Free The Year My Mother Came Back by Alice Eve Cohen Page B

ink—belonged to me.
    â€œCan you draw quietly, so I can concentrate?”
    â€œOkay, Mommy.”
    â€œThanks, Sweetheart.”
    Typing, typing, typing.
    â€œWhat are you writing?”
    â€œA book.”
    â€œWhat’s it called?”
    She sighed audibly, which meant she was annoyed that I interrupted her.
    â€œWhat’s your book called?”
    â€œ ‘My PhD Dissertation.’ ”
Tappitty, tappitty, tappity.
    â€œThat’s a silly name,” I giggled. “What does ‘Pea Aichdy Dish of Tashin’ mean?”
    She kept working, didn’t answer, so I picked up a crayon and drew a picture on the back of a page covered with her words, some scribbled over with ballpoint pen, a mosaic of words and arrows.
    Mom used so many big words, I was accustomed to not knowing what she meant. I sat beside her, drawing and drawing, Mommy typing and typing. She paused.
    â€œWhat are you drawing?”
    â€œA picture of you, Mommy.”
    â€œI love it!”

TWO
    I love that Eliana still likes holding hands when we walk to school. Julia had given it up by this age.
    â€œMom, why can’t I walk to school by myself?”
    â€œBecause you’re too young.”
    â€œI’m in fourth grade, I’m not a baby!” She withdraws her hand. “Some kids in my class already walk to school alone. When can I walk to school on my own?”
    â€œUm . . .”
    What’s the point in letting her walk to school alone now, when in one month she’ll have surgery and then she won’t be able to walk to school at all, with or without me? What’s the point of giving her more independence now, only to take it away from her?
And
I don’t think she’s ready.
    â€œAt the end of fifth grade. That’s when Julia was allowed to walk to school alone.”
    â€œOkay.” She takes my hand again, and skips the rest of the way to school. I veer off eagerly, to walk through the park and to my session.

    Walking home from first grade, I thought about God, and wondered whether our God was the same as the God that Kevin and Sally believed in. How could it be the same God, since Sally said that when they died they’d be angels in God’s heaven but we couldn’t ever go there, because we were Jewish and the Jews killed Christ, and that was why we couldn’t ever be saved. Their heaven sounded comfortable, with good music on harps, but rather snobby and mean. It reminded me of the sailing club Daddy wanted to join, but they wouldn’t let him because Jews weren’t allowed.
    My parents weren’t specific on the subject of death and angels and heaven and God, and we only went to synagogue twice a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and it was mostly in Hebrew, which I didn’t understand. Mom said she didn’t believe in an afterlife. Dad said he was agnostic, but he wasn’t ruling anything out. Mom said she believed in reincarnation, which sounds pretty cool, like maybe you’d come back in your next life as a lion, which was my favorite animal. But when I pressed her for details, she said she believed that when your body was buried, it helped plants to grow, which sounded boring. Mom and Dad both said it was okay to believe whatever seemed right to you. I hadn’t worked out the details (like my dad, I wasn’t ruling anything out), but I thought that whatever you believed was true, and that there were many heavens and many Gods, even though everyone said theirs was the only one. Kevin and Sally would probably go to their heaven that had no Jews in it, because they were so certain about it, and I’d go to the other heaven that lets in Jews. But what if I believed my heaven was for everybody? Then Kevin and Sally would be there, too. Phooey, that meant Kevin would still throw rocks at me in heaven. But maybe they wouldn’t even know we were in the same heaven, and then wouldn’t I have the last laugh? Just like