Don’t Forget to Write

by Sara Goodman Confino

Jewish mothers didn’t let you go hungry, no matter what you had done.

Then I went to the bathroom down the hall to relieve myself and put on a little lipstick. Whoever was down there would be easier to tame if I had my armor on.

“You can’t banish me to New Jersey of all places! I won’t go!”

I had woken up in New York but would be going to sleep in an entirely different world.

And despite myself, I was envious. Yes, I wanted love and passion and excitement. But the idea of being my own person—of doing what I wanted when I wanted and bossing everyone else around—was intoxicating.

Encounters like that wouldn’t happen in New York. We assumed everyone was a murderer. And, quite honestly, she was too cheerful. She might have been one.

“There are only three certainties in this world, Marilyn. Death, taxes, and Jewish mothers wanting to marry their children off.”

“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And don’t ever let anyone tell you we’re the weaker sex.”

It was the same future I didn’t want with Daniel. And I didn’t understand how these men could claim to be attracted to the fact that I was free, then try to cage me.

“You haven’t asked me Freddy. And I’m not ready to say yes. You can ask my father until you’re blue in the face, but even if he says yes, I matter. What I want matters.”

“No. It’s never going to be ‘right.’ I see that now. It’s me. I don’t want to be someone’s wife. I want to be myself.” Ada had the first pitying look in her eye that I had ever seen. “When it’s right, you’ll find you can be both.”

It had never occurred to me to be jealous of a bird, but that pelican—minus the diet—had the freedom I wanted. It knew where it belonged, which I no longer did. It knew what it was supposed to do—eat, fly, and swim. And there was no one chastising it for not living the way they wanted it to. Ada lived like that bird.

But he had made his bed. And I had my own to make, unmake, and make again without him in it.

Ada was stingy with her praise and generous with criticism. But it made the actual praise so much more valuable when she gave it.

“The rules are archaic and from a time when food poisoning was likely to kill you.”

I looked at her profile, illuminated in the moonlight as she pulled off the Garden State onto Avalon Boulevard. She was wild and free, but she was alone. And I didn’t know if that was exactly what I wanted or what I was most terrified of becoming.

Daniel was on the sofa, Ada in the chair opposite him. Sally had apparently fallen in love and was on Daniel’s lap, kissing his hand. That traitor.

I would be her age in 2015. We would have flying cars and be living on the moon by then.

“At least someone cares if I live or die.” “Darling, I care if you die. I would have to figure out how to get your body out so the house wouldn’t smell like something out of a Faulkner story.”

I had drunk too much before, but never wine. And I was pretty sure that a wine hangover was a level of Dante’s Inferno.

We set Ada and Lillian up with chairs and the umbrella, both of them so covered from any amount of sunshine possibly getting near them that I began to wonder if perhaps they were actually vampires. It would certainly explain how Ada snuck around so easily.

“So becoming a rabbi is your version of marrying a rabbi’s son and being a dutiful wife and mother?”

I didn’t know how either of us would manage the dream-shattering disappointments we were about to lob at our families, but there was a sense of comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one.

The world loves to destroy what it doesn’t understand. Some things can be hidden to be protected. Some can’t.”

But she was wrong—she wasn’t masquerading as a house cat. She was a leopard, camouflaged against her surroundings, but still living her life exactly as she saw fit. And I hoped, when I looked back on my life a half century from now, I would be doing the same.

“The truth is, you’re not like anyone I’ve ever known. I’m alive when I’m with you. And I want to be with you—in whatever way you’ll have me. If that involves rings and a ketubah, yes. If it’s coconuts and sleeping in a shack on the beach, that’s great too. But I’m just trying to find a solution that helps you right now.” It was the right answer.

If I could have crawled into her skin and become her, I would have. She was fierce and ferocious and feminine all at the same time.

It was the ultimate threat from a Jewish parent. A step beyond disowning. Parents could always reinstate a disowned child. Once someone sat shiva for you, you were dead to them for the rest of their life.

“I know. But you’re no plucked flower that will wilt and die in the city. You, my girl, are a phoenix. And it may feel like the end of the world, but you will rise from the ashes into something even stronger.”

“It’s the curse of our family, I’m afraid.” “What is?” “That desire for freedom. A gilded cage is still a cage. Most people don’t see the bars that hold them. You and I do.”

“And you do know the ending of your book.” I looked at her questioningly. “She drives off into the sunset to live exactly how she wants.”

My parents loved me because I was their child. But there was a lot they would change in me if they could. Ada was under no such obligation to love me. And, no matter how many critiques she had of my behavior and manners, she wouldn’t change a thing. Leaving her felt like I was leaving a piece of myself behind. But I was stronger for having known her. And even if I never did see her again, that part of her would always be with me.

“Mama, she did do that for me. But I want a different life than you do. That doesn’t make it wrong.”

“She was vain and mischievous and selfless and kind all in one.

“I’m glad you and Dan found each other. He’s good for you.” Two months earlier, that comment would have sent me running. But the idea of the stove no longer scared me. Besides, I was an even worse chef than my mother. There was no way I was doing the cooking in any scenario.

My eyes widened, realizing that like so many things Ada said and did, there was a double meaning there.

“What’s in Key West?” “Everything,” I said. Ada was right. I did know how this ended all along.