Don't Talk to Me About the War by David A. Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

clock beside my bed. It’s just six thirty! I sit up quickly and ask, “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing,” Dad says as he comes into my room. “It’s just that Mom wants to go to early mass.”
    I don’t even get up this early for school!
    Early mass begins at seven. It’s for people who work on Sundays and for old people who can’t sleep late. We usually go later, at eleven.
    We walk to church. It’s just a few blocks, but I notice how difficult this is for Mom, how Dad holds on to her, how he helps her up the stairs. The later masses are always crowded, and we know lots of people. At this mass there are maybe twenty people and, like I said, they’re mostly old. I don’t know any of them. We sit in a back pew.
    Father Reilly leads the service. Mom sings along, but when Dad and I kneel for prayer, Mom just leans forward.
    When we leave, Father Reilly takes both Mom’s hands in his. “Peace be with you,” he says. “And how are you, Mrs. Duncan?”
    “I count my blessings.”
    “Please, I’m here for you.”
    He must have seen how Mom struggled during services. That’s why he said that.
    At about noon, Dad asks me to get the Sunday newspaper and go to the bakery for kaiser rolls, crumb cake, and a loaf of sliced rye bread. I get the Sunday News at Goldman’s, but I don’t go in. I just take the paper off the bench in front and drop the money in the cup.
    The bakery is just a few stores away, and at the door I take a deep breath. It smells like fresh baked bread. I love that smell. I go in and am about to ask for four kaiser rolls when I realize they were probably named after some German kaiser, maybe Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the one who started the Great War, the one my dad was in. I hesitate, but you know what, I ask for them anyway. After all, they’re just rolls. Then I tell the woman I want bread and crumb cake. I pay her and she gives me the cake box and paper bag with the rolls and bread.
    I decide not to go straight home. The sun is out, and it seems a pity to spend another whole day indoors.
    There’s a small park nearby, just a few benches, a set of swings, some trees, and open space. I walk there and see a young couple gently rocking a baby carriage. I sit on a bench near them.
    When I was young Mom took me to this park. She thought the fresh air was good for me and she met her friends here, Mrs. Muir and Mrs. Taylor. They would sit and talk and sometimes go shopping together.
    “You were a good baby,” Mom has told me lots of times. “You hardly cried, and when you did, I knew something was wrong. You were hungry or soiled.”
    Soiled means my diaper was full. It’s embarrassing when I think of that. Mom changed me right here, in the park.
    An old man standing by the open space throws a stick. His dog runs, gets it, and brings it back. And do you know what the man does? He throws the stick again and the dog runs for it. How can the dog keep running after the same stick knowing that as soon as he brings it back, he’ll have to run and get it again?
    I open the bakery bag and smell the bread and decide I should go. It’s almost time for lunch.
    When I get home the table is already set. Mom and Dad have been waiting for me. A bowl of noodles and sauce and a plate of Dad’s egg salad are in the middle of the table. Of course, you know what I take: noodles. I have enough of Dad’s egg salad during the week. For dessert I have crumb cake.
    At two, we tune in to the Dodgers game. They’re in Philadelphia and the weather is still bad, but they play anyway. Dad listens with me while Mom rests.
    It’s a great game! The Dodgers are losing almost from the start but just by one run. Then, in the ninth, they tie it with a sacrifice fly by Camilli and win it in the tenth with Pee Wee Reese’s first home run ever. It’s his first year with the team.
    Later, Mom insists on setting the table and making dinner—to prove to us that she feels better. Dad and I watch as she brings in the plates, in