Everybody on my father\u2019s side had assimilated in what I\u2019d call the cultural sense: they\u2019d stopped talking Jewish. My father and his progenitors, they put away their deep borough accents, buried their surety of doom, their wryness and their rye. It wasn\u2019t a rejection of god or the Torah, neither of which held any sway, but about not sounding like the kind of person certain other people don\u2019t like. Only the prepubescent Hasids knew to stop me with their lulav and etrog. I could\u2019ve rebuked them, could\u2019ve told them my face in fact belonged mostly to my Protestant mother. But I secretly loved their knowing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My daughter did too. Unlike me, though, it wasn\u2019t a secret. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bunny, at seven, dressed every day like she was auditioning for Fiddler on the Roof, <\/em>mixing orange plaid dresses with woolen tights the color of lichen and the ancient pilling cardigans of a babushka. Bunny sometimes wrapped her hair in one of the old silk scarves I\u2019d inherited from my grandmother, Bunny\u2019s thick dark bangs and both ears sticking out the sides, making her look bedraggled and forlorn, one that was both feral and matronly, a suffering sort of girl from another time. When the boys with their payot asked us if we were Jewish, she didn\u2019t lie the way I did; she said, louder than seemed wise, \u201cYes!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n On a Thursday, in the small kitchen of our Park Slope apartment, she produced a first-grade worksheet from the bottom of her backpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBunny, I can\u2019t read this.\u201d Bunny drew on everything, including her own skin, the tops of her hands, and her homework. She\u2019d obscured the directive and questions with a long potato face, arched eyebrows, flat black line of a mouth, and swirling hypnotized eyes. It didn\u2019t seem to matter to her that the artistry was unremarkable; it didn\u2019t seem to be about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m the one who has to read it,\u201d she said, snatching the paper from me and squinting at it. \u201cInterview an elder relative. There are eight questions. Who can I talk to?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGrandma Shelly is an elder relative.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny shook her head. \u201cShe\u2019s not old.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Point taken. Nat\u2019s mother dyed her long hair red and got up and down from the floor faster than I did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere has to be someone better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like a whorl of reflux from a forgotten meal, up rose my great aunt Lillian, my grandmother\u2019s sister-in-law. Unassimilated, openly judgmental, Socialist, divorced. As bold in her unpleasantness as my own child was about wanting to have been born in another time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow old is she?\u201d Bunny demanded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I calculated. \u201cOver ninety.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny stood reverently still. \u201cHave I ever met her?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I shook my head. In fact, I hadn\u2019t really talked to Lillian in two decades. As family lore demanded, I remembered Aunt Lillian as monstrous. Until I brought her up to Bunny, I\u2019d forgotten that I also remembered her fondly\u2014during my childhood visits, she always seemed pleased to see me, interested in whatever words I could eke out, and remarked on certain promising things about me (\u201cSadie, you have the posture of Philippe Petit\u201d)\u2014at which point the Lillian in my mind began to sway between an unfiltered pariah and a wry, intelligent old lady who could see right through me. This amorphous hovering, like one of those haunted Halloween portraits that turn the living into skeletons or zombies when seen from certain angles, was perhaps even more frightening. I suddenly regretted suggesting a visit to someone who probably had every right to loathe me as much as my family did her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWas she in the Holocaust?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny had recently become intrigued by the Holocaust, had just last week asked a stooped old man in line at the grocery store if he\u2019d been in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I shook my head. \u201cYou know what, though? I think she could be losing it, mentally. Who knows if she could even answer any of your questions?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny ignored me. \u201cIs she nice?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d I said, scooping crumbs and an apple core from the bowels of Bunny\u2019s backpack and dropping them into the compost. \u201cShe\u2019s pretty mean.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s OK,\u201d Bunny said quickly. \u201cI can handle it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Already, our hypothetical visit had turned into a dare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t we have a birthday party this weekend?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have to go see her, Mom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I should\u2019ve just said no. I wanted to. But arguing with Bunny always depleted me, which was why I mostly did what my husband did, and avoided it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those dark discerning eyes blinked curtly up at me, waiting for my acquiescence. If we were really going to do this, however, to see this woman my parents wouldn\u2019t see, this woman who didn\u2019t really like my parents either, we would need to bring some buffers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd Milt can\u2019t come,\u201d Bunny declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I closed my eyes. \u201cYour brother is three. Where\u2019s he going to go?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust leave him with Daddy,\u201d she pressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Daddy. Everyone liked Nat; he was warm and relaxed and deeply tolerant, for practical reasons (he worked in real estate). My mother would joke that I must\u2019ve had a perfect childhood because I\u2019d married someone so much like my own father. And I would joke that she was right. (In reality, Nat was much harder for me to talk to than my dad, and, yet, much softer with the children, quicker to solve their problems, to break a rule if it meant they\u2019d be happy, a practice that had become the family way.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aunt Lillian might not have censored herself in front of me beginning back when I was Bunny\u2019s age, but she was unlikely to do her worst in front of easy, charming Nat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we go, Daddy\u2019s coming. And so\u2019s Milt,\u201d I said as I washed my crumby fingers. \u201cBut you should know Aunt Lillian isn\u2019t, she isn\u2019t like your grandparents. At all.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOK. How?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell. She\u2019s not a fan of what Israel is\u2026is doing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny looked at me. \u201cNeither are you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight. But I don\u2019t yell about it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGrandma doesn\u2019t yell about it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, Grandma sent money to the Israeli army. Aunt Lillian would yell at her for that, if Grandma was on my side of the family.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I waited for Bunny to say something. \u201cI\u2019m not saying she\u2019s wrong to yell. Maybe I should yell more.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny looked absently past me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMommy,\u201d she said quietly, her soft palm on my arm, \u201cwill she like me?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I covered her hand with mine. We were on different pages. As usual. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny nodded, her upper lip rising gravely. \u201cI\u2019m a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was the one who\u2019d told her she could be a lot. But I\u2019d done it less in horror than in wonder. Last year, in kindergarten, Bunny insisted on carrying two large tote bags filled with dress-up clothes and her favorite books to school every day. She said she needed them. Her teacher told me she\u2019d rarely open the bags, but if another student so much as peeked at them, Bunny would instantly panic, sobbing quietly but unabatedly. This teacher was the gentle kind and always shuttled Bunny to the quiet corner, along with the bags, to recover from the affront. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, the totes and the meltdowns had been replaced by three separate reports of Bunny calling the same two girls sheep for copying all of each other\u2019s classwork and, at the conclusion of her rants, spitting on the ground next to their shoes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey lie for each other, Mommy! They lie.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her conviction exasperated me, but I made a point of telling her the opposite. And I wasn\u2019t lying. Exasperated or not, I really was in awe of her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo is she,\u201d I admitted. \u201cWhich is maybe why we should just call her instead of visiting\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cActually, I don\u2019t care if she likes me,\u201d she announced. \u201cPlease let\u2019s go. Before she dies. We have to go before she\u2019s dead!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the drive down the Belt, I explained to everyone about my great aunt Lillian\u2019s estrangement from our family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian had delivered an impromptu speech at the Bar Mitzvah of her grandson, my cousin Weston, twenty years back, in a sun-drenched Humanistic Northern California synagogue with more windows than walls. In what had sounded to me at the time like jest, she\u2019d called her ex-husband, my Great Uncle Julius\u2014a former union organizer turned highly paid public speaker and consultant\u2014a sellout, a capitalist, a traitor. He’d traded the ethos of her kind of socialism, the kind that required unending struggle, for what she considered an excess of comfort and security. This was how my parents put it to me anyway. She\u2019d called Julius as much before, of course, but never in front of so many non-Jews (Weston\u2019s father was Chinese and an atheist). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the ensuing years, I learned from my parents that Lillian\u2019s daughter\u2014my father\u2019s first cousin\u2014had blamed her mother for her father\u2019s headaches, for his ulcerous guilt, but also for the incessant unstitching of her own self-worth. Lillian made her question herself and now she couldn\u2019t stop. After the party that evening, Lillian\u2019s daughter followed in the example of her long-suffering father and went on strike. They stopped speaking to her. My father and the rest of the cousins, company men all, did the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the Bar Mitzvah, I remember the wobbly buzz\u2014nauseating and electric\u2014that I got in my stomach at Lillian\u2019s performance, her exacting tone, and the way my whole extended family went immediately on edge, some stiff, some stiffly smiling, and others, like sweet, pubescent Weston, dopey next to her in his baggy suit, opening his mouth wide and then quickly covering it in an attempt not to laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Great Aunt Lillian was so angry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But she was also not speaking nonsense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember her saying, in front of everyone, that she could not abide her own kin taking so much more than their fair share. I remember her looking right at her ex-husband and saying, \u201cWhat happened to you, honey? What happened?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Occasionally, I\u2019d wonder if it would be me who\u2019d bridge the gap, call her up, make a visit, make amends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t. Well, it hadn\u2019t been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian lived in a limestone apartment building in Gravesend. She\u2019d been kind but terse over the phone, suggesting we come any day that suited us, that she had nothing on the calendar anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDoes she look like Grandma?\u201d Bunny asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKind of,\u201d I told her. \u201cShe\u2019s little. Always wears red lipstick. Oh my god, why are we doing this?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny groaned and Milt shouted, \u201cI don\u2019t know!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I felt Nat\u2019s calloused fingers on my earlobe. I bristled at the contact, shaken from my anxious clench, and then relished it. Nat glanced at the speedometer as I barreled past Staten Island\u2019s humble skyline across the water because going faster might make this all be over sooner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou think she\u2019s renovated since you last visited?\u201d mused Nat. \u201cThese longtime owners, they die and then they sell for less than they could because nobody\u2019s touched it for forty years. It\u2019s a shame.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe rents, Nat.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at me aghast. \u201cA renter? OK. Got it. Forty years renting.\u201d He whistled, seemed to consider the dark flat New York Bay outside his window as he did the math before looking down at his phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat are you going to ask her, Bun?\u201d I asked. How my aunt could not be even a little charmed by this odd child, I couldn\u2019t imagine. Through the rearview mirror, I watched Bunny\u2019s eyelids drop to keep me out of whatever she was planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I imagined my own questions: Were you ever in a bread line? Did you go by yourself to the March on Washington and what kind of shoes did you wear? What did you mean when you asked Uncle Julius what happened to him? Do you ever wonder what happened to me? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There were so many parking spots outside her building, I worried we\u2019d missed a city evacuation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere we are!\u201d I called out brightly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We rode the birdcage elevator up and turned down a dim hallway at whose eerie end stood the object of our visit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd here I am! Ta-da!\u201d Lillian leaned against the doorjamb in a red silk shirt and black slacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d last seen her, from afar, at my grandmother\u2019s funeral, fifteen years ago. Her skin had been olive then, her bob bottle-dye black, smudged at the hairline. It was a shock to see her now, hair completely white and jaggedly orbiting a face once severe, now mottled as a gratin, her small body bent across the shoulders in a resolute way. She smelled like bottled lily and orange juice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I nudged my resistant brood forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHello,\u201d I sang, but Milt seemed to recognize something in my tremolo. At three, he was as tiny as Bunny was tall, as silly as she was defiant and stern. Not so silly then, though, as he wrapped himself around my thigh, which itself was wrapped in black tights, his untended fingernails digging in. I felt my pantyhose rip just below my butt.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only pausing for a second, I continued on, my flannel dress, tight on top, swung loose over my hips, keeping the tear hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her eyes were like lights flashing as she blinked up at me. It was impossible to tell, because she\u2019d not yet spoken, not yet smiled, how she felt about us, whether she was pleased we\u2019d at last arrived or dismayed we\u2019d gone through with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHello, my darling,\u201d she purred at last, that nasal, wizened cat voice tossing itself over me like a fur coat. Three of her teeth were missing, one near the front, the other two, in back, creating airless open tunnels. She reached out to hug me, one of her fat gold earrings cold against my neck. \u201cSadie.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was impossible to tell whether she was pleased we\u2019d at last arrived or dismayed we\u2019d gone through with it.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m so sorry,\u201d I said, my eyes going blurry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTake your shoes off, doll,\u201d she said, letting go of me roughly, as though it was I who was holding on too tight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The children hurried in behind her, Nat guiding them with a hand on each shoulder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd you must be Nat,\u201d she said to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat looked behind him and then at her. \u201cI guess I must. Wonderful to meet you, Lillian. You\u2019re a legend. According to Sadie.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian seemed pleased to hear it, her mouth twitching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, look at this bootlicker you got here, Sadie.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat chuckled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian took our bland bouquet of coats and carried them down a hallway and out of sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her place was just as I remembered: the bulky gold and brown brocade sofa flanking the wall beside us where I\u2019d been photographed asleep against my mother\u2019s arm, and above it, a window just as wide, its beige doctor\u2019s office blinds half open. On the smooth white horseshoe coffee table were cut glass bowls filled with the peanut M&Ms, pistachios in their shells, and plastic-wrapped sesame candy that\u2019d drawn a molar out of my mouth when I was in fifth grade. Opposite the sofa, to our right, sat the low black lacquered credenza my cousins and I got screamed at for smudging, a bulky television on top, its screen wiped clean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A matching black China cabinet swathed the entire far wall, inside of which were all of Lillian\u2019s Hummels. My grandmother had had them too, and though I\u2019d never once touched them, I\u2019d badly wanted to. They weren\u2019t quite dolls to me, but tiny emotive creatures contained in porcelain. Lillian had maidens, mostly, in various states of reverie, and a bespectacled pharmacist, a gaunt rosy-cheeked rabbi, a blonde boy holding a blob of balloons in primary colors. It was the rabbi I\u2019d coveted, so tired had I grown of my blithe yellow-haired dolls with their shiny dresses and empty eyes. Mightn\u2019t he change our games in some deep, unknowable way, say vaguely important things like my great uncle, maybe, or snipe cleverly like Lillian herself, but I didn\u2019t have the guts to ask to hold him in my own hands, was afraid I\u2019d seem weird. This? She\u2019d have wrinkled her nose at me. Him you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the highest shelf, a shelf I\u2019d never been tall enough to see before, was a black and white photograph, the only photo in the cabinet. It was Lillian at Bunny\u2019s age, sitting primly between her father, a narrow-faced bald man, and mother, a somber woman with dark hair piled on the top of her head, a woman who was probably the age I was now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Lillian returned, Bunny pushed her brother aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHi, Aunt Lillian. I\u2019m Bunny. Your great-great niece.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe too!\u201d sang Milt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh my god, Sadie.\u201d Lillian let her mouth hang open as she stared at Milt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe eyelashes! That chin, oh my god. Do you see it? Is it just me? This child is gorgeous. He\u2019s Julius. He\u2019s a tiny Julius.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I summoned Julius\u2019s gleaming hairless head, the black hairs wafting out of his ears, the curl of his upper lip. \u201cOh. Yeah.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian looked at me, aghast. \u201cNo one\u2019s ever told you that?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I stroked the orange paisley scarf wrapped around Bunny\u2019s dark hair. \u201cNo,\u201d I said, stupidly. For a moment, we all waited for her to say who Bunny looked like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian bent at the waist and leaned close to my expectant daughter. \u201cMy darling. You know, looks aren\u2019t everything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I gasped. I closed my eyes a second; I didn\u2019t want to look down to see what this had done to Bunny and for good reason; when I opened them, I saw her little chin flat against her chest, eyes on the floor. She was trying very hard not to cry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a sob. Bunny was crying into her hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh look what I did!\u201d Lillian smacked her lips and shook her head. \u201cListen, as I\u2019ve always said,\u201d Lillian continued, waving one bony blue-veined finger at me, \u201cnever trust anyone with a simple nose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had always said that. And I\u2019d listened. I\u2019d lived it, unable to take seriously every milquetoast idiot with a nose of no consequence. The aphorism had sounded profound to me as a child, as though it were truthful enough to root out the bad from the good, but now that she\u2019d just called Bunny plain to her face, I felt only angry and embarrassed, embarrassed I\u2019d crossed the threshold at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny, recovered but splotchy-cheeked, dropped to her knees beside the coffee table and began pecking at the sweets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExplain this bigotry?\u201d called large-nosed Nat as he stacked the bagels and lox we\u2019d brought onto the dining table. Nat\u2019s parents, like mine, were mixed, but his paternal side was Protestant, and it was his Scottish father\u2019s face he\u2019d inherited. By the time I learned his last name, the day after we met at our mutual friend\u2019s wedding, I\u2019d already made assumptions about his schnoz and how much character it had afforded him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, it\u2019s a joke!\u201d Lillian laughed. \u201cCan you not take one?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I ought to have ignored her and announced to the room how beautiful Bunny was. But I waited a moment too long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t trust people who\u2019ve not had to suffer. I\u2019m complimenting you, Nat!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny was, of course, listening, her eyes darting between us, her head perfectly still, mouth closed as she whittled a peanut M&M down for parts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian stood up, as fast as my mother-in-law. \u201cWell, what\u2019ve you brought me?\u201d Peering at the table, she turned back. \u201cEgg?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBunny loves an egg bagel,\u201d I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSadie, she got your mother\u2019s goyim genes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I got red and deflected. \u201cYou know my mother would never touch a carb.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was around ten and at my urging, my Presbyterian mother told me what we would do if it was ever too dangerous to be Jewish again. She lay beside me in my twin bed and made a list. Though I hadn\u2019t the chutzpah to argue with her, I didn\u2019t want what she was offering: her old last name, a bedroom at my uncle\u2019s house in New Hampshire, church every Sunday. I imagined instead that I\u2019d remain myself, outwitting everybody and surviving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last month, Bunny asked me what we were supposed to do now about the people who were being taken from their homes, the immigrants, the new<\/em> Jews, as she\u2019d heard me call them once at home. I told her I had no idea, save for phone calls and protests. We had no spare room. I had no brother in New Hampshire. And anyway, they couldn\u2019t hide in plain sight like I could\u2019ve. Like I still can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny marched toward the table with her folder. \u201cCan I start?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust a second, doll,\u201d Lillian said, on her heel. She slid into a seat, her narrow wisp of a body poking out from her chair like a tulip on the verge of a droop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian\u2019s round table was set with gold-rimmed melamine plates, pink and green patterned china cups and saucers, and white paper napkins folded into triangles. She\u2019d folded them neatly, in preparation for us. In addition to our goyim bagels, we\u2019d brought cream cheese and whitefish salad and nearly a pound of lox. From her own refrigerator, Lillian had set out three cans of Diet Cel-Ray, a tub of whipped butter, a jar of capers, and a plum tomato. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat had one knee bent into the couch, surveying the street. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting, Lillian,\u201d he called to her without turning around. \u201cYou\u2019re at the end of the hallway here but you don\u2019t get a corner view. Does anybody? Some people must\u2019ve combined two units, no?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She shook her head as she plucked a halved bagel from the bunch and dropped it with a smack on her plate. \u201cNot allowed here. Every unit is the same.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I smiled. \u201cThat\u2019s wonderful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it?\u201d Lillian cocked her head at me. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t mind a corner view. Nat, maybe you can convince the authorities? Tell them you\u2019re a professional!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He seemed to be considering this, even though it was clearly a joke. \u201cYou should live as well as you can for as long as you can.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This, Lillian ignored, reaching for the cream cheese. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome eat,\u201d I told Nat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Milt dropped a handful of M&Ms on his plate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot before dinner,\u201d I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My son reached to gather the collar of my dress in both hands, one button popping off its thread and plunking against the table with a sound only I heard. \u201cYes,\u201d he whispered. I smiled, in thrall to his defiance. How could I not? <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s start with a bagel,\u201d Nat said, sitting down beside him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Milt screamed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cQuiet!\u201d Bunny commanded. \u201cI\u2019m about to start my interview!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian spread her cream cheese slowly, forking the glistening lox and setting it on her bagel like a toupee, and on that, a tomato cap festooned with capers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan she\u2026\u201d I looked at my Aunt Lillian, who nodded as she chewed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s your full name?\u201d Bunny held her folder open with one wavering hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLillian Hanna Faust.\u201d She pronounced her middle name, a name I\u2019d never known was hers, the Yiddish way: HAH-nuh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat year were you born?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c1931.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This whole thing could\u2019ve been done over the phone. Why had I bent to Bunny? Why hadn\u2019t we just sent Lillian these questions in a letter? I was sweating. When Bunny got to the last of her questions, we\u2019d still be on the first halves of our bagels and then what would we talk about? <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere were you born?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Brownsville and East New York Hospital.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny\u2019s pen stopped moving part of the way through the word brown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s gone now, right?\u201d I was stalling, giving her time to catch up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo you want me to write it?\u201d Lillian offered Bunny with surprising tenderness, ignoring me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe has to write it,\u201d I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian made a face like I\u2019d slapped her. \u201cIt\u2019s not her fault I gave her half the alphabet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat did Bunny get?\u201d Milt asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA joke,\u201d Lillian said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want a joke!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe can\u2019t have a joke. It\u2019s my interview!\u201d Bunny cried. \u201cI\u2019m writing as fast as I can! They say I have to write it so, so, I\u2019m writing it!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I watched as she mangled the letters, pressing down so hard, her pencil tip broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t bring a sharpener,\u201d she mumbled, her chest rising higher and the plates in her face looking like they might unbind themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I found a pen in my purse and handed it to her. She pushed it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHave you eaten your bagel yet, Bun?\u201d I asked, though I knew she hadn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t blame you,\u201d Lillian breathed into Bunny\u2019s ear. \u201cThese bagels are absurd.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s an absurd girl,\u201d I said, though it didn\u2019t come out in the silly way I wanted; it sounded dismissive. Cruel, even. To make up for my mistake, I placed my hand on Bunny\u2019s and a seam tore below my left arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never asked for these bagels,\u201d Bunny said quietly. \u201cYou just think I like them because I ate them once.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This wasn\u2019t true but I didn\u2019t want to embarrass her (or myself) any more than I already had. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re distracted,\u201d I reminded Bunny, \u201cyou sometimes forget to eat. And when you don\u2019t eat, you get upset.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I get a lecture, I get upset,\u201d Lillian said out the side of her mouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd when you get upset,\u201d I continued, ignoring Lillian, although, in a way, I was speaking to her too, \u201cit\u2019s hard to know\u2026what to do to help.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian sized me up from across the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot to get off topic here,\u201d Nat said, \u201cbut can I ask how well you get along with your neighbors?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou may and we get along fine. I don\u2019t speak to them and they don\u2019t speak to me,\u201d Lillian said. She gestured toward Bunny. \u201cDoes she know Jewish?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yiddish, she meant. She meant also for me to perhaps not know what she meant, to have to ask, and I was relieved that I didn\u2019t have to, that I did know, that she couldn\u2019t take me for a fool, or for someone like my mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I finished my glass of water and poured myself a Cel-ray. \u201cWho would teach her?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny raised her writing hand, pen tip pointing at the ceiling fan. Her bagel had a bite out of now. I hadn\u2019t even seen her take it. \u201cHow am I related to you?\u201d Bunny asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian stood up and shuffled away from us. She hauled a folding stepladder from the front closet, tucking the whole of it inside, and climbing on. Nat ran over and put his hands out lest she topple. Her slacks made meditative shushing sounds I could hear from the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan I do that for you, Lillian?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou cannot!\u201d she said, all but her stockinged calves out of view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny waited silently, refusing to look at me, while Milt ducked away, for, I knew, more M&Ms, as Lillian reemerged with a thick red leather-bound album. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She pushed her plate aside and opened to the first page. \u201cI was married to him.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was young Julius, his sharp chin, full cheeks, those mournful eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny eyed her brother. \u201cHe does look like Milt.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Milt beamed and scrambled over to Lillian, who, without so much as a groan, lifted him into her lap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNice looking guy,\u201d Nat said, peering at the photo from across the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe was!\u201d Lillian snapped. \u201cNice, polite. He looked how he was.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNice people aren\u2019t necessarily easy to be married to,\u201d I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re not?\u201d Nat opened his mouth in mock alarm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I rolled my eyes, smiled for my great aunt. \u201cAren\u2019t I the nice one?\u201d It was a joke and an aspiration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat patted my cheek and reached into his pocket for his phone, on which I could see a call from a colleague, silenced after some consideration. I felt my face get hot very fast. It wasn\u2019t the tenderness I was responding to but the condescension. We both knew how much everybody liked him and we both knew how hard I worked to be liked. Just yesterday morning, at the park where I\u2019d brought the kids early, Nat showed up a half hour later to cheers from three or four other fathers, and mothers, too, hovering around the play structure. I\u2019d brought donuts, but it was Nat they were most pleased to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat noticed all the effort I made to be liked: the times I brought cookies or pizza (or laughed loudly at somebody\u2019s not-so-funny joke), and the times I was easygoing with the kids, letting them stay up late, resolving their arguments without yelling at either one. Nat noticed and he loved it; he told me so. But sometimes I wondered what he would tell me if I didn\u2019t try so hard. Sometimes it was all I thought about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We both knew how much everybody liked him and we both knew how hard I worked to be liked.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Lillian\u2019s eyes flicked from me to Nat for a second, unreadable, then she seemed to drop away, inside herself again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJulius was a doll,\u201d Lillian said. \u201cA hypocrite, but he was easy to come home to, he was an easy man.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo what happened?\u201d I asked. \u201cNobody got divorced back then, right?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot nobody! I drove him out of his mind. I questioned him, I doubted him, I told him he wasn\u2019t interesting enough for me and so he said adieu!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n No one could insult her worse than she could insult herself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAdieu?\u201d Milt peered up at her. \u201cIs that a bad word?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt means goodbye,\u201d muttered Bunny as she wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian afforded Bunny no extra points for her knowledge, instead smoothing Milt\u2019s hair with her manicured fingers, a stillness on her face I couldn\u2019t read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of us spoke. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our master of ceremonies continued transcribing Lillian\u2019s words, penmanship jagged but clear. Milt had slid off Lillian\u2019s lap and gone under the table. Also under the table were Nat\u2019s hands tapping a message into his phone, too busy with weekend work for another attempt at enticing my aunt to do an impossible apartment upgrade. Milt drifted into the living room, unburdening us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe wanted to take care of me,\u201d Lillian explained in a softer voice. \u201cHe wanted to give me things.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I nodded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe said when I first met him that I was the smartest girl he\u2019d ever known. Which wasn\u2019t true, no student was I, but I loved hearing it. We\u2019d gone to see The Valley of Decision<\/em> with Gregory Peck and I think Julius thought of me like the maid, the sweet girl, the loyal girl, the good listener, you understand? I liked that version of me too except she didn\u2019t exist. He wanted me to say it was alright the way he wanted more for himself than the fellows he was negotiating for and I didn\u2019t think it was. He didn\u2019t want to talk about big ideas with me, he wanted to talk logistics, all the time, the plans, the deals, the numbers. He wanted me to be here,\u201d Lillian said, extending a flattened palm out in the air half a foot lower than her shoulder, \u201chis little soldier. Am I making it plain? Every time I opened my mouth, he\u2019d brace himself. At dinner, at breakfast, in bed. He\u2019d flinch! At his own wife! Do you flinch at her, Nat?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat stuck his phone into his pocket after a moment. He had not heard her, didn\u2019t know if he ought to say yes or no. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSorry,\u201d he mouthed to me. \u201cClosing got delayed and the seller is pissed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian tried again. \u201cDo you mind when she argues with you, Nat?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I took a slow breath, and then another, waiting for him to answer. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t argue with me. We don\u2019t argue with each other.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat rubbed his thumb along the webbing between my fingers. With his thumb, he was telling me that we were not like Lillian and Julius. And we weren\u2019t. I didn\u2019t argue with him, not out loud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Milt was six weeks old, I slipped into a frayed, weepy pocket during which it was hard to wash my hair, hard to wear anything but soft pants and a very old pair of dirty sneakers. Nat, without telling me, hired a woman, a night nurse, to stay at our apartment every night for two weeks and get Milt to sleep. It was very generous of him and, I conceded, a relief to put Bunny to bed without Milt in my arms, but it cost more money than we had and it wasn\u2019t what I wanted. I didn\u2019t want it at all. So, every night, I\u2019d agree with Nat about what a boon Teresa the nurse was, and then I\u2019d roll over and cry quietly until I passed out, waking to a wet nightgown, that violent reminder to pump. Things were better now. Nat thought he\u2019d made them better. And I took medicine for the crying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s a shame,\u201d Lillian murmured. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The air here felt slippery and dangerous, like if we inhaled deeply enough, maybe someone might start arguing. Maybe even me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTell me about your family growing up,\u201d Bunny read from her paper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had two little brothers who I loved, the baby especially. My mother was very bright and quiet and then she got sick.\u201d Lillian pointed to her head. \u201cIn her brain. My father was not so bright and always angry. He worked for a tailor. My mother should have gone to college, I think. She read the newspaper every day. Start to finish.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny wrote all of this down, carefully. Lillian let her and began to eat, relishing one bite, then another, as we sat in silence until I saw Milt dancing in the corner of my eye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I nudged Nat with my elbow and he looked up from his phone. \u201cCan you\u2026take him?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the bathroom?\u201d Nat asked brightly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian dropped her bagel and stood up very quickly. \u201cOf course. Let me show you.\u201d Like a cat, she slipped into the hallway, which fed into, ostensibly, the bedrooms and bathroom. \u201cCome, Milt! Come, Nat! I\u2019m going to show you the bathroom!\u201d she sang loudly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I patted the parts of my dress that had undone themselves. It was an old dress, one I\u2019d worn before kids, before breastfeeding, before Nat, even. I\u2019d gotten it second-hand and worn it to a holiday party where someone had told me I looked like a character in Mad Men<\/em>. The dress was finished now. Why I\u2019d worn it today, I wasn\u2019t sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian returned but did not sit. She hovered with two hands on the table and flicked her chin toward her grand-niece. She must\u2019ve felt that her lipstick had been lost on the lox because she pressed her mouth together in an effort to remake it. \u201cNext!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan you tell me something about our family that I might not know?\u201d Bunny asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From the bathroom came Milt\u2019s screams, Nat\u2019s resonant murmuring. I didn\u2019t want to abandon Nat to the meltdown, but I wanted to know what Lillian was going to say. My longing felt at that moment like a day\u2019s worth of unmet hunger, like that Yom Kippur fast I\u2019d only once done as a teenager to test my devotion, my Jewishness, just in case I might one day need to up the ante, though I was yet to be asked, not by Nat, not by anyone. I stayed in my dining chair, my eyes darting toward the hallway, hovering meekly between my progeny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian took a sip of her cold coffee. \u201cWell, did you know that my children won\u2019t speak to me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny shook her head. \u201cWhy?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey think I\u2019m a monster.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny looked up at me then back at her. \u201cYou\u2019re not a monster,\u201d she said firmly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI might be,\u201d Lillian snapped. \u201cI was a difficult wife, a difficult mother. I\u2019m a difficult person. I wanted everybody in my family to understand things as I did. And they didn\u2019t. They don\u2019t.\u201d Her lips like worms had begun to wriggle across her face with something she seemed to want to contain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her bitterness was not a shock, but the emotion under it was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much fun being the bitch,\u201d Aunt Lillian said. We didn\u2019t curse in our house, and I could see Bunny\u2019s eyes widen at the word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry they shut you out. That we did.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aunt Lillian raised her eyebrows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny interrupted again, heroically, speaking over some detritus in her throat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite snack?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Good god. We\u2019d dropped into the miscellaneous portion now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian held her hands up and scoffed. \u201cNuts?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny wrote the word slowly, slower than any answer so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOK. Nuts. Now last question. What\u2019s something hard about your life that you don\u2019t really mind?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s your own question too, right?\u201d I asked her. I was impressed, and I wanted them both to know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny nodded. \u201cThe original was do you have a pet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian snorted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s something hard about your<\/em> life that you don\u2019t really mind?\u201d I asked Bunny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew the answer. She was going to say Milt, her brother Milt, whose screams had at last abated. If I listened through the silence, I could hear water running. It was having a brother, a brother I\u2019d foisted on her, that was hard but that she didn\u2019t really mind. She wished he\u2019d never been born but she couldn\u2019t help loving him a little bit too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny lowered her head and spoke to the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I stared at her. What remained of my dress\u2019s seams pressed into my hot skin. I looked down at my hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe?\u201d I chirped. \u201cI\u2019m the hard thing about your life?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t mind!\u201d Lillian shouted. \u201cThat\u2019s good news!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I kept my face as unmoving as I could so my cheeks wouldn\u2019t get wet. \u201cWhy am I the hard thing?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The enveloping softness of the carpet under my feet was not a comfort then, so I pressed harder against it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a small voice, she said, \u201cYou\u2019re not brave. But it\u2019s OK.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was woozy, blood gathering across my collarbone, I could feel it tingling, my tongue solidifying, stomach humming and hollowed out. I kept my eyes open even though I didn\u2019t want to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat exactly are you talking about?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny would not look at me. She shrugged. \u201cYou pretend. Like now, you\u2019re acting like you\u2019re not that mad. But you are.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I saw my aunt\u2019s mouth contort. She was pretending, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo, being brave is, is getting mad?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor you, it is,\u201d Lillian spat quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHell of a bathroom you got there! Did that clawfoot tub come with the place?\u201d Milton and Nat returned together in lockstep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI pooped,\u201d Milton declared with grim pride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot in the tub!\u201d Nat clarified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShut up!\u201d Bunny bellowed at both of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou shut up!\u201d I shouted, as angry as I felt, pretending nothing, the outside of me reflecting my insides so exactly, I felt like my skin had fallen off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSadie,\u201d said Nat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t yell just to prove yourself to her,\u201d Aunt Lillian muttered, peering up at me, her brown eyes catching the light and shining. \u201cOr to me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSorry. I\u2019m sorry, Mommy. I\u2019m really sorry,\u201d Bunny mumbled, shaking her head wildly. She\u2019d dropped deep down into her throne of a dining seat, her nubby blue smock dress folding in on itself and over her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I shook my head, crying breathlessly and stupidly in front of them all. I wasn\u2019t sure what the right thing to say was and to whom. What I usually said, what I usually did, was what neither my aunt nor my daughter wanted from me, so I said what I\u2019d have rather kept to myself. \u201cYeah. I do pretend. So I don\u2019t hurt people\u2019s feelings. Like\u2026\u201d I gestured at Lillian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At this, Lillian made a grunt as loud as a clap, chastening whatever courage I\u2019d just mustered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wiped my nose with my ruined dress. \u201cThank you so much for having us.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nat had begun clearing the table. \u201cThe coffee was wonderful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t.\u201d Lillian gazed at him and then at me. \u201cYou\u2019re running away from the fight. Tell her she\u2019s wrong. She\u2019s a kid. She doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s saying.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Bunny did know. She knew more than most kids her age ought to know. Bunny was right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I shook my head at my great aunt, watching Nat gather three wobbly Cel-Rays. \u201cYou told me not to impress you. Now you tell me to fight. What do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHoney, you don\u2019t need to be embarrassed,\u201d said Lillian, without a thread of the tenderness she had used to speak to Bunny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I stacked the plates, my sleeve catching in the cream cheese. \u201cBunny talks like that when she\u2019s tired.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not tired,\u201d Bunny said, her earlier penitence undone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShould we leave the bagels?\u201d Nat asked Lillian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lillian reached across the table to me and encircled my arm with her cool hand. \u201cYou\u2019ll never be like me, Sadie. No matter what you do.\u201d Her consonants were crisp, brutal. She was holding onto me tightly. \u201cYou follow the rules. You\u2019re nice. Just like your uncle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tumescent with shame, I nodded dumbly. Lillian\u2019s eyebrows were arched. She did not look like my grandmother. She looked like Bunny\u2019s drawing. And also, maybe, Bunny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTake it as a compliment,\u201d Aunt Lillian demanded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I tucked my hair behind my ear, the busted stitching of my dress exposing my soaked armpits like strings stretched over a guitar\u2019s sound hole, and told Lillian goodnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the car, Milt had fallen asleep, the porcelain of his stolen Hummel (the rabbi, my rabbi!) like a watchful glowing moon in his arms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny remained alert. She\u2019d held my hand all the way to our parking spot and when I wordlessly buckled her into her car seat, she\u2019d said, over and over, \u201cI\u2019m bad, I\u2019m bad, I\u2019m bad,\u201d to which I\u2019d shaken my head furiously as Nat thundered, uncharacteristically, \u201cNobody thinks that, Bunny!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in the back, Bunny seemed to have forgiven herself and me as she gazed ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAunt Lillian never answered your last question.\u201d I was picking at a wound that hadn\u2019t even scabbed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Red and white orbs of tail lights and highway lights guided us north toward home. Beside Nat shone the blackness of Gravesend Bay and just beyond, the Verrazano, regal in its nighttime banner of electrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hate it about me too,\u201d I told Bunny without turning around. \u201cThat I\u2019m not brave.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t,\u201d Nat murmured. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know you don\u2019t,\u201d I said sharply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIsn\u2019t it brave to be sorry? You\u2019re always sorry.\u201d He turned his head sideways and smiled at me with no teeth. \u201cShe\u2019s not.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t know if he meant Lillian or Bunny, Bunny who listened quietly to us as she gripped her car seat\u2019s armrests, her defiant heart pinned in with five straps to prevent disaster. He meant it as a compliment. But he didn\u2019t know I wasn\u2019t sorry half the times I claimed to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaybe,\u201d I said because Bunny was right: I didn\u2019t want to fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe hard thing in Lillian\u2019s life that she doesn\u2019t really mind is herself,\u201d said Nat. \u201cYour great great-aunt is the hard thing. Write that, Bunny.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He sounded so proud of himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How could I tell him he was wrong? I didn\u2019t know what the hard thing was that Lillian didn\u2019t mind, but I knew she could hardly bear herself. I could hardly bear myself sometimes. That was what made us both brave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bunny stared at me in the rearview mirror, as still and silent as the bridge outside our window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think she\u2019s asleep with her eyes open,\u201d Nat whispered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I nodded and stared at the road ahead. She was asleep with her eyes open. She had been for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was too hot now and, as Nat drove, I tried to shuck my coat off from below my seatbelt but it was too bulky. I had to unbuckle. As the car\u2019s alarm rang, I shrugged my arms free. Ignoring Nat\u2019s concerned glances, I slipped my fingers under the torn armpit of my tattered dress and wrenched the sleeve clean off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSadie. You have to buckle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I leaned my bare shoulder against the window. \u201cI know,\u201d I said as the alarm dinged and dinged. \u201cI will.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Nuts” by Katie Schorr Everybody on my father\u2019s side had assimilated in what I\u2019d call the cultural sense: they\u2019d stopped talking Jewish. My father and his progenitors, they put away their deep borough accents, buried their surety of doom, their wryness and their rye. It wasn\u2019t a rejection of god or the Torah, neither of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1546,"featured_media":309301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5557,63],"tags":[456,178,725,1263,5577,94],"class_list":["post-309251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lit-mags","category-recommended-reading","tag-aging","tag-family","tag-judaism","tag-parenthood","tag-recommended-reading","tag-relationships"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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