The Silents

14

CHAPTER 14 I T SEEMED logical that those a generation older than me would begin to show signs of aging. Mama was sprouting a few gray hairs, and Papa had developed arthritis in his knees. He rubbed them on cold winter nights with a mixture of alcohol and witch hazel that he had made special at the corner drugstore-a reminder ofthe magic potion massaged into his sore muscles during his boxing days. It was the only remedy he used, and he used it on us every time we developed a cold, rubbing our backs when we were little, filling the bedroom with fumes that made us drowsy. When our modesty and his understanding of our maturity prevented him from doing the massage personally, he asked Mama to take the job over, insisting it was better than Vicks VapoRub. Zadie had progressed to infirmities faster than anyone. He was bent over when he walked, the red in his mustache had disappeared , and he wore a strong pair of glasses. He looked perpetually tired and unhappy, missing Bubbi, I supposed, and adrift from Aunt Selma's and Uncle Eddie's modern ways. My talk of high school, hayrides, and movies only confused him more. When he came to the house to poke Mama on the shoulder for his usual "Nu, how are you?" he seemed depressed, even when she said, "Fine." Aunt Selma had given up smoking because a decent smoke was hard to find during the war. She still made snap decisions about my clothing. "Nice. No good. Great color. And how's your love life?" she'd ask. My love life at seventeen no longer II7 included Timmy. Instead, there were good-looking older students who turned my head, one of whom found his way to my marble steps. We talked until three in the morning until Papa glowered above me from the second floor landing, his eyes filled with anger. A shake of his finger sent my friend running into the night. Humiliated, I cried on my sister's shoulder, cursing Papa for his shameful behavior. "He's deaf," she said. "What other way can he explain his feelings ? It doesn't take a genius to know that he was upset. He's been pointing fingers at us since we were babies." "That's no excuse." "And what's your excuse for staying out until three in the morning?" she challenged. "So you're on his side." "I'm not on anybody's side. Go to sleep and leave me alone." Preoccupied with my own teenage rebellion, I ignored the signs around me. There were no more chair shoving episodes in the kitchen. If Mama tried his patience with nervous shrieking and hand waving, my father ignored it, an unusual way for him to behave. Giving up without a fight and ignoring her nagging fingers should have told me something. But I took it to mean that he was settled into a job that paid well, eliminating the need for frantic arguments about late nights out with strange deafmen or where to spend his money. I missed Papa's worried look every time he took Mama's hand and patted it. I listened halfheartedly as the women in the bridge club sat tightly in a corner of our living room while Mama prepared coffee and donuts after their game, talking secret talk, mouths open and forming words only for each other to see. Monotonous droning about "It won't help" and "Joe told me the doctor said...." Who's sick? Who's in trouble now, I wondered, but I walked past them without questioning, down the steps and out into the street, trying to find my own way. uS ONE AFTERNOON when I was almost eighteen, my father's callous behavior gone from consciousness because I had found myselfa beau (as Aunt Selma called him), I saw Mama sitting in her chair, reading a book with a magnifYing glass. I poked her. She lifted her eyes to me. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "Just old age," she laughed. "You're not old. Timmy's mother is old. She's fat and gray all over and can hardly walk. You're forty-six. That's not old." "Well, you make me feel old, staying out late at night, going out with someone I don't know." "I'll ask him to come tonight to meet you...