Five

By Thursday Sarah had still not dared to ask her mother about taking the art class every week. But, walking home from school that day, she decided that she would definitely get her mother to agree before they ate supper.

As soon as she entered the apartment, though, Sarah sensed that something was wrong. It was far too quiet. Her mother was in the bedroom, asleep in a chair next to Sammy’s cot, chin resting on her chest, hands lying palms up in her lap. Her hair, usually braided into a coronet, was loose and tied back from her brow with a frayed ribbon. Tiny beads of perspiration shone on her forehead.

Sarah tiptoed close to the cot. Sammy was lying like a tossed rag doll, arms and legs flung every which way, his breath raspy and labored. The toy puppy she had given him was pinned under one of his legs. Fear arrowed through her. The last coughing attack had been so bad that her father had to carry Sammy swaddled in blankets through pelting rain to the clinic.

Panicked, she pushed through the curtain to find Fanny on her bed, hugging her knees. “It’s awful seeing Sammy trying so hard to breathe,” she said. “I get scared he’s going to die.”

Sometimes, to Sarah and Fanny, it seemed like more children in their neighborhood died than were born. Just last month, red-headed, playful Jackie Mueller was giggling as he escaped his “enemy” Sammy by hiding behind a garbage box. Two weeks later, Sarah and Fanny watched from the butcher shop window as Jackie’s mourning relatives carried a small coffin to the pauper’s cemetery. Jackie had died of pneumonia.

Jacob’s heavy footsteps sounded on the wood floor.

Fanny jumped off her bed and ran to meet him. “Papa, Sammy nearly died.”

Rifke, wakened by the voices, closed the bedroom door behind her and said gruffly, “Fanny, don’t talk nonsense and scare your father.”

Jacob rushed into the bedroom to where Sammy lay, bed sheet tangled between his legs, chest heaving with the hard work of breathing. He picked up his son’s hand and kissed it.

“You’ll wake him, Jacob,” Rifke whispered.

“When did it start?” Jacob asked.

“It comes so sudden. One minute he’s playing, the next minute…” She placed her wrist on Sammy’s forehead. “Thank God, he’s cooler.”

Jacob gazed at his inert son.

“So, Rifke,” he said wearily. “We took the boat to America for a better life. And what do we find? Stinking garbage boxes that poison the air so our son can’t breathe.”

Rifke frowned. “So what do you want? Go back to Russia and smell the air fast because the next minute a drunken Cossack will shoot a hole in your head?”

Sammy opened his eyes and started kicking his legs to free them from the sheet.

Jacob lifted him and held him in his arms, rocking him. “You breathe better now, boychick, I can hear.”

Sammy’s head rolled against his father’s chest, his eyelids fluttered, then closed and he was asleep again.

Jacob refused to eat dinner. He wouldn’t relinquish his son but sat by the table cradling him. “This is my dinner, hearing Sammy breathe better.”

Rifke, Sarah, and Fanny listlessly ate the leftover pot roast. They didn’t talk. Sammy’s breathing, more regular now, was all they wanted to hear.

§

Sarah sat up and draped her blanket over her shoulders. All was quiet in her parents’ bedroom. With Sammy’s breathing back to normal, he and her parents must be asleep.

Fanny lay on her side facing Sarah, her head propped on her hand.

“Sarah, you look like a creepy old lady with that blanket around your shoulders.”

Sarah didn’t move.

“Remember? You were going to tell me something.”

It took Sarah a moment to focus her thoughts. “Oh…I’m going to ask Mama and Papa if I can take art lessons after school on Tuesdays with Bianca. At Hull House. ”

Fanny catapulted from the bed. “You can’t! I want to go to the social dance at Hull House Saturday night. With both of us asking, Mama’s sure to say no. Anyhow, you take care of Goosie on Tuesdays.”

Sarah knew Fanny was expecting her to give in, but this time she wasn’t going to.

“I’ll just ask Mrs. Mahoney if I can watch him a different day. She didn’t mind when I took care of him on Wednesday this week.”

“What do you want to take art lessons for anyway?” Fanny demanded. “I think you think you’re better than you are.”

“I want to. That’s all.” Sarah lay down and pulled her blanket up to her chin.

Fanny glared at her. “You’re not going to sleep, are you? We haven’t decided anything.”

“Bianca and I are already registered for the art lessons. So there’s nothing to say.”

“Bianca? Who’s she?”

“My best friend. Bianca Fiore.”

“I don’t believe you. I never even heard you talk about her before.”

Sarah’s anger was like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released. She sat up, her face flushed. “Why would I? You and Mama never believe anything good can happen to me!” She fought to keep back the sobs rising in her throat, but like ocean waves, they crested and overwhelmed her. She fell back down and buried her face in her pillow.

Fanny’s voice spiraled. “You were born a devil baby and you’ll always be a devil baby! Even when you’re a hundred!”

The curtain was pushed roughly aside and Jacob burst in, Rifke behind him. “Do I hear fighting?” Rifke demanded.

Sarah didn’t lift her head.

“You and Papa fight,” Fanny retorted.

“Fanny! Since when do you talk to your mother like that?” Jacob’s voice was grim. He was worn out with worry over Sammy.

Sarah raised her head and looked with tear-swollen eyes at Jacob. “Fanny’s mad because I won’t give in to what she wants!”

Jacob nodded to Fanny. “Talk.”

“Sarah and I both want to go to Hull House for something. We didn’t think you’d let us both go, so we were trying to decide which one of us should ask.”

Rifke fixed her eyes on Sarah. “Going to Hull House is so important that you fight like a dog and cat?”

“I want to go to a social dance Saturday night. It’s the first one this year.”

Sarah’s face was flushed, her voice urgent. “I have to take art lessons Tuesday after school. I just have to. They’re free and the teacher thinks I’m good and I like her.”

“So, Rifke. Why shouldn’t they go? I learned to read and write English at Hull House. You have Hull House to thank for a husband who speaks like a poet.”

Rifke snorted. “Jacob Goldman, you don’t know when and where to tell your bad jokes. Sarah has a responsibility. She takes care of Goosie on Tuesdays.”

“I’ll ask Mrs. Mahoney to do her laundry on a different day. It’s not as if I ever let her pay me.”

“Rifke, we are all exhausted. Any more questions you want to ask your daughters?”

“What is there to ask?” Rifke said coldly and strode through the curtains, her slippers slapping the floor.

“To sleep now,” Jacob said. “Both of you.”

Fanny hugged him. “Thanks, Papa.”

Sarah stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. She whispered, “I think you do speak like a poet, Papa.”