I imagine you may be uneasy to see me here. David and Shimmy were determined to keep me out. Anita argued on my behalf, framed it as my filial right. My brothers were going to let me in only if I agreed to stick entirely to reciting tehillim.
“Dad will know your intentions,” they said.
“I’m not sure I do,” I said.
Because it’s been thirty years since the Desecration; if you remember, that’s how you used to refer to it. You’d be justified wishing it buried with all the other unpleasant memories associated with me. Do you realize we never once spoke of it?
It was the Fast of the Ninth of Av, 1980. Our family was just back from shul, the droning of Lamentations still in our ears, and inside we could hear the phone ringing. We’d recently changed the locks because of a break-in, and we couldn’t get the door open. The porch light was out. You held the new cut keys out toward the street.
“No one calls on Tisha B’Av unless it’s an emergency,” you said.
I stood close as you finally answered and could hear Uncle Moe say, “Isaac, Pa’s gone.”
“Oh, oh! Have you called the others?”
“Not yet. He’s still on the sofa, with his hat on.”
Uncle Moe had gone to rinse out the chamber pot — remember that enamel tub Zaide used after he went blind that looked like an artifact from the old country? When he returned to the living room, Zaide had stopped breathing.
You slid to the floor, hugging the telephone cord, shivering. You’d recently sat that way in shul, mourning the sacking of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Temple. But this was personal; I remember drawing the contrast.
Your tears stung me, and I wept too. For...
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