Read Online Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman - Free Book Online Page A

I’m already so big; I had to take off my rings.” She held up her fingers, normally fleshy, now as swollen as little kishkes.
    Sylvia shook her head, but she couldn’t help feeling a surge of love toward her sister. So pigheaded and strong and generous. Too often these warm feelings escaped through what Dr. Klein called “the hole” in her stomach, making room for jealousy over Goldie’s babies and her sweet, honest Hyman Solonsky. Sylvia could never have married an immigrant, much less someone with pockmarks and an underbite. And so serious! He worked like an animal selling insurance. His debit routes were successful because he had this way of listening to a person like what they said was important, and he did right by Goldie, and that was what mattered.
    â€œCome, I haven’t made the icebox cake yet.” Goldie nodded toward the Frigidaire.
    â€œIt’s a good day to make meringue, not too humid.”
    â€œYou got eggs?” Goldie asked just as Simon started to cry.
    â€œGo. I’ll start the cake.”
    Sylvia took the spoon out of her pocket. She had shined it up good for Goldie, rubbing her felt cloth around the bowl — just big enough to fit into a baby’s little pink mouth — then down the long, skinny neck to the handle, where she slid the cloth onto the engraved Hebrew letter hey , the first letter in Grandma Hannah’s name. She could practically hear her mother’s words: “Your grandmother Hannah, allah vashalom, smuggled this in her petticoats. It’s yours, for your baby.” She’d opened Sylvia’s hand and placed the spoon in her palm. But that was before Goldie’s pregnancy and the rhythm method and Katie Flanagan and Sylvia’s discovery that Irving didn’t want to work for anything, even a baby. Mama died before she found out that Goldie was pregnant with Simon, probably assuming that Sylvia would eventually bear her a grandchild. Better that Mama not know from her daughter’s trouble.
    Sylvia stuffed the spoon back into her pocket, took out Mama’s old green mixing bowl, and began pulling ingredients from Goldie’s cupboards: flour, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, soda. The hand grater she used to sliver the chocolate dug into her fingers, already sore from lugging the shopping bags. When Goldie came in and rested a warm hand on Sylvia’s back, Sylvia caught a whiff of the pickled herring on her sister’s breath and Simon’s toddlerdrool on her clothes; the smells were strong, yet innocent, just like Goldie. Her face, normally heart-shaped and full, looked doughy and red. The corner of a brown envelope poked out of the pocket of her housedress.
    Sylvia thought about the yellow silk shift she’d seen in the window of Gimbel’s and how perfect it would look for the holidays with the matching hat and bag. Or they could buy a new davenport; the springs of their pullout were practically bruising her thin legs every time she sat down. But she didn’t have the nerve to make herself a knippel; she knew she would slip the money into Irving’s pocket, next to a napkin with some tootsie’s lipstick kiss. She’d pretend that the money just found its way there, that this endless borrowing didn’t cost her. In blood. And for a while he would make her feel like his Sylvie again.
    She looked away when Goldie slipped the envelope into Sylvia’s pocketbook. Part of her wanted to tell Goldie that she was doing just fine, thank you very much, and that she didn’t need her sister’s charity, and that Goldie could run her own errands from now on. But out of the corner of her eye, she also noticed that the envelope looked a little slimmer than usual.
    Sylvia fought the urge to assure Goldie that Irving had a big deal cooking and he’d pay her back soon. She slid her left hand into the pocket of her dress, burrowing her fingers deep into the satin lining to stroke the spoon,