Brewster by Mark Slouka Read Free Book Online Page A

wouldn’t look at me some days when she gave me my lunch in the morning, or the way she suddenly wouldn’t answer when I asked her something—when dinner would be, or what we were having. Like I’d done something. Like I’d been bad.
    Some days I’d wake up and the house would feel empty like somebody had taken all the furniture out and I’d find her in bed, crying, and I’d try to talk to her to see what was wrong but she wouldn’t tell me and later when I was older I’d make her scrambled eggs and she’d give me a note for school: “Please excuse Jon. He was sick.” And things would be OK. And then the next day or the one after that I’d come home from school and she’d walk right by me in the hall and when I asked what was wrong she’d say in that angry, I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-you voice, “Nothing’s wrong. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sometimes she’d keep it up for days, not answering. Other times she’d lock herself in the bedroom. Every now and then you’d hear her come out, walk to the bathroom, slam the door.
    It wasn’t much—I’m just saying how things were. My father didn’t figure into it—he went to work, he came back. He read, he slept. He didn’t get mad at me. He didn’t do anything except sell shoes. For a while in seventh grade I tried to talk to him about things because I’d seen a show in which the dad was kind of quiet but cool underneath and I thought it might be the same with him. It wasn’t. I had to think about my schoolwork, he’d tell me. Someday I’d understand how important it was. He didn’t say when.
    When I was ten I woke from a deep fever to find my mother slumped over in a chair next to my bed, sleeping, her hands neatly folded on an open book. I’d been sick for days, and Dr. Rusoff had been over again the night before. He’d given me two injections in the shoulder, felt my throat and my armpits with his soft, hairy hands, and then he and my parents had talked for a long time in the hall.
    I watched her sleeping—a strand of hair had come down over her face and her mouth was open—and then the book fell off her lap. When she saw I was awake we just looked at each other for what felt like a long time and then she leaned forward and brushed the hair back from my forehead. “I should tell your father,” she said, and then she smiled—an emptied-out, nothing-left-to-give smile—and for just a moment it was me and her. A few days later, when things went back to the way they were, I began to wonder if I’d imagined it. After a while I hoped I had. It would make it easier.
    When I was thirteen or so I came home and she’d turned the switch off—that’s how I thought of it. She was sitting up straight at the dining room table, doing the bills. And maybe because I’d had a bad day at school or because I was older now or because earlier that week she’d put a note in my lunch bag saying she hoped I’d have a nice day I asked what was the matter.
    She didn’t look up, didn’t answer. I could see her mouth—that way it got, pulled tight, the wrinkles bunching up into her lips. She looked from one paper to another, then back.
    “What’s the matter?” To my surprise I could feel the tears rush under my eyelids as if they’d been waiting there, shamefully close to the surface. “Mommy?”
    “I’m busy.” It was that tone—slow, quiet, seething. Determined to stay calm even though she was being pushed, tested.
    I started to put down my books. I could feel myself shaking.
    “What did I do?”
    She didn’t look up.
    “Mommy, what did I do?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    I started to walk away, then turned. “Why do you do that?” I said, my voice rising into an accusing whine. “Why do you do that? Why do you—”
    “Don’t you dare come into this house and—”
    “Why do you—”
    “Don’t you dare. Just because some little shiksa didn’t smile at you—”
    “Why don’t you like me?”
    She stared at me like