saint. My mother Eve was Miriam’s only daughter, and Miriam filled Eve’s ears with tales of Esther’s selflessness and sayings.

Eve was second-generation American and acted it. She was raised in suburbs and attended college. My father converted to Judaism because it made more sense to him than his lukewarm Mormon heritage, and we didn’t have a Christmas tree in our house, but I think that was less about a religious decision than about Eve’s disdain for holidays, symbols, and rituals. My mother says they’re all forms of emotional manipulation. She abhors being told when to gather and what to feel. I’m her oldest. My brother is five years younger.

And then there’s me. I identify as a Jew, but I don’t look it. I inherited my father’s blonde/blue coloring and his Anglican last name. I married a Protestant man who’d attended Catholic schools. My husband was never observant, and what with being raised in the bay area and hooking up with me and my family, he is now more Jewish than anything else. Our three sons have Hebrew names in addition to their American handles, but they’re not circumcised and they haven’t seen the inside of a synagogue. But we love symbols and rituals. We do all the holidays. We’re an inclusive Jewish family.

My mother’s heritage is as much “Estherish” as Jewish. She heard stories about sainted Esther all her life. According to Miriam, her mother had the world’s biggest heart. She always did for others and never thought of herself. She rarely hugged her children but they all knew they were her sun and moon. She didn’t praise them to their faces but she wouldn’t allow others to criticize them. Over and over Eve heard her mother bemoan the fact that Eve never met Esther.

Funny how time is. Esther only lived 60 years. She’s been dead 67. But she’s still a vibrant member of Miriam’s family.

Mom and I have questions. Mom says her paternal grandmother was such a self-centered phobic bitch that she has no doubt she would have preferred Esther, but she’s always wondered what Miriam would have been like if she hadn’t lost her mother so young. If she hadn’t spent her whole adulthood amid the Esther legacy. Mom has told me things that cast a little shadow around my great grandmother.

Miriam was a lovely child and much younger than her siblings. In her orthodox family environment, she saw uncles who were never around women except relatives. When Miriam reported that one of those uncles showed her his penis, Esther didn’t go to battle for her daughter. She shushed Miriam. It happened again a little later, after a stranger exposed himself to 10 year old Miriam in the neighborhood park. Again Esther wouldn’t allow Miriam to give her details. She told the little girl to stay away from that park.

“So let me count,” Eve has said to me, more than once (Mom tends to repeat things. She says duplication is better than omission. But she’s also a story-teller, and she’s always trying out material). “So Esther didn’t hug her children or praise them to their faces. She didn’t support her little girl when Miriam was sexually approached/molested. She never stood up to a demanding husband – thus modeling a nasty form of submissiveness. Sure doesn’t sound like saintly behavior to me.”

A month ago, Mom and I took Grandma on a visit to see family. Miriam, Eve and I flew across the country to a cousin’s bat mitzvah in Richmond, Virginia. Grandma Miriam was the youngest in her family of origin, so she became an aunt at age 11. She’s still close with her nieces, and the bat mitzvah girl is the granddaughter of the oldest niece.

It was a lovely service. The Torah portion was from Leviticus, when Moses hands down the Kosher laws. The bat mitzvah girl told us that her household doesn’t keep Kosher, but that the passage really isn’t about the specific rules as much as it is about mindfulness in general. A sweet conceit, which was more than borne out when we got to the after-party. Featured food included a mountain of oysters, a pile of prawns, crab cakes, fried lobster pops, and pulled pork.

I savored the diversity along with the food. I was tickled to see that the family now includes Catholic cousins, Asian cousins: many more skin tones and symbols than in the past.

But the moment that really resonated for me was when Mom asked her oldest cousin about Esther. After all, Lydia is just 11 years younger than Miriam. She had 14 years of knowing Esther.

“So tell me about my maternal grandmother,” Mom asked.

Lydia looked receptive but confused. Mom said, “My mother has been telling me stories about Esther all my life. About how lovely and selfless she was. About how much I missed by never knowing her.”

Then Lydia seemed to look back into her own head for a moment. “Esther was nice,” she commented. “But you should have met my other grandma. Sophie.”

Wow. That put a whole new complexion on the subject. Especially when Mom asked Miriam who Sophie was and Miriam waxed lovingly about her. We learned that Miriam had to live with Sophie for a bit, between the time when her older sister and baby moved in with Esther during the war and when Miriam married. Sounds like Sophie was the sainted one.

That encounter took place a month before Mother’s Day. A few weeks before Eve told me that she secretly loves the holiday. She hides it from her mother – she’s always careful now to show respect for Miriam’s sadness – but Eve has appreciated Mother’s Day for 31 years.

See, Miriam and Eve each underwent hysterectomies when they were 35. Miriam’s was necessitated by a fibroid tumor the size of a grapefruit. Eve’s was more dangerous. She ruptured an ovarian cyst and then, unknown to her doctor, bled internally until her body had amassed a large hematoma that got infected. By the time the doctor opened her abdomen, there was little viable tissue for a clamp to grab. Eve survived but none of her reproductive organs could be saved. Poor Mom has a vagina that’s just for sex now; it leads nowhere.

She was in the hospital for two weeks. She was critically ill for much of that time. It was the morning of Mother’s Day when her last surgical drain was removed. She was alone that early morning, before visitor’s hours, and that’s when she cried tears of cathartic, powerful relief. That’s when she understood that she would survive the episode. It was almost like being reborn. Mom isn’t into restaurant meals or cards or flowers on Mother’s Day. But she always acknowledges it with gratitude.

Dana was cleaning up after her little dinner party. The cousins had already left, but Laura remained to help. Her husband was away on business and she had agreed to spend the night. It had been years since the sisters had an overnight together.

“Bring me a container for the leftover roast,” Dana said.

“What size?”

“What do you mean: what size? Just bring me a container! They’re all in the cupboard there.”

Laura suppressed a sigh of exasperation as she bent to the below-counter cupboard. Inside was a chaotic jumble of Tupperware, Glad products, and assorted containers in which guests had brought meal contributions over the years.

She tried again. “Dana. They make these things in different sizes for a reason.” She didn’t try to explain about surface area and oxidation and other scientific ideas her husband knew. Instead she considered how satisfying it was to find the exact right-sized container for its contents.

“I don’t think it matters that much,” Dana replied. She was looking at the leftover roast. Laura silently agreed that any small container would do, this time, but she wasn’t done with the subject.

“Remember when I smoked Winstons? There were twenty cigs in a pack. Of course. And usually when I bought them I’d get a fresh book of matches. Twenty little cardboard igniters in that too, and sometimes the matchbook cover showed the Winston logo. Well, when that happened, and someone asked me for a light, it threw me into a little tizzy. I so wanted to use the matches with the smokes (matching, as it were!), that usually I’d have a cig I didn’t want just to keep the count even.” She set a plastic container on the counter and placed the meat in it.

“Oh that’s beyond OCD,” Dana said. She loved Laura but she didn’t want to think back to that time. The sisters were estranged when Laura gave up smoking. They suffered a five year span of not speaking to each another.

“C’mon, D, you must share some of this quality. Doesn’t it give you a feeling of satisfaction when you’re at a cash register and the total allows you to use up the pennies in your purse?”

Dana turned from the sink then and looked open-mouthed at Laura. “I never noticed.” She ran water into the roast pan. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about pennies.”

Dana and Laura shared parents, blonde hair, blue eyes, and short stature. That’s about all they had in common. Dana was the pretty older sister and Laura was the smart one. Dana’s body was full-breasted and plump; Laura’s was athletic and firm. Laura had been the creative daughter; she still painted and wove. Dana’s family reputation was for intuitive understanding. As adults, Laura had been married for 35 years and had three sons. Dana was single.

None of those explained why only one of the sisters understood containers and organization. As they exchanged Tupper-words, Laura started developing a theory. Even though Dana was the natural counselor and consensus builder (her major had been sociology and her work experience was an assortment of nonprofit agencies and advocacies), it was Laura who developed theories about aptitudes and brains and relationships.

“I wonder if it has to do with the creative process,” she said as much to herself as to her sister. But Dana heard something. “Huh?” she asked from the sink.

“I know that picking appropriate containers sounds like the opposite of art. But when I’m creative, I’m not actually making anything. All of the components exist already. It’s really about choosing what goes next to what. Juxtaposition, you know? Making choices with integrity. Without affectation…”

Dana turned around then. The expression on her face was not warm. “Maybe. I’m not sure what you mean. Can we just finish up in here?”

“Oh shit,” Laura thought. Was Dana feeling inferior again? What was threatening about Laura’s idea? “So how are you doing?” she shot. “Are you missing Bill a lot?” Laura was not poking into a fresh wound. She knew her sister was heartsore, and she was trying to change the subject.

“I’m sad. That’s how I’m doing.” Dana toweled her hands. “Want a glass of something?” She hadn’t had a drink in over six months, but she still had a liquor cabinet. And there was half a bottle left from dinner. “What’ll it be? Water, wine, or something really hard?”

“Another wine.” Laura poured it herself. Dana opened a bottle of sparkling water. “I have octane.”

That took Laura a moment. “Oh.”

After a break of almost 30 years, Dana had rediscovered cocaine. Her old friend Mary had a regular supply and Dana had sampled it a month earlier. She liked it as much as when she was young and smoking Tareytons. She mooched lines from Mary a few times, then bought a gram for her own use.

She brought her little bottle to an upholstered chair and settled in. Laura took the adjacent chair and placed her stemless wine glass on the funky side table. That table was from their parents’ home, worn but indestructible. It was the one piece of Dana’s furniture that couldn’t be seen in a glossy catalog.

“How do you work this thing?” Laura was looking at the purple-trimmed clear coke container while she spoke. “I remember razor blades and $20 dollar bills and mirrors.”

“Silly – like this.” Dana took the bottle in hand and unfolded the little spoon from the screw top. She opened the vial, scooped out a bit of powder, and made it disappear up her left nostril. Then she refilled the spoon and held it under her sister’s nose. “C’mon. Plug up the other and snort.”

Laura took another hit on her own. She felt the nasal burn, the post-nasal drip, a frisson of something, and then she remembered that she always thought either the drug was overpriced or her system was obtuse, but she just didn’t feel much.

Dana snorted again and set the bottle on the table. “I really miss Bill. Of course.” They’d been seeing each other for over five years, once or twice a week, always at her place. That’s one of the disadvantages to adultery; they couldn’t go out together and they rarely saw one another on non-workdays. But they’d talked on the phone every morning. They’d exchanged email regularly. Dana knew the minutia of Bill’s life, and he understood hers. “Every time the phone rings at eleven, my heart bumps up a bit. That’s when he tended to call. Sometimes I really want him back.”

“Sounds like you could summon him,” Laura commented. She didn’t approve of the affair and didn’t want to see it start up again, the way it had the last two times Dana “discontinued” it, but they both knew the re-up ball was in Dana’s court.

“Yeah, probably. But the fact remains: it’s not enough for me. Ever since Dad died, I have too much time alone. Or maybe it’s my therapy: I’m better now, and aware that I deserve more than I’ve been getting. Probably both.”

“Funny thing about death. It seems to cause change.” Laura was referring to their uncle Leon’s demise, six years earlier. It was unexpected: an unlucky fall off his own roof that snapped his neck. Leon was their father’s baby brother – a fit 72 year-old at the time – and the accident devastated their dad. That was the event that brought the sisters together after five years of estrangement.

At that moment, Dana’s computer beeped about incoming mail. She didn’t hear it, because the machine was in her study and the sisters were in her living room. She didn’t notice Bill’s email till the next morning.

Ed had died. That was the subject of Bill’s correspondence. He explained that he wrote instead of calling because after their last breakup talk, Dana asked him not to call.

The email was not long but it was newsy. Ed died. The man was 74 but the circumstances were not normal. Accidental death. Ed who disliked travel had flown all the way to Indonesia on a second honeymoon with his second wife. Ed who liked activity went snorkeling in Bali while Maria sunbathed. And didn’t come out of the water. His body was found in a big tangle of kelp.

Bill wrote that he knew Dana would want to know.

She was stunned. Part of her mind grabbed at the idea that this news provided a reason to talk to Bill. Maybe to see him. Another part reeled in satisfied shame. She hated Ed. Loathed and detested him. She thought death became him. She knew she shouldn’t think that way.

Never had Dana felt lukewarm about Ed. She was charmed when she first met him. He was then almost 40, attractive, funny, friendly, working as a lawyer for the city. She was 31 and an incurable flirt. She supervised a clerical employment agency then and always stopped at the bar in her building lobby, between her stint in the office and her one-bedroom apartment. Ed and his friends were regulars there. Dana lived alone and enjoyed the company of others, so her one (sometimes three) martinis were as much about mingling as they were a mood-modifier.

Ed was a serial philanderer. He’d begun just after his honeymoon, having learned the tricks of the trade at his first job, mentored by older bad husbands, and his circle of men friends co-conspired and covered each other’s alibis. Dana was a promiscuous single blonde, buxom and boisterous. Their dalliance was inevitable.

They had fun in Dana’s apartment for several months. It was never serious, according to each of them and, while there was regular sex, it was more of a friendship than a romance. Dana felt no rejection when Ed moved on to the newest secretary in his office. She herself sampled a few of Ed’s friends before zeroing in on Bill, who became the love of her life: three on/off years at first and then resumption five years ago.

So there was nothing awkward or unnatural about introducing Laura to Ed back then. Laura was dissatisfied at home: bored with her husband and near-crazy with her son. The first year of motherhood had been blissful (kind of), but Vladimir was approaching the terrible two’s and Laura was feeling trapped.

Dana invited her sister to join her in the Tavern. And there introduced her to Ed. And even encouraged Laura to flirt, to enjoy the encounter.

Well. Laura did. And the chemistry between her and Ed proved irresistible to each of them. Laura had expected a drink and a little break from home. Dana had planned to give her sister a goose of grownup pleasure, but she half-expected Ed to follow her home for one of their (now rare) friendly tumbles.

Instead, Laura and Ed kissed, at the table. And kept at it like teenagers. Dana actually had to poke Laura’s shoulder to get her out of there.

The next morning she called her sister and told her, in no uncertain terms, that Ed was off-limits. She declared that it was uncool to hook up with a sister’s or best friend’s ex, ever, no matter how ex. According to Dana, that would be top-level slut behavior.

Laura disagreed. She’d already gone too far. She wouldn’t stop.

She didn’t stop. Laura and Ed saw one another for two years. Dana and Laura had a strained relationship then, but kept talking. They didn’t stop speaking for another two dozen years, when Laura mentioned something Ed had said about Dana back then, and one sentence led to another until there was a sororal outburst, at a restaurant table, followed by an inability to get their resentment/understanding cycles in sync so they could reconcile. Their uncle’s death five years after the breach brought them together again.

Dana knew she had to tell Laura about Ed’s death. As usual Laura had gotten up before her, but she went for a run after she made coffee. So Dana saw the email before she saw her sister.

In fact, she was thinking about an answer to Bill right then, a few sentences from her, followed by his replies, succeeded by a phone call, naturally leading to a private wake, producing…when she heard Laura return.

She shook the fantasies out of her head and rose from her chair. Laura was turning away from the refrigerator with a bottle of water in her hand when Dana entered the kitchen.

“Hey, Sis, I was just thinking about our container conversation last night,” Laura began. Her faced glowed from her run, and her speech was fast. “I think maybe you lack the cause-and-effect gene! I’m not saying that’s bad. Just weird. You have a different perspective than mine, and…”

“Laura.” Dana stopped her. “I have news.” Dana discarded her own little cause/effect fantasy about Bill and announced “Ed is dead.”

Laura got it. She didn’t ask “Ed who?” She said “Dead? How?”

“Accidental, according to Bill. He drowned in Bali.”

“Ed? In Bali?” For all of his gregariousness, both knew Ed had never been an easy traveler. But he’d finally left his wife of 40 years and married a younger woman he met on Match. Maria was from Italy; some travel was required. Apparently he’d taken to it. Enough to get to die in Bali anyway.

“He drowned snorkeling near kelp. That’s all I know”

The sisters settled at the kitchen table, with mugs of hot coffee. They still didn’t agree about Ed. Dana considered him the most despicable person she’d ever known. As far as she was concerned, he was a hound, sexist, vile, mean, and dishonest. Laura still had room in her heart for him. She didn’t admire him, but she knew he wasn’t evil. And she was pretty sure he hadn’t been lying when he told those old stories about Dana. The picture she had of that way-back time didn’t have Ed leaning forward and regaling his buddies with dirt about her sister; that would be girl-style gossip. Instead it contained snickers, non-denials, shades of boy-grossness more careless than malicious.

But Laura has learned not to contest Dana’s impressions about Ed. She’s had put those memories in a Ed-sized mental box, selected like a coffin to fit.