Looking for Me (4 page)

 

And I don't know why,
but she starts telling me
this story that I never heard before
about Bubby Etta,
about how she divorced Mom's father
and married Jacob,
about how she put Mom in a baby basket
and left her on Mom's father's doorstep
in Russia,
while Bubby Etta sailed for America
with her new husband, Jacob,

 

and promised to send for Mom
as soon as she had the money for a ticket,
but it took thirteen years
before Bubby sent the ticket.

 

That's
when I make up my mind
to stop talking to Bubby Etta
for
at least
thirteen years.

After school the next day
I'm on my way past
Bubby Etta's house
on Baltimore Street.

 

I think I smell her chicken schmaltz soup
with pieces of challah floating in it
that she makes special for me
when I stop by,

 

or maybe she's baking her pirogen
with raisins and nuts,
soaked in so much honey
that when I take a bite,
it drizzles down my chin.

 

She's probably wearing her housedress
that looks like a flower garden,
and if I went inside,
I bet she'd wrap me in her hugging arms
the minute she saw me.

 

I'd stay in those arms
for a while,
since it's hard to get hugs in my house.

 

Then she'd want to know all about
what I've been doing,
and she'd listen hard,
like I was the only grandchild she had.

 

I'd talk for a while
because good listeners
are hard to find in my house.

 

But I won't stop in
on Baltimore Street
today.

 

No.
Today
I'll walk right by.

When I finally get home,
my head still filled with thoughts
of all I'm missing at Bubby's,
I see a sign posted in front
of our row house—
AUCTION.

 

I go inside to ask Mom what it means,
and she tells me
that our house will be sold
because Dad loaned some money
to Bubby Etta's husband, Jacob,
and he couldn't pay Dad back.

 

“How can we lose our house
just because Zayde Jacob
couldn't pay Dad back?”
I ask.

 

Now I'm even madder
at Bubby Etta.
First she leaves Mom in Russia
and now her husband
leaves
us
without a house.

 

My insides feel like I swallowed
a whole bucketful of needles,
and I try not to cry.
“Where will we live?” I ask Mom.
But I don't get any answers.

Dad writes a letter
to President Roosevelt,
asking for his help.

 

And I start picturing all of us kids
being sent to an orphanage
or sleeping in the diner.

 

So I go inside and start praying
as hard as I can
that we'll get to keep our house.

 

I never prayed for anything before,
but this sure is worth praying
my heart out for.

It's only been ten days
since Dad sent the letter
and I prayed my heart out,
so I don't know
who answered our prayers first,
God or the president,
but when I get home from school today,
the auction sign is gone
and the house I've lived in
my whole entire life
is still ours.
I feel tons lighter
and want to hug and kiss somebody,
maybe even President Roosevelt,
who has become my family's
hero.

When Mom gets home from work,
before she starts cooking dinner,
she takes me aside.

 

“Bubby Etta tells me
you haven't stopped by
to see her lately,” she says.
“I don't want to see her,” I say.
“She left you in Russia,
and Zayde Jacob almost
left
us
without a house.”

 

“Edith, you must stop
being mad at Bubby Etta,” she says.
“But how could she leave you behind?”
I ask,
getting mad all over again.

 

“I was a baby, too little to travel.
Many making that journey
died on the way,” she says.
“Bubby did the best
that she could.”

 

“Would you ever leave me behind?”
I ask Mom.
“I would never
leave any of my children
behind,” she says.

 

And I believe her.

Today I take the long way home
so I won't have to pass
by Bubby Etta's house
since I'm still not
ready to forgive her.

 

When I get home,
Melvin runs to greet me,
his eyes as wide as potato latkes.
He grabs my arm with his sticky hands.

 

“Come 'ere!” he yells
as he pulls me toward the parlor.
“What is it, Melvin?” I ask.

 

Then I hear a tiny voice cry out,
“We're here inside!”
“Where?” I call back.

 

“In dere,” Melvin says,
pointing to the folded-up bed,
and all I see sticking out...
is Jackie's puny head.

Lenny, Sol, and Jack
said Mom left them sleeping
on the sofa bed,
or so she thought,
and ran to the store.

 

But after she left,
they started to bounce
and bounce
and bounce some more.

 

Then the bed closed up
and they were stuck
until I came home
and changed their luck.

If a sofa bed swallowed
me
up
like a hungry tiger,
would anyone care?

 

With twelve kids to look after,
would Mom and Dad notice?

 

Would
anyone
notice
if I wasn't there?

Since it's so cold outside,
I don't want to take the long way home,
so I stop by today
to warm up a little,
but really to ask Bubby Etta how
she could have left Mom in Russia
for so many years.

 

She tells me that she tried
to bring her over sooner
and that it hurt bad in her
kishkes
to be so far away from her.

 

She says she saved the money
people gave her
for bringing their babies
into the world
so she could bring her baby
to America.

 

“My husband,
he used that money to bet on horses,”
she says,
“but he always lost,
and that's why it took so long
to buy your mother's ticket.”

 

So
it was really
my
step-zayde
Jacob's fault!
I never liked him
anyway.

Mom says Rosh Hashanah
is the gift of a new start for each one of us
and that we need to think hard
about the bad things we've done all year.

 

I bet every year Bubby Etta thinks about
what she did a long time ago—
leaving Mom in Russia.
And I hope Zayde Jacob thinks about
how it was his fault
Mom couldn't come here sooner.

 

But I have to think about what I've done.
So for starters,
I think about how
I let the ice pan overflow
so many times
and threw those greasy peanut butter balls
against the new wallpaper
and especially
how I slapped Annette so hard
it left a mark.

 

Mom says we need to
tell the people we've hurt
that we're sorry
and promise to do better
in the new year.

 

She says that on Rosh Hashanah
God hears our apologies
and decides what will happen to each of us
in the coming year.

 

So I'd better hurry up and get started
saying I'm sorry.
I don't want God
to get the wrong idea about me.

With our new clothes
from Bubby Anne's store
(hats and white gloves for the girls,
suits and ties for the boys)
and our new starts,

 

we walk to Bubby Anne's shul,
we climb the ancient stairs to the balcony,
where the women are praying,

 

and we give Bubby Anne
a peck on each cheek
(her cheeks are nice and soft,
not prickly like her husband's).

 

Then we walk three blocks
to Bubby Etta's shul.
I take Melvin's hand, and we
go up the creaky stairs
to the women's section.

 

We peek down from the balcony
at the men bowing up and down
and mumbling in Hebrew.

 

And even though I don't understand
a word of it,
I like hearing the sounds—
it's like a visit with an old friend.

 

When we find Bubby Etta,
we squeeze over to her seat
and give her kisses, too.

 

She pats our cheeks
and whispers,
‘‘L'shana tova,
"
warming us up with her smile.

 

I like the Bubby-kissing part
of our New Year,
even though it's nothing new.

While I'm in each shul,
I pray to God
that this year I'll figure out
who I am
in this big family of mine.

 

I don't want to seem greedy,
so I just pray
for a little hint of who
I could possibly be.

 

I sure wish I knew
if God's listening
to me.

I wake up today
thinking that maybe this year
Dad'll say something.
But he doesn't.

 

I act fearless, like Marian,
and run up to him at the door
as he's leaving for the diner.
“It's my birthday today, Dad,” I say.
“Oh yeah, how old are you?” he asks.
“Twelve.”

 

Then he pulls some coins
out of his trousers pocket
and counts them into my hands.
“Here are twelve pennies,” he says.
He doesn't even say
Happy Birthday,
but that's okay.

 

I'll still remember this day always
because it's the first time my dad
has ever given me
anything.

Ugh,
today's the school spelling bee
and they give me the word,
minuscule.

 

I ask for its meaning.
“Very small,” they say.
Then I sound it out in my head,
m-i-n-i-s-q-u-e-w-e-l-l.

 

I'm the worst speller
in my class.
Maybe I should just pass.
M-i-n-e-s-c-u-e-l-l.

 

I'm the worst speller
in school.
And when I spell it out loud—
m-i-n-a-s-k-e-w-e-l,

 

I feel
just like
my spelling word.

At the school spelling bee,
nobody's surprised
that the last one standing
is smarty-pants Helen Krashinsky,

 

and nobody's surprised
that the first one down
is me.

I've missed a lot of lessons at school
because I've been out sick
with whooping cough—
a cough louder than the crash of coal
rumbling down the metal chute
into our cellar.

Now I'm having trouble figuring out
the problem Miss Connelly wrote
on the chalkboard:
How many gallons of gas
can someone buy at nineteen cents a gallon,
if they've got two dollars to spend?

 

So I turn the math question
into a hot dog problem
because I don't know about gas,
but since I help at Dad's diner sometimes,
I know all about
the price of hot dogs

 

and I can always figure out
just how many chili dogs
two bucks can buy.

And I wish I had new shoes
to wear on this rainy day.
But I don't,
so I stuff cardboard
deep down in the soles
of my hand-me-down-downs
and pray I'll get to school
before the rain
soaks through the holes.

I love the sparkling lights downtown,
and when I was little,
I loved sitting on Santa's lap,
whispering my wishes
while I was itching to start licking
the candy cane he was going to give me.