Free Broadway Baby by Alan Shapiro Page B

the car. She didn’t care if he hated it; he had too much talent not to go. And someday he would thank her. Someday he would appreciate everything she did for his sake. Sometimes she would hear herself yelling at the boy and shudder at how much she sounded like her mother. But for Ethan’s sake she would shake off the feeling and not relent, because in her heart of hearts she knew that she was not her mother. She believed in Ethan. She wasn’t leaving her child for someone else to raise while she went gallivanting off to New York City. She’d never do a thing like that. Th is, she told herself, this was what a mother was, what a mother did. So every Saturday morning and Wednesday night they went, always, even during the summers. Sam and Julie would watch them go. Th ey would watch them fight and go. Th ey sang, too, but thank God not as well as Ethan.
    M IRIAM’S FATHER’S HAIR was still jet black and combed straight back over his head. His hair was the hair of Brylcreem ads, shiny and full, though the youthful sheen and fullness only made his wrinkled face seem that much older. Th e kids stared at his hair every Sunday when they visited him in the living room of his shadowy apartment, while behind him and down a long, dark hallway his new wife puttered in the kitchen. She never turned around; she never came out to say hello. She was nothing but a stooped back in a bright kitchen down a dark hallway. Th ey stared at the old man’s young man’s hair while their mother nattered on about the week, her plans for Ethan, who’d said what about him. Th e children noticed how odd her voice got when she talked to her father. Her voice got all . . . they didn’t know, they couldn’t really describe it . . . soft? girlish? somehow too eager to please? She sounded like kids in school with teachers they were afraid of. But what they were hearing wasn’t exactly fear. It was more like the teacher had asked a question and he was looking around the room for someone to answer it, and she had her hand raised, she was waving it in front of him, she was pleading, Me, Me, Me, but he was looking past her, he’d rather hear from someone else for a change, someone not so eager.
    Th e old man just went on smiling and nodding, saying nothing, until finally toward the end of every visit she would say, Ethan, sing something for your Grandpa Maury, sing “Mom-e-le” for Grandpa Maury, and Ethan would glare at her as if to say, why do I have to do your dirty work? Th en he slowly stood and sang. His voice was so beautiful. Even Ethan knew it. And while he sang, he forgot about his anger at being asked to sing.
    When Ethan finished, the old man smiled and nodded. Miriam went on chattering. Th e kids fidgeted. Th ey stared. Time stopped. Each Sunday, every Sunday, from one to three, time stopped, and every Sunday they were certain it would never start again. Leaving the dark apartment was like leaving a movie theater—the sun in their eyes too sudden and too bright, it took a moment to get used to it. On the ride home they’d complain, asking why did she make them come? Why can’t they stay home, he never talks and he’s creepy, and . . . “Enough already,” she’d say, in her normal voice now, her rushed, I-can’t-do-everything-by-myself voice. “You’ll go because you have to. Because I said so.”

Scene VIII
    Zaydie died of a massive coronary in 1957. Without consulting Miriam, Tula put Bubbie in a nursing home. Miriam didn’t like the idea one bit, but when she called Tula to complain, Tula shut her up. She said that unless Miriam could afford to pay for live-in help, or could take Bubbie into her own home and look after her herself, she should mind her own business.
    “What is it with you?” Miriam asked. “Why have you always been so hard on her, on everyone? She’s your mother, for God’s sake.”
    “What do you know about my mother, or me?” Tula shot back.
    “All she ever wanted for you was your