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Show refused to learn from his own children." My mother nodded. Her face was slack with exhaustion. "I'm trying to accept. But even being in the same room with her is pure torture - as though a knife is being driven through me." I put .my arm around her shoulders and led her to the bedroom. "You need to lie down, Mama. Lie down until Aunt Helga gets home. Maybe she can rub some of your tension away." All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for Aunt Helgaj for the strength and succor she provided when my mother's meagre reserves ran but1. For I could not give her the nursing she required. It was all I could do to lick the wounds traced by the bright, hard edge of each lonely night, glinting painful truth across my heart. In the fall, my mother called with news that fit, horrifyingly, with the feelings of betrayal that surrounded my family. It was as though gentle, tractable Isaac had been sacrificed to appease all the silent cries for justice and restitution: mine, Saul's, my mother's, and the old familiar cry still uttered by the family in their prayers as they knelt together, facing the temple and repeating the spoken by wordsAo.f my father: 'Hasten the day when the blood of the righteous shall cease to cry for vengeance upon the wicked.' -Isaac had not entered the Principle at the outset of his marriage, for Sharon had been set against sharing him. 'Don't tell me anything about it," she had -,.; -_*-.. half-laugh&i, |
