“No.” I smile. “You can’t even turn on the lights or cook or do much of anything on the Sabbath. When I was growing up, I thought it was the most boring day of the week. Now I realize it was the most peaceful.”
“And your family turned their backs on you?”
“At first, yes. My mother actually started calling after Ezra was born.”
“So things are getting better between you?”
“I haven’t talked to her much. We both said some awful things when she first found out about Al. I’ve been so hurt and angry I just…” I blink at tears again, recalling the scent of challah bread and fish and chicken soup Mama would serve for the Friday evening meal.
“But you miss her?” Janetta asks.
I nod, swallow, and dry Ezra with a towel.
“Then, girl, call her back. Life’s too short.” Janetta pulls Kimba from the bath. “My mama passed last year. She never got to meet this grandbaby. If your mama’s willing to put it behind you, give her a chance. Family is everything.”
Laughter erupts from the living room, shouts, raucous voices. The heavy timbre of my husband, the lighter tones of others. I prick my ears to tease out a few phrases.
“Did they just say ‘running a Boston’?” I ask, smiling and offering Janetta a towel for Kimba. “What’s that?”
“In spades, it’s when one team wins all the books.”
“What kind of books?”
“You never played spades?” Janetta asks, surprise tipping the question up at the end.
“No. I didn’t know Al played.”
But as I think about it, in New York, Al was quieter. More reserved, to himself. I grew up there, and every corner felt like home. Al grew up in Chicago, and didn’t have many friends when we first met on campus. I introduced him to my friends; none of them played spades. New York felt very much like my world. Atlanta? Even though Al didn’t grow up here, this world already feels like his.
“If Al’s running a Boston,” Janetta says with a grin, “he not only plays spades, but he must be pretty good. What do you like to play?”
“You’ll laugh,” I say, self-conscious, but still managing to smile under the warmth of her encouragement.
“Probably, but is that so bad? Child, three babies, teaching badass kids, and struggling to keep my house halfway clean, I could use a laugh.”
“I like playing mah-jongg.”
“Mah who?”
We both laugh, me slipping a onesie onto Ezra and Janetta digging out a fresh T-shirt from her diaper bag for Kimba.
“My mother and Bubbe and—”
“Bubbe?”
“That’s what I call my grandmother. They played mah-jongg with their friends when I was growing up. I called it an old Jewish woman game. Even though it’s originally from China, we adopted it as our own. It’s like bridge or gin rummy, I guess, but with these tiles. Anyway, I started playing with my mom’s group one summer, and I got hooked.”
For a moment, I can almost hear the clack of tiles and their calls of ‘five crack,’ ‘six dot’ and ‘two bam’ as close as the laughter in my living room. I can still see the tables laden with dark chocolate jelly rings, Bridge mix, pineapple and maraschino cherries pierced with toothpicks. Smell the pungent mix of their various perfumes, the scents socializing on a summer afternoon.
“You miss it, huh?” Janetta asks, resting a drowsy-eyed Kimba on her shoulder.
I’ve spent so much time hiding it from myself, and if I’m honest, from Al so he wouldn’t think I regret marrying him, moving here, leaving home – that it’s hard to admit. After a brief hesitation, I nod.
“Tell you what,” Janetta says. “I’ll teach you spades, and you teach me this Mao Tse Tung.”
I chuckle at her deliberate mangling of the game’s name. “It’s mah-jongg, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Good.” She turns to leave the bathroom, but pauses in the doorway to look at me over one shoulder. “And Ruth?”
“Yeah?”
Her smile is the kindest thing I’ve seen since we crossed the state line. “Call your mama.”
Chapter Two
Kimba
10 Years Old, Atlanta, GA
I pull back the curtain at our living room window again, like I’ve done a dozen times in the last hour.
“Get away from there.” My mother taps my head when she walks past on her way to the kitchen. “They’ll be over soon enough. Come set the table.”
“Mrs. Stern holds Ezra hostage all weekend,” I whine. “Going to synagogue and not getting to do stuff ’til Saturday evening.”
“He’s no more hostage on the Sabbath than you are on Sunday morning at Pine Grove Baptist for hours.”
I follow Mama into the kitchen, already dreading sitting on hard pews in a stiff dress with bobby socks and ponytails tomorrow. From Friday sundown to Saturday evening, the Sterns observe the Sabbath. Well, Mrs. Stern does. Mr. Stern plays golf with my father, but Ezra and his mother go to synagogue on Fridays and Saturdays. Our two families always eat together Saturday nights, alternating houses. Sundays my family always eats with my grandparents.
“Here you go.” Mama hands me a stack of plates. “I need to press your hair tonight after dinner.”
“Do I have to?”
“Maynard Jackson is coming to the service tomorrow, so your grandfather and daddy want everybody looking bright as new pennies.”
“I hate getting my hair pressed.” I pout, setting the plates in front of the empty seats.
“Push that lip in.” Mama walks into the dining room carrying a covered Corningware dish. “Make yourself useful and bring in the chicken.”
“Where’s Kayla?” I mumble on my way back to the kitchen. “And Keith? Why am I the only one working?”
“’Cause you’ll be the only one eating. I’m going out,” my older sister says, seated at the kitchen table. She blows on freshly painted nails. “And I can’t help set the table. My nails are still wet.”
On my way to get the chicken from the stove, I swipe a hand over one of her nails.
“You little brat.” Kayla glares at the dent in her manicure and tosses her emery board at me.
“Ow! Mama, Kayla’s throwing things at me.”
“You big baby,” Kayla grumbles.
“I’m not a baby.”
“Well, you sure sound like one,” Mama says, walking back into the kitchen. “Whatever you would do if I wasn’t standing right here, do that because I’m too tired to referee for the two of you.”
“All I needed to hear,” I mutter, grabbing a buttered roll from the basket of bread on the counter and throwing it at my sister.
“You better stop.” Kayla deflects the roll, and it lands on the table in front of her. “If I didn’t have a date, I’d deal with you now. If I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open.”
“Date?” Mama stops on her way back to the dining room with another dish. “Who has a date?”
“Um…” Kayla glares at me like it’s my fault. “I told you about him, Mama. You said it was okay if I went to the movies.”