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“Arlen! Why would you feel guilty? He was the guilty one. He was lying.”
“That’s a big word. And come on, Wyatt, you know the rules—whoever says I love you first, loses. This was a double whammy—I told him I loved him first, but then was also the first to discover he was lying in a pathetic way. I felt guilty and hurt but didn’t know if I had any reason to feel either. It was all very strange.
“Anyway, maybe because of that, I started feeling itchy to get back to Vie
“I’ve never had so much fun hanging around with any man. We cooked together and walked and watched TV and he told me anything I wanted to know about him. We talked about high school and old flames and what we felt about our parents. He said just when we grow up enough to begin forgiving them for whatever happened when we were young, we have to get used to pitying them. I thought it a strange comment, and then the question raced nastily across my mind: Was it his thought or something he’d read? I said nothing, but it returned later to hit me on the back of the head like an iron boomerang.
“Every morning we followed the same routine. He’d get up first and wake me. Then he’d take Mi
“Usually they came back in a fluster because they’d had an adventure—seen a deer grazing, or Mi
“And then she… died.” My throat closed quickly and I had to stand up. My chest heaved and in a second I was crying hard. “She just died.”
Wyatt got up and put his arms around me. Such a nice man, but no arms would have done any good then. All I could think of was that dear, dear animal and what a good friend she’d been. How she brought her chew bone to my feet and said with happy eyes, “Let’s play! Throw it!” Or the time she was sleeping on the couch and, shifting, slid slowly down and onto the floor without ever waking. How slobbily she ate food but didn’t like to be watched when she was outside doing her business. How gentle and sweet she was.
“That su
“As Leland ran in shouting for her, she twitched a few times and then was still. She’d been nosing around something, he said, but then she’d put whatever it was in her mouth and began eating it. Seeing that, he went after her to get it away, but she ran off toward home, delighted to be naughty right in front of him.
“Poison. Poisoned meat. The veterinarian in Klosterneuburg, the man who’d given her her rabies shot and told me what to feed her, pulled off his rubber gloves and threw them onto the examining table in total disgust. Sometimes it happened. Sometimes an animal hater bought a nice piece of meat, laced it with poison, and put it where he knew it would be found.
“I was destroyed. Yet even in the darkest, saddest moments I thanked God Leland was there. He took over everything and gave me all the space and time I needed in which to grieve. And though he was wholly there, most of the time he stayed invisible. But somehow he also sensed when I needed him in the room with me. Then he’d hold my hand and talk to me, and from the things he said, I knew her death was as terrible to him as it was to me. I had nothing but pain inside, so he supplied all the other necessities for both of us—love, strength all around, and a solidness that I couldn’t get enough of. What must it be like to lose a child? How in his own fear and failing health did he find the strength and goodness to keep me afloat? Are there really such precious people on earth? Here was one. He was proof.
“I thought I’d loved him before, Wyatt, but after Mi
“A what?”
“A shochet. That’s a kosher butcher. You know, the Jews do their slaughtering very differently. The whole procedure is done in a way so the animal feels no pain. They use a knife called a chalef, which means ‘sharp-no-nick.’ Another way of translating it is ‘that which from life to death transforms.’
“What are you talking about, Arlen?”
I could see concern in his eyes, as if he were afraid my sanity had begun to wobble.
“They’re important words, and they’ll mean a lot when I’ve finished telling you the whole story. ‘Shochet’ and ‘chalef.’ ”
“Shochet and chalef. Okay.”
“You know the saying ‘Never get comfortable till you hear the other shoe drop?’ I was still staggering from Mi
“Why didn’t your father keep it?”
“Because Mom and her brother were extremely close, and Dad probably thought it was the one thing of hers he could give Len that mattered. Len’s a shy man and I believed him when he said he hadn’t read it. But I did and instantly suffered another death—my own. How about some coffee?”
I started to get up but Wyatt pulled me back down. “Come on, Arlen, you aren’t leaving after that. What are you talking about? Forget the coffee.”
“All right. My mother and I were real pals. She died when I was a teenager and it was one of the worst traumas of my life. I never got over it. There were so many things I needed to do with her and tell her. But one day she was just gone. I wasn’t even around—I was away at school. I loved and trusted her more than anyone because, most important, she was my friend. The Girls. That’s what Dad called us, the Girls. We were always together, and I think he was often jealous. But she died just when I was begi
“I’m getting off the track. I thought we were as close as a mother and daughter could be. At least that comforted me when I thought about her dying so young: at least we loved and appreciated each other when she was alive. She was my biggest supporter and believed in me no matter what. In return, she knew I told her everything and was as honest as I could be. It was a good relationship, Wyatt. I don’t know many kids who get along so well with their parents. When I was still famous, an interviewer once asked me what I’d wish for if I could have one wish and whether I’d give up my career for it. I immediately said yes, because my wish was to bring Mom back to life. That would have been worth ten careers.