Free My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

window. It was still snowing. I saw the snow falling through the lights of the lampposts. The night was wildwith wind and snow. I wondered how my father would get home.
    I went to the kitchen. The table was cluttered with books. My mother was not there. Nor was she in her bedroom. I found her in the living room in front of the window, looking out at the snow-filled night. The Venetian blind had been raised almost three-quarters of the way and had jammed again. It lay diagonally across the verticals of the window. My mother stood with her face against the window. The room was dark.
    Then the phone rang. My mother turned. She was past me even before the first ring had ended. She gave no indication of having seen me. I heard the second ring begin. It was cut short as the phone was lifted. I heard my mother’s voice, thin, tremulous. She listened a long time. Then she spoke again, in a strange trembling whisper. “I warned you,” she said. “I asked you not to go today.” She was silent a moment. Then she hung up.
    I heard her go into her bedroom and shut the door.
    I waited. I looked out the window at the snow. Slowly, the room began to fill with the noises of night darkness. I turned on the lights. I tried to lower the blind but I could not release its jammed left side. Finally, I gave it up and went through the hallway to my parents’ bedroom. I listened at the door and heard nothing.
    “Mama,” I said.
    There was no response.
    “Mama,” I said again.
    “One minute.” Her voice was soft and quavering. I could barely recognize it. I waited at the door. I waited a long time.
    “Mama.”
    “Asher, please go and wash your hands. We’ll have supper now.” She was still talking through the door in that same faint voice.
    “Where is Papa?”
    “In Boston.”
    “Papa isn’t coming home?”
    “The airplanes can’t land in the storm. Your father will come home tomorrow.”
    I stood at the door and did not know what to say. In a child’s panic, I saw my father in snow up to his knees looking for a place to eat and sleep.
    “Papa has a place to stay in Boston?”
    “Your father will stay with your Aunt Leah.”
    I had forgotten about my Aunt Leah.
    “Please go and wash your hands,” my mother said through the door.
    We ate cold chicken and vegetables, the leftovers from our Shabbos meals. My mother had put on her pink housecoat; her short dark hair was uncovered. Her face was pale and her eyes were dark. There was about her a little of the dead look she had had during the months of her illness.
    Later that night, she came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.
    “Were you frightened, Mama?”
    “Yes.”
    “Were you thinking of Uncle Yaakov?”
    She hesitated. “Yes.” Her voice trembled. She stroked my face. I felt the delicately boned fingers of her thin hand against my skin. “I’ll get used to it,” she said. “I’ll have to get used to it.” She was silent. Her eyes were dark and frightened. “My Asher,” she murmured. “I’m sorry to be such a mother.”
    “Mama—”
    “It’s not good to be so easily frightened.” Her eyes fixed on me intently. “Do you understand, my precious Asher? It’s bad to be easily frightened.”
    I did not respond.
    “But I’ll get used to it,” she murmured. She was silent along time, staring darkly at the thin hands folded on her lap. Then she stirred and put a hand back upon my face, gently stroking my cheek. “You’re not happy, my Asher. I want you to be happy.” She sighed and shook her head slowly. Then she smiled through dark moist eyes. “Please, Asher, don’t be like your mother. Don’t be easily frightened. Now let me hear your Krias Shema, my son. Say it for both of us. Speak to the good angels for both of us. Maybe they’ll help us not to be frightened.”
    I said the Krias Shema. She leaned over me and kissed my forehead. “In the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,” she murmured, repeating one of the prayers in the Krias Shema.