The Color of Water: Chapters 11–18

On the Sabbath, Friday nights, it was a thrill for me to pretend I was going downstairs to the kitchen and then creep into the store to pick up the torrid love notes he slipped under the door. He would pledge his love for me no matter what and write out the plan for our secret meeting.

He met up with his brother Walter in Chicago, where he was fleeced and pickpocketed from the time he hit town till the time he left.

Daddy’s favorite was Walter, the most fun-loving and gregarious of his brothers.

Aunt Laura was the oldest and richest of my mother’s sisters, a meticulous woman and a fabulous dresser who wore white gloves and beautifully colored dresses.

She had no aversion to housework. She’d get on her hands and knees and scrub her kitchen floor till it shone.

My stepfather’s final admonition to me went unheeded as I absolved myself of all responsibility and stayed out of the house as much as possible, thus avoiding the emotional impact of watching Mommy suffer.

Dennis saw the callous way my aunt treated me, and he saw her love trysts with Mr. Stein, and he never said anything about how she acted with Mr. Stein, but he’d always offer a kind word to me, or just make a joke.

I’d always liked movies and theaters, so one afternoon I moseyed up to this movie house on Seventh Avenue and asked for the manager.

My mother is the only individual I know who can fall asleep instantly for two minutes—deep REM sleep, complete with snoring—only to be awakened instantly by certain select noises. A hurricane won’t move her, but the sound of a crying baby or a falling pot will send her to her feet like a soldier at reveille.

Mommy was furious that her shy, intellectual son—she was always so proud of David and would literally have carried his books to school for him if he had asked her to—was placed before a judge, who asked him to announce whether he was “guilty” of the traffic infraction or not.

My sisters loaded the northbound Amtrak train at Wilmington, carrying their possessions in shopping bags. Contingency plans were made.

She was spinning in crazy circles only because she was trying to survive, and movement was always her modus operandi when things got tough.

Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.

The passengers and driver laughed, but to Ma this episode epitomized her entire experience in Delaware, that darned turkey rolling down the darned aisle in front of all those darned people.

She was leaning on the wall beneath the train trestle, head bowed, one hand squeezing her eyes, as if the tears that flowed out of them could be squeezed into oblivion.