Saturday night
Part two
“Bismarck!”
“No,” Noah said patiently, scooting the book across the table back to the dismal boy. “That’s the capital of South Dakota.”
“Seattle!”
Noah shook his head.
“So far you’ve gotten coffee and a donut,” he told the boy. “Well, then help me,” Barry whined.
“I am helping you,” Noah told him. “And I’ll help you a little more by saying stop guessing and start learning.”
Barry Kelvin opened his mouth to protest, then looked to the window, and when the gazing had gone on for a while, Noah told him, “You know the answer isn’t out there.”
“Lincoln,” Barry said, at last.
“Is the capital of Nebraska,” Noah concluded, satisfied. “I’ll never get this.”
“But, Barry you already have,” Noah leaned across the table and shook his shoulder. “You’ve already got it. Nothing comes easy. Well,” Noah reformed, “a few things comes easy. But not this.”
“Did it come easy for you?”
“State capitals?” Noah raised an eyebrow.
“Well… All of that stuff? How do teachers get so smart?” Noah Riley was about to say something snarky about
teachers in the state of Indiana, or teachers he had grown up with, but instead he said, “It was a lot of work, and more work than I thought it would be to get my degree, and to get my license. And that was after I’d done a lot of other things.”
“Why did you want to be a teacher?”
“Well, like I said, I’d done a lot of other things. And I really felt like working with kids.”
“Like me?”
“Yes, young sirs like yourself. And I already had a son. You know. He’s in college now. And when he was about sixteen or so, he needed extra help, and I already had done some training. So… I just went and got my degree.”
“You don’t look old, Noah.”
Noah grinned and said, “Thanks, Barry.” “How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
“Well, you adopted your son?’
“Chay is fifteen years younger than me and… and,” Noah sat up remembering himself. “You are trying to waylay me from teaching.”
Barry tried to not look guilty, but his face was turning red. “I want to hear another story,” he said.
“The only story you’re going to hear,” Noah told him, “is the story of the French Revolution. I promised your mom we’d cover geography, history and reading, and we’re almost done. So, don’t you stop me.”
The door opened, and a boy called out, “Honey, I’m home!”
“Grab yourself something and don’t be a nuisance,” Noah said.
A small young man who looked a great deal like Noah walked into the kitchen, grabbed an apple, kissed Noah on the head and said, “Heya, Barry.”
“Hi, Chay.” “Whatcha all doing?’
“Trying to learn history,” Noah told him. “Ouch.”
“Ouch is right.”
“Ouch is wrong,” Noah swatted his son. “History is… fun.”
Barry looked unconvinced. “What are you doing?”
“The French Revolution,” Barry said. “That’s advanced stuff.”
“Rossford Elementary is very advanced,” Noah said. “Since when?” his son shook his head.
“I’m too tired for this!” Noah sang, lifting his head.
“Then move aside, Pops,” Chay said, pushing himself into the booth under the kitchen window. “The French Revolution is my specialty.”
“Really?” Barry marveled.
“Really,” Chay said. “History’s not a bad thing at all. You know I’m a history major, right?”
“No.”
“Well, I am. And for the French Revolution…. Dad, can you get me a knife and a carrot?
Mouth open, Noah nodded and stood up. He came back a moment later.
“All you need to know,” Chay said, putting down the carrot, and lifting up the knife, “is off—” it came down and the top of the carrot flew into Barry’s face.
“—with their heads!”
Barry clapped his hands and Noah whispered to his son, “You know there’s a little more to it than that, right?”
Chay rolled his eyes so disparagingly at his father, Noah backed off and said, “Alright. So, you know.”
“I don’t know,” said Layla. “I mean… Well, what I mean is… I don’t know.”
Laurel looked at Dena.
“You don’t understand,” Layla said to her niece. “From twenty-five to thirty has been the hardest time of my life.”
“You’re not thirty yet.”
“I will be in a few weeks. As soon as I graduated from college I felt like I was just drifting. And then I tried to marry Kevin to drift a little bit less. And then grad school. A false start here, and a false start there. And then this…. When I finally sat down.”
“Does Will know?”
“About the book, or about my poetry?” “Aren’t they the same?” Laurel said.
“No, not really,” said Layla . “Will knows I like to write. Will tells me I should do more. I didn’t want to say anything about the book until there was a book.”
“And she’s been working on it so hard for so long,” Dena said in a tender voice. She had drawn her knees up to her chin.
“Something changed in you when you began writing, when you got ready for the book,” Dena told her friend.
Layla held the book, half distracted. “I became myself.” “Aunt Layla, read us a poem,” Laurel said.
Under her brown skin, Layla blushed.
“Laurel’s right,” Dena said. “You have to read something.” Layla looked humble, resolved. She said, “Oh, hell. Oh, I guess.”
They waited while she flipped through the little book.
“I know just the one,” she murmured, still flipping. “If only I can find it…”
Dena Affren could hear Rob and the other children playing outside. She reached out and touched Laurel’s hand.
“I feel like we’re at the beginning of something,” she said. “You really have to shut up,” Layla told her friend. But there was no real ire in her voice.
i know
after all this time that so many won’t understand me, after
all i hardly understand myself
it seemed i was drifting when what i was doing was turning in circles that you can’t see
and that she doesn’t want to and i know
that just seeing me here i’m making you cry
even if it is in envy
or even in a little rage you are weeping
because what is done here, in the light after long climbing out of darkness
is what you would do
and what has been completed here, is what you are beginning
and here, in this my ending you see hope
for the half dead part of you that put away all dreams and traded wish for reason
They were all very quiet, and then Dena said, “I love you so much right now.”
Layla just nodded.
“You have to tell Fenn,” Laurel said. “You have to tell your mother, yes. But you have to tell Lee, and you have to tell Fenn.”
Layla nodded, then she said, “But I’m sort of afraid.”
“What the hell for?”
“I can’t explain it,” said Layla. “It’s almost like the moment I tell them it won’t be true. It’s almost like… No. It’s like…”
“It’s like when I had Rob,” Dena said reflectively. “He’s such an awful terror. But when he was born I wanted everyone gone. When Mom left and it was just me and Milo I was so glad. And then when Milo was gone and it was just me and my baby, I just needed to be alone with him.”
“Yes,” Layla discovered.
“Does that mean we should leave you alone with your baby?” Laurel asked.
“Not just yet,” Layla said, her hand lightly touching the cover, though she thought it unseemly to look at it. “Not yet.”
The phone rang and Fenn looked up from the books scattered across the kitchen table. When it rang again he looked up at his son, who stood at the refrigerator.
“Are you going to get that?” he asked Dylan.
The boy looked about the kitchen as if expecting someone else to appear and then said, “Well, if you want me to.”
“I want you to,” his father told him.
“Helllloooo,” Dylan said, picking up the kitchen phone, “Fenn Houghton’s child slave, how can I help you?”
“I know how I’m about to help you,” Fenn murmured. “Oh… Layla. Hey. Yeah. Hold on.”
Dylan stretched the phone cord out to his father. “Just put it on speaker phone,” Fenn told him. Dylan hit the button and Fenn said:
“Layla?”
“First,” Layla said, “get off your ass and pick up the phone yourself instead of making Dylan your slave.”
“I bet you’re sorry for speaker phones now,” the dark haired boy with Tom Mesda’s features sat down and gave his father a predatory smile.
“And secondly,” Layla said, waxing effusively. “I love you.” “Well…”
“I do. I really do, and you’ve made me who I am—”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Shut up, Fenn! I’m having a moment.
“You’ve helped me be… Well, you’re going to see. Tonight you’re going to see.”
“Okay,” Fenn said, sounding confused.
“Just trust me,” his niece said.
Well… come over after the end of Sabbath service. We’re going to Temple in a few minutes.”
“Do I have to?” Dylan said.
“You know you don’t,” Fenn said.
“Good. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
Fenn looked at the departing boy, shaking his head. “Hold on Lay, I’m having issues with my strange son.”
Dylan shrugged. “I just wanted to know I had a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice. You could stay here and practice trumpet if you want. You’re not even Jewish.”
“Neither are you, but you still go.”
“Well, I have to. Todd’s my husband.”
“I’m still here!” Layla’s voice over the speakerphone reminded them.
“Uh, sorry, Lay,” they both said.
“Just come on over around seven-thirty. After Todd does havdalah. Or come before.”
“Good,” Layla said.
“I like havdalah,” Dylan and Layla both said, dreamily.
One havdalah, instead of chanting in Hebrew, Dylan, had serenaded them on the trumpet, and Fenn was remembering this now, how the boy had come home, about a year ago, with the desire for the trumpet and music in his breath.
“You all really are related,” Fenn commented.
Then Layla said, “By the way, Laurel says you’re acting strange.”
“Who?” Dylan said.
“You.”
“How can you tell?” Fenn said while Dylan gave him a sour look.
“Tell her I’m just being a guy.”
“All right,” Layla said. “Well, I’ll see you all later. Bye.” After Layla was gone, and Todd could be heard singing upstairs, Fenn said to Dylan: “Just being a guy?”
Dylan shrugged, “Yeah, Dad. Just being a guy.”
