“Okay, Mom. I’ll do it. Promise you won’t tell Daddy.”
ON THE FOURTH or fifth night of Chanukah, I drove down to Miami to make certain Aviva had sacked the married man. I was anxious so I went overboard with offerings for Aviva’s dorm. I brought an electric menorah, and a netted bag of gold chocolate coins, and new face towels from Bloomingdale’s (I paid seven dollars per towel for in-store monogramming), and two black-and-white cookies from King’s because these were her favorite when she was little.
“So?” I said.
“Mom,” she said, “the marriage is over, but he can’t break up with the wife at the moment. The timing isn’t right.”
“Oh, Aviva,” I said. “That’s what every married man says. He will never break up with the wife. Never.”
“No,” Aviva said, “it’s true. He has a very good reason he can’t break up the marriage right now.”
“Yeah,” I said, “what?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said.
“Why? I want to hear this very good reason.”
“Mom,” she said.
“How can I advise you if I don’t know the details?”
“If I tell you the reason, you’ll know who it is,” Aviva said.
“Maybe not,” I said.
“You will,” she said.
“So tell me. What difference does it make if I know who it is? I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m a vault when it comes to you.”
“The reason is”—she paused—“the reason is because he is in the middle of a reelection campaign.”
“Oh God,” I said. “Please end this. Aviva, you must end this. Think of his wife—”
“She’s awful,” Aviva said. “You always said that yourself.”
“Then think of his sons. Think of his constituents, of the people who have voted for him. Think of his career. Think of your own! Think of your reputation! And if that’s not enough, think of Daddy and of me and of Grandma!”
“Stop being a drama queen. No one will ever find out. We’ll keep it a secret until he can get divorced,” Aviva said.
“Please, Aviva. Listen to me. You have to end this. Or if you can’t end this, put it on ice until he gets the divorce. If it’s really love, it will keep until next year.”
Aviva nodded in a considering way, and I thought I might be getting through to her. She kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.” This must be what it’s like when your child joins a cult.
I could not sleep that night. I called in sick to work, something I never do because I am never sick, and though I was forty-eight years old at the time, I went to see my own mother for advice.
“Mom,” I said. “Aviva’s in trouble.” I described the situation for my mother.
“Aviva is smart,” Mom finally said, “but she is young and she does not know what she does not know. Go to Levin’s wife. You know the woman and have a context from which you can request a meeting. The wife will talk sense into the congressman.”
“But isn’t that a betrayal of Aviva’s confidence?”
“Aviva will be hurt in the short term, but it will be a temporary hurt and it is for her own good.”
“Do I tell Aviva that I’m going to do this?” I asked.
“It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t. She will not see reason. She will not see things from your point of view, and whether or not it is a betrayal, she will surely see it as one. If you don’t tell her, in all likelihood she will never find out it was you.”
Just before I married Mike, my mother and I went shopping for bridal shoes. And I remember thinking, Why bother? Do I really need to wear white shoes? But then I saw a diamanté-covered pump with a three-inch stiletto heel. “Mom,” I said, “look at these beauties.”
“Meh,” she said.
“What?” I said. “They’re gorgeous.”
“They’re pretty,” she said. “But your dress is to the floor. No one will see your shoes. You may as well be comfortable.”
“I’ll know they’re there,” I said.
She made her signature moue.
“I’m a seven and a half,” I told the salesman.
I tried them on and determined them to be bearably painful.
“Your legs look amazing,” the salesman said.
“No one’s going to see her legs,” Mom said. “Can you even walk?”
I walked.
“Those tiny baby steps. You look hobbled,” she said.
“I feel like Cinderella,” I said. “I’m going to get them.”
“These are investment shoes,” the salesman said.
My mother snorted audibly.
“You’ll have these shoes your whole life,” the salesman said.
“They’ll sit in your closet your whole life,” Mom said. “You’ll never wear them again.”
“You have shoes like these, you find places to wear them,” the salesman said.
“You don’t have to pay for them,” I said to my mother. I put my credit card on the counter.
In the car, my mother said, “Rachel—”
“Stop with the shoes already. It’s done. They’re paid for,” I said.
“No, it’s not that. I don’t know why I was so sour about the shoes. If you love them, you should have them. What I wanted to say was”—she paused, but barely—“you could just as soon not marry him.”
“What?”
“You know, I guess I mean, you could marry him or you couldn’t.” She said this casually, as if she were saying she could have either sandwiches or soup for dinner, it didn’t matter to her.
“Are you saying you don’t like him?” I asked.
“No, I like him fine,” she said. “But while I’m thinking about it, I wanted to point out to you that it’s as easy to call off a wedding as to go through with one.”
“What?”
“My point is, it’s tempting,” she said. “It is certainly tempting to continue on with something because it has already begun. Think of Hitler, Rachel.”
There was no one Mom despised more than Hitler. He was rarely invoked and when she did invoke him, it was for situations she considered most grave. “I don’t know where you’re going with this, Mother.”
“Maybe at some point, that piece of shit had doubts about the Final Solution. Probably not, he was not a man known for introspection, but you never know. But maybe at one million Jews or two million Jews, in his secret, diseased heart, he was like, ‘Enough. This isn’t solving anything. If anything, it’s creating more problems! I don’t know why I ever thought this was a good idea.’ But he’d gotten the ball rolling, so . . .”
“Are you seriously comparing Mike to Hitler?”
“No, in this metaphor, you’re Hitler, and your wedding is the Final Solution, and I’m the good German who doesn’t want to sit idly by.”
“MOTHER!”
“Don’t be so literal. It’s a story. People use stories to make a point.”
“Not you! You don’t do that. Not with Hitler!”
“Calm down, Rachel.”
“Why are you saying this? Do you know something about Mike?” This was the woman who said she didn’t know what happiness was, after all. I couldn’t imagine where this was coming from.
“I know nothing,” she said.
“You seem like you know something.”
“I know nothing,” she said. She removed a tin of French lemon drops from her purse. My mother was never without candy. “Would you like one?”