Earth Angel (16 page)

I saw now why I had failed with my first two missions. With the first I had tried to give money; with the second I had tried
to give romance. Neither was worthy. I had to give more; I had to give myself.

“Excuse me, Grace?” David said, climbing the first couple of steps.

I turned at the top of the stairs and looked down. “Yes?”

“Would you care to join us for some dinner? We have some godawful fried chicken, but Rachel’s got a kosher corned-beef sandwich
she’s anxious to share.”

“Corned beef sounds good. But I’d hate to take her food.”

“Believe me, she wants you to. There are six hundred thirteen commandments the Jews must follow and she tries to get in as
many as she can every day. You’d be doing her a favor.”

“You’ve taught your children well,” I said, taking a step down. “They’re nice.”

“That’s what a parent is, right? A full-time teacher.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” I descended another step.

Give yourself
.

“What?” I asked, stopping.

“I didn’t say anything.” He smiled. “Must be your childhood ghosts still haunting this house.”

“Must be,” I said. I started down the steps again to join him. Suddenly I was falling. I felt my elbow crack against the edge
of a step, my forehead strike the banister. My knee bounced off the wall. Then I was cartwheeling down the rest of the stairs
like a child across a well-mown lawn.

Parents are full-time teachers, David Payton had said. Maybe that’s why my child had aborted herself. What did I have to teach
her? Snippets of trivia about long-dead historical figures (all men) or the lowdown on the film highlights of Dan Duryea.
What could I teach her about love, about how to be happy? What did I know about such things?

My mother had been a constant source of misinformation—most of what she cheerfully taught me was completely incorrect—but
she had always had great enthusiasm for whatever she was talking about. I had only one clear memory of having been taught
anything by my father. I was twelve and my parents were having a big family reunion party. My father’s relatives drove into
town from New York City, all with cigarettes in their mouths and gold Stars of David around their necks. Most drove Cadillacs
or Lincolns, and when they parked on the street where we lived it looked like a funeral or a Mafia summit in the Catskills.
I remember being profoundly embarrassed at how stereotypically Jewish they all seemed. “What’s the matter,” I
wanted to ask them, “haven’t you seen
Goodbye, Columbus?
“ I just knew the neighbors were all huddled in their homes, peeking out at our house, saying, “Goodness, dear, that’s a lot
of Jews.”

That first night my father actually barbecued in the backyard. Afterward a bunch of them sat down to play poker. My mother
and father were both excellent poker players who joined in a weekly game and almost always won. That night was no exception.
I wandered around the house, refilling drinks, emptying ashtrays, answering everyone’s inquiry as to what grade I was in (seventh)
and what I wanted to be when I grew up (I told everyone a senator, but lately I’d been secretly toying with the idea of becoming
a policewoman like Angie Dickinson; somehow I figured they’d issue me all the equipment at once: badge, gun, breasts, legs,
big hair). Every once in a while I’d wander by the poker game and see more money stacked in front of my parents and less in
front of their relatives. Occasionally my father would notice me and say, “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” and my mother would
wink at me. That meant I should make another round among the other relatives and then come back.

Then suddenly about two in the morning, one of the cousins from New Jersey who’d been drinking heavily and losing heavily,
stood up abruptly, took out his wallet, and threw it at my dad. It hit my father on the cheek and bounced onto the table.
My father’s face turned red and I backed against the wall, terrified and thrilled at the same time. Dad had a temper, which
he rarely lost, but when he did he was capable of sudden violence. I’d seen him jump out of our car in the middle of traffic
and, all five feet of him, drag a driver twice his size out of the car in front of us for cutting him off. But that night
he didn’t do anything. He spoke to his cousin in Yiddish, and the others at the table nodded agreement and even added their
advice in Yiddish. The drunken cousin looked down, embarrassed,
mumbled something also in Yiddish, and staggered off to the spare bedroom to sleep it off. I remember being pressed up against
the wall, my whole body tingling with a strange sensation. I thought, for the first time in my life, “Who are these strange
people who speak this odd language that I don’t understand.” It was as if I’d stumbled onto a witches’ coven, as in
Rosemary’s Baby
, and at that moment I understood why gentiles thought Jews were mysterious creatures. So did I. I felt like an anti-Semite
and my body got hot with fear because I thought the others might magically sense my thoughts.

The poker game broke up after that and everyone returned to their motels. I was cleaning off the table, gathering the glasses
that all smelled strongly of booze. I lingered for a moment over the huge pile of dollar bills where my father had been sitting.
I started stacking them. My father came back into the room, a fresh cigarette wedged into his lips. “Bring the money here,
Season,” he said. I grabbed a handful of the dollar bills and followed him into the kitchen. Mom was lighting up a fresh cigarette,
too. Dad went to the sink and gestured for me to follow. He took the money from me, picked up a lighter from the counter,
and set the money on fire. He dropped the flaming bills into the sink. My mother watched without comment, puffing on her cigarette.

“You see, sweetheart,” my father said, “winning shouldn’t be that important to you. It’s not what you win that counts, it’s
what you
earn
. You know what I’m saying?”

Actually I didn’t. Those were perfectly good dollar bills which would have helped buy me the Jordache jeans with the horse
head on the pocket I’d been begging for for a month. “If it doesn’t matter, why didn’t you just give it back to Cousin Roger?”
I asked.

“That would insult him. A man must live with the consequences of his actions. He gambled, he lost. I gambled, I won. Doesn’t
matter what happens when you gamble. See?
That’s my point. With luck, it’s just fate, out of your hands. Don’t take credit for the good, don’t beat yourself up for
the bad. That’s why it’s important what you earn. That’s the difference between Jews and Christians. They gamble on grace,
we earn it.”

That was the most philosophical thing I’d ever heard my father say, up to that time or since. He was not a theologian by nature,
and when I asked him about it a couple of days later he’d forgotten what he meant and told me to quit nagging, go ask my mother.
He and my mother belonged to the local temple, but mostly for business contacts so they could get jobs catering other members’
weddings and bar mitzvahs and such. They’d forced me to go to Hebrew school for two years, but my insistence that the concept
of God didn’t make sense finally wore them down and they let me off the hook. Then, when it became more prestigious to bring
in caterers from out of town, like Philadelphia or Wilkes-Barre, they quit the temple anyway. After that the only time being
Jewish was brought up was when someone painted a swastika on the door of our deli or the local Jewish cemetery was desecrated.

But now here was my dad, burning money in the sink, acting like the great sage Rabbi Hillel preparing a Talmudic commentary.
He was grinning, perhaps from too much drink, or from the headiness of his sudden conversion. “I want you to understand this
lesson, daughter,” he said. He never called me daughter, but it had a biblical sound to it, which made me nervous. “Get me
more of the money. Your mother’s, too.”

“Hold on,” Mom said. “You want to burn your money, fine with me. You touch mine and you’ll burn in hell.” She winked at me
again and I knew she was joking.

“Season must learn this lesson,” he said. “Our daughter must be taught about being Jewish.”

“She knows enough about being Jewish. Right now she’s learning about too much schnapps.”

He shook his head, getting angry. “You don’t understand. You weren’t born Jewish. You’re not a real Jew.”

I backed up a couple of steps. This was not the kind of thing my mother ever let go. Many times she’d told me of the studying
and ritual bath she had to go through when she converted. I was prepared for her to slug him.

My mother blew out the smoke she’d just inhaled and slowly and carefully stubbed out her cigarette. She walked over to my
father, kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him. “Let’s go to bed.”

Whatever anger had been in my father drained from him at that moment and they went off to bed. My mother was speaking German
softly, my father was slipping his arm around her waist.

Many times I have thought of that night, though I have never understood which part had the most effect on me. Burning the
money was dramatic, though I have never burned money nor have I hated losing it any less. The theology was interesting, but
I pretty much don’t pay attention to that stuff anyway. I’m a physician. A child is sick, I make him or her better. That’s
my theology.

Maybe the part that affected me most was my mother slowly stubbing out her cigarette, kissing my father’s cheek, and taking
him off to bed.

Tim, if only I had kissed your cheek and taken you off to bed.

“W
HAT IF SHE SUES
?” J
OSH SAID
. “S
HE COULD SUE, YOU KNOW
. S
HE
could screw us royally.”

“She’s not going to sue,” David said.

Josh snorted. “I would. If I were her I’d sue the shit out of us.”

“If that’s what she wanted,” David said, “she could start in your room. Shit abounds.”

Rachel laughed. So did Josh. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh.

“Technically, she could sue,” Rachel said. Her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, as if she were considering taking my case.
“We invited her in. She fell down a flight of stairs in our house. She could claim negligence. The carpet on the stairs is
old, the banister’s a little wobbly. The insurance company would want to settle. Her little stumble down memory lane could
be worth fifty thousand dollars, at least.”

I was impressed with Rachel’s practicality but a little depressed that she thought me capable of such callousness. What had
she seen in me to make her judge me so harshly?

“Just because you’ve converted to Jewishness,” Josh said, “doesn’t make you a goddamned lawyer.”

“That’s an anti-Semitic remark. Not all Jews are lawyers or doctors or entertainers.”

“Yeah, you got some accountants in the woodpile, too.”

“You’re such a moron. Besides, it’s Judaism, not Jewishness. Tell him, David.”

David sighed. “Josh, you’re a Nazi dog drooling on the necks of the oppressed. Rachel, you’re a Jewish saint with a window
seat on the express train to heaven. Now go get me another bag of frozen vegetables and some Advil.”

“Where’s the Advil?” Josh asked.

David sighed with exasperation. “Where would you hide if you were Advil?”

“Medicine cabinet?”

“It’s worth a try.”

“You sure we shouldn’t call an ambulance?” Rachel said. “She looks kinda funny.”

Sure, I looked funny. I was wedged under a huge slab of ice, the frozen water buoying me upward, pinning me tighter against
the thick crusty surface. I clawed at the ice, trying to carve an air pocket. My fingernails split and tore away. Through
the frozen striations I could see them standing around above me, though their faces were blurred splotches. Why weren’t they
hacking me out?

“Josh, get the Advil, please,” David said. “And water.”

Josh shuffled off, mumbling.

“Grace, can you hear me?” David said.

I tried to tap my fingers on the ice, but they were frozen stiff. I couldn’t move them. I felt something nudge my leg and
I turned my head. Ice water filled my ears. I gasped at what I saw, and whatever air I’d stored in my lungs escaped in a fizzle
of bubbles. It was Emily, the daughter I had miscarried, bumping against my leg. She was older now, an eight-month fetus,
the age she’d have been if still in my womb. She floated hunched in her snail-like tuck, but somehow purposely propelling
herself along my leg. I turned for a better view and saw that she was pulling
herself behind the umbilical cord that was still attached to her. I looked down and saw the other end coming out from between
my legs. Emily was trying to get back inside me.

“Grace?” A warm hand pressed against my forehead.

I concentrated on the hand since it could only have reached me through a hole in the ice. I took a deep breath and shoved
up through the hole, shattering the ice with my face. Quickly I reached back for Emily but the umbilical cord had snapped
and was wrapping around her like an anchor chain. She was sinking down into the darkest black water, growing smaller as if
reversing her fetal growth as she sank. Just before she disappeared she tilted her head up toward me and it was Tim’s face,
shrunken like those shriveled apple witches. He winked and made kissing motions with his lips. Then dissolved in the icy murk.

“Grace? Come on, you’re almost back.” The warm hand squeezed my numb fingers.

My eyes fluttered and flipped open. David was hovering over me. He smelled of the ocean. A sudden cold gripped my shin and
I looked down expecting to see Emily clinging to my leg. But it was only Rachel laying a bag of frozen peas on the bare skin.
My pant leg was rolled up to reveal a swollen lump.

Still groggy, I reverted to my medical instincts and croaked, “X rays?”

“Well, our X ray machine’s on the fritz at the moment,” David said. “So I had to resort to my X ray vision. Nothing seems
broken, however, that’s lovely underwear you’ve got on.”

I smiled and felt the pain in my cheek. I winced and closed my eyes, assessing the medical damage. He had my bruised shin
iced and elevated, that was good. I flexed my toes on both feet, no noticeable spinal damage. I sat up. David’s hand was at
my back, steadying my ascent.