Happy Family (5 page)

At least Sol's mother believed in higher education. She knew her son was smart, and just because she'd settled for a man in the schmatta business it didn't mean her son had to follow in his footsteps. “You don't have my Buxbaum looks,” she'd say, “but women will want you for your brains.” She stood up to his father for him, but her support had its price. Sol had to listen to her complaints: Flash's breath stank from his false teeth; she had to put bed pillows between them because his constant erections bothered her; how did she, the star of the Derby community theater, end up like this? In making Sol her confidant, she cemented him as her ally against his father, a position that made Sol uncomfortable. She also tried to beat into him a sense of obligation not just to his parents but to the Holocaust, to the redemption of debt. If a Jew raised his children out of the faith in the middle of the forest, she heard it and declared it a posthumous victory for Hitler. “If every Jew goes off and raises gentile babies, pretty soon there'll be no Jews left,” his mother would say.

For all Sol knows, one or both of his parents could be dead now. This is the thought that crosses his mind as he's standing in front of the closet in his bedroom looking for a clean shirt. He sniffs the armpit of a shirt he pulled from the laundry basket and puts it on. It's been over a year since he's spoken to his parents. He'd written, but the letters came back marked
Return to sender
in his mother's handwriting. His mother had been devastated that he'd married a shiksa—his converting meant he'd renounced his birthright. He told himself he didn't care, but in truth, he cared, although he loved Cici more.

On impulse, Sol picks up the phone.

“Halloo…”

Sol is oddly comforted by her familiar vibrato. “Mom…” There's no answer. “Mother, don't hang up. Mom?” He listens until he hears her faint breathing. “I just wanted to tell you…” Here his voice catches; he's a six-year-old boy with a bloodied knee. “The thing is…we…lost the baby. There were complications. Cici's going to be fine, but…Are you there? For God's sake, just say something so I know you're listening.” There's an exhalation on the other line. “You knew Cici was pregnant—you sent back my letter with tape on it. You didn't seal it very well; the paper was folded differently. Mom?” He swallows. “The funeral is today at three o'clock. St. Clare's in Montclair, right off the New Jersey Turnpike, the Cedar Grove exit takes you straight there. Dad can figure it out on the map if…Mom…Mom?”

“I'm sorry.” The voice comes out like strained soup. “You must have the wrong number.”

“Would you like to go for a walk?” Sol asks. It's crisp outside, a perfect Sunday for apple picking or taking a drive to see the changing leaves. Cici sits in an armchair by their bedroom window—he has no idea if she's looking at something outside or lost in her thoughts. He's grown used to seeing her in this position, like nonsensical modern art. When he awoke at five this morning, she was already in the chair. Cici's been home for six weeks and her sorrow doesn't seem to have diminished. Sol thought that she would eventually reach for him to pull herself up and out of grief. Instead, she's gone deeper within the shell of her suffering and Sol's starting to fear she may never come out. One night he'd found her in the middle of the backyard standing like a lost statue, her arms torn and scratched. He hasn't been going out on the weekends, even to run errands, so he could be near Cici “just in case.” He retreats into the steam of a hot shower and focuses on the day ahead. At least at work he can be productive.

Cici stares out the window but doesn't notice the tree branches bowing from the wind. She doesn't register that the leaves on the circle of oaks have turned the color of marmalade and are starting to crisp on the lawn. For a moment she thinks of bathing but the sight of the scars on her abdomen, raised like train tracks, are too great a reminder. She closes her eyes and drifts back into memories of being pregnant. There, Sol brings her lilacs and espresso and nothing bad happens. “The world is your oyster,” Sol had said when he'd carried her over the threshold into his Gramercy Park apartment. She laughed because she ate oysters with one gulp. She'd asked him what would happen if you swallowed the world and there was no more left.

But now, it was too horrible to think about what was no longer possible. With the truth came hatchling thoughts, scary, desperate feelings that made her want to hurt herself. She ran into the woods behind their house one night, letting the trees scrape her until she bled. The pain felt good and she could prolong it for days by picking at the scabs as they formed. This was what the monks had done with their flagellating sticks, this was what was meant by atonement through pain. She needed to atone. For her desire, so desperate that she had insisted on sex the whole time her baby was growing inside of her. Surely this is what the priests had always warned them about. God even showed her how to atone further by making fresh cuts on the inside of her thighs with Solomon's razor blade. She goes to the bathroom and crouches, blade poised in that exquisite moment of hesitation. The first drop of blood cleanses, the sting of pain follows, sharp and sweet like absinthe. It stops her from thinking of her punishment—never being able to have children—and the certainty that she will be abandoned by Solomon because of it. What man would want her like this? She pulls her nightgown down over her legs when she hears her husband coming and gets back in bed.

“I'm going into the hospital for a while,” Sol says, stroking her cheek. Cici knows her hair, which hasn't been washed in weeks, must feel like dead hay. He thinks about putting on one of her favorite records—
La Cenerentola
or maybe something by Massenet—but he doubts she'd get up to turn it over and it would scratch and scratch until Cookie came in this afternoon. He stares at Cici's ankles, the curve of her bone so white and exposed, and he wonders where she got the slippers she's wearing. He hadn't noticed them before; they're dingy and flat, so unlike anything he's ever seen her wear.

Sol is hovering. Cici wishes he'd leave. She's relieved when he says, “Get some sleep,
chérie,
” and gently closes the bedroom door.

It's not until Sol comes home late that night that he discovers the strange object that will propel him into an action that's so drastic, it changes the course of three lives. He undresses in the bathroom because he doesn't want the light to disturb Cici. When he fumbles his way to the bed, he notices something odd sticking out from underneath her pillow. It's round, like a bicycle horn. He can't see more without moving her head. She can be restless at night, but her breathing is regular and even—which makes him think she's taken a sleeping pill. He slowly pulls the object out from under her pillow. She sighs and rolls away from him.

Sol sits on the closed toilet, examining the object. He hasn't a clue what the hell this thing is. It has a cone that's taped to a handle that splits into a black bulb on one end and a tube on the other end. Could it be used to administer a drug by squeezing the bulb? If it were for that, he'd know about it, because he filled all of Cici's prescriptions. It looks handmade. Where did Cici get it? He could ask her about it, but if she wanted him to know she wouldn't have hidden it in the first place. What the hell? At least it doesn't look dangerous. He'll have to do some research at the hospital library. Sol goes back into the bedroom, puts the bicycle horn–thing under Cici's pillow, and tries to sleep.

The next day is a Monday and the radiology department at St. Vincent's is swamped with patients. When Sol looks up, it's dark outside. Cookie will be long gone and he hates leaving Cici alone late into the evening. He's racing to pack up and get to the train station when an intern runs past him. “You coming? It's about to start.” Everyone on his floor is gathered around the small TV in back of the nurses' station. “This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on the imprisoned island.” President Kennedy speaks slowly and deliberately. “The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.” Sol is as paralyzed by the dire news as his colleagues. For the next seventeen minutes, no one moves, no one speaks. Sol watches as President Kennedy tells Americans that they are in the Soviets' crosshairs.

When the speech is over, everyone stands frozen around the television, as if there will be further instructions. “This is America,” the doctor standing next to Sol says, “nobody can bomb us!” Sol nods noncommittally, but suddenly his companion seems to forget his anger at the Soviets and snaps his finger in recognition. “Wait a minute—Sol Matzner? I'm Don Tremont, Mo Lubitch's partner. I remember when Mo was recommending potential OBs for your wife. You must be a father by now. Congratulations.” Tremont offers Sol his hand. Sol stares at it, not knowing what to do. Words like
ballistic missiles
and
nuclear warhead
from Kennedy's statement reverberate in his mind before he realizes what Tremont just said.

“We lost the baby,” Sol says before he can censor himself. Later, he will wonder what prompted him to confess so blatantly. In the moment he is rattled by news so unexpected, so large, that instead of shaking Tremont's hand and going home, Sol finds himself in Tremont's office spilling the whole, sad story. The baby, Cici's hysterectomy, his fear for her mental health, and, finally, the strange round object under her pillow.

“What do you think it is?” Sol asks.

Don Tremont considers, then says, “When your wife was in the hospital, did they give her the shot to suppress her breast milk?”

“She didn't want that.”

“With no baby to stimulate production, her milk should have dried up within two weeks. But the only thing that comes to mind is that it might be an old-fashioned form of breast pump.”

“A breast pump? For breast-feeding?”

“Well, of course you know physicians don't recommend that women breast-feed, but in some ethnic communities it's still done. And if, say, the mother has to be away from her baby, or if the woman is a wet nurse, there are devices that can be used to express the milk.”

“But the baby died. Why would she be…” Sol's voice trails off.

Tremont gives Sol a pat on the shoulder. “I wish there was more I could offer. My sister lost a baby and I know she had a very hard time of it. Your best bet might be to consult someone in psychiatry.”

Sol feels like he's been sucker-punched. He gets himself to the train station and on the train home, but he can't recall exactly how. He's alone in the compartment, staring off without really seeing anything. Tremont had to be right; it was a breast pump. The only person who could have given it to Cici was Cookie. That much made sense. But why was Cici using it? Expressing milk to give to her dead baby? Pretending that he's still alive and giving Cookie the milk to, what—take to some other baby? It was all too bizarre; he didn't need to consult a psychiatrist to know his wife was wading into some very dark, uncharted waters.

Unbidden, he thinks of his wife's breasts. He hasn't touched them since Cici came home from the hospital, hasn't dared, it isn't right. He's wanted to. He's thought about it, desired her, ached for her to touch him. At first he was ashamed. He would get hard in the mornings and want to roll over and press himself into the seam of her ass. He didn't want to masturbate, thinking eventually she'd respond to his tickling her foot or caressing her back. But she didn't, and weeks passed. He focused on work; he masturbated.

The back-and-forth of the train jostles him and Sol can't help thinking,
What if this is it?
What if nothing ever changes and this is his life? He has been so worried about Cici that he hasn't factored himself into the equation. He wants to have children—his own flesh and blood—but he's willing to accept that he never will. What he can't accept is the idea that he'll never make love to Cici again. He misses her raw, sensual mouth. Their intimacy became his touchstone.
I'm home,
he'd think when he entered her. Without that…well, there cannot be a without that. He had never felt truly alive until he met Cici. She gave herself so fully, so freely—it liberated him. During their courtship he'd told her that he was ruined; after experiencing the ecstasy of their connectedness, there could be no living without it, or her, ever again. He needs his sexy young wife back.

When Sol gets home, he pours himself a tumbler full of vodka. He drinks it in one gulp, standing over the kitchen sink. The liquor makes him warm and woozy. Although it's not that late, he knows he'll find Cici asleep. He sheds his pants and lies down on top of the covers.

Staring at the ceiling, Sol remembers Cici draped across her cousin Paulo's couch, naked except for high heels. He's fully dressed, kneeling in front of her on the couch. Watching as she circles her nipples with the point of her lipstick, making them hard and red. She takes his hand and puts it over her mound and he feels her heat on his palm. Her legs are open and he can see the folds of her labia through her forest of blond pubic hair. He leans down and inhales her scent, brushing his nose across her hair. She's liquid, musky. He reaches underneath her, cupping her bottom in his hands, and she presses herself into his face. She is undulating slowly, moving the lipstick down her stomach. His tongue parts her, finds her, hard and quick. She moans and pulls him up, loosening his pants, saying Italian words that roll with her mouth as she takes him in, tracing her tongue up and around until he sees white spots behind his eyes. Then, when he's close, so close, she stops, pulling him up and pushing him toward the mirror on the wall. Her damp hair clings to her face; her body is soft and round, with lipstick marks like tribal paint. She brushes her breasts against his back, her slender arms reaching around to stroke him. She folds his hand over hers and they watch her hand and his hand together, moving up and down and up and down.