Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman Read Free Book Online Page A

a nap and began peeling potatoes for her kugel. Hannah sat at the kitchen table sorting her rubber bands by color until she grew bored and asked for a job. “Can I cut the onions, Bubbe?”
    â€œLet’s wait until you are seven for that. You’ll need all of your fingers to play jacks.”
    â€œCan I grate the chocolate for the icebox cake?”
    â€œYour aunt Sylvia will be here soon, cookie. She’ll take you across the street and run you around but good.”
    Hannah pulled a doll from the Milwaukee Sports Club gym bag her father had loaned her for her sleepover. Fancy. The club had just started officially accepting Jews, and her Simon, famous for fixing noses and bosoms, was one of the first to join. Hyman wouldn’t have cared about the club even if they’d accepted him. He’d never wanted to shower with the goyim; too many times he’d gotten it for having a different shmeckl.
    Hannah fed her doll with a fake bottle. Goldie thought her granddaughter was a bit old for dolls, but what did she know about little girls? Her daughter, Marlene, had run off to San Francisco ten years ago and barely picked up the phone to say hello. Miss Broken Finger.
    â€œYour baby hungry?” Goldie glanced up from a heap of peeled potatoes.
    â€œYes, Melanie wants Cream of Wheat.”
    Hannah held her doll to her shoulder with tenderness. This was a child who knew from love. Goldie felt proud of Simon for being such a good father, and proud that he’d picked such a loving wife. So she was bossy, which had only gotten worse when she started burying her nose in those Gloria Steinberg books.
    â€œYou’re a good mommy, Hannahle.”
    Hannah’s eyes brightened. “Do you have a special spoon too?”
    Goldie reached into her top drawer and handed her granddaughter a teaspoon.
    â€œNo, Bubbe, a baby spoon.” Hannah grabbed the end of one of her pigtails — her hair was black and curly like her father’s — split it in two, and tugged.
    â€œMy baby is thirty-five years old.” Goldie chuckled.
    Hannah put her hands on her hips. “Well, Aunt Sylvia doesn’t even have kids, and she has a baby spoon.”
    A chill ran up and down Goldie’s back. “What baby spoon?”
    â€œIt was small and shiny and silver, and it had a little Hebrew letter on it.”
    Goldie could tell Hannah was feeling like a real big shot with this piece of grown-up information. “A hey ,” she murmured. Her limbs felt heavy. She wanted to pour herself a glass of ice water and sit down for a second. She had specifically asked Sylvia at Mama’s funeral if she’d seen Grandma Hannah’s baby spoon, and Sylvia just shook her head in her sweet Sylvia way and said not a word, so Goldie assumed that it had been misplaced. The funeral was more than thirty years ago, but she remembered it as if it were yesterday.
    â€œAre you okay, Bubbe?”
    â€œOf course I’m okay.” Goldie’s tone was harsher than she meant it to be. “Bring me that tin. We’ll split a pecan bar.”
    Hannah’s eyes, brownish black like Goldie’s, grew round. Goldie never interrupted her cooking and baking for anything.
    The cookie felt like chalk on Goldie’s tongue, but she tried to pretend that a treat was just what the doctor ordered. After everything she’d done, all those envelopes of money, all the fights with Hyman when he insisted that she should just let Sylvia fend for herself, all the times she turned her head the other way when Sylvia’s good-for-nothing husband, Irving, showed up in his fine wool suits, all the nights Sylvia spent on Goldie’s sofa, all the Shabbat dinners and seders and Rosh Hashanah lunches and the care packages that followed. Not to mention the fact that Sylvia had never so much as invited her over for a grilled cheese sandwich. Why wouldn’t Sylvia have wanted Goldie’s children and