Read Online Since You Left Me by Allen Zadoff - Free Book Online

to me. She walked by my desk without so much as looking at me.
    And I never knew why.
    One time I tried to ask her, and she burst into tears and ran away.
    It was over. A week of bliss followed by years of longing.
    Second grade. It was the Golden Age of Sanskrit. I had a best friend, Herschel, who lived down the street.
    I had a girlfriend, Judi Jacobs.
    I had parents. Plural.
    I had a kid sister, who was briefly adorable, innocent, and legitimately sweet.
    Zadie Zuckerman was still alive, and I wasn’t trapped in Jewish school.
    I had it all. And then I lost it all.
    I hadn’t studied history yet, so I didn’t know that all great eras end. Civilizations rise and fall. Cities prosper and decline.
    Families come together and split apart.
    Such is the cycle of life.
    Second grade is when I learned not to trust good times. They seem like they’re here forever, but they can come crashing down around you.
    Sweet Caroline doesn’t know this. She thinks she’s in love. She thinks she’s safe.
    I know better.

“Mucous. Lots of it.”
    One of the ladies in Mom’s prenatal yoga class is complaining about it. From the head nods around the room, it’s obvious the other mommies-to-be know all about the mucous. I don’t see any boxes of tissues around, so I get the feeling that whatever is stuffed up, it’s not their noses.
    “Mucous is very natural,” Mom says. “It’s the body’s way of celebrating life.”
    “And phlegm is the throat’s way of saying good morning,” I say.
    A few of the women chuckle. I like making women in tights laugh.
    “My son is very funny,” Mom says, “but these are serious matters.”
    She smiles but I can tell she’s annoyed. She always smiles at me when we’re at the Center and there are students watching.
    “Rebekah, I think we’re freaking out your son,” anIndian woman says. She has dark, exotic features and a massive bulge in her middle.
    Mom walks a few steps towards me and wraps herself around my back.
    “Is that true, Sanskrit? Are you freaking out?”
    “Not at all. What’s a little mucous between friends?” I say, and the women giggle.
    Mom squeezes me even harder.
    “All this will be yours in fifteen years,” she announces to the ladies.
    “I’m sixteen,” I say.
    “And I’ve been there for every moment of it,” Mom says.
    She laughs and smoothes down my hair. I don’t see how it’s funny that she doesn’t know how old her son is.
    “Alright, let’s get started, ladies,” Mom says. She presses a button on the sound system and the music of a Japanese flute fills the room. Mom hits a gong on a platform behind her. The sound swells, then drops away, the last bit of tone hanging in the air.
    The women settle down on their mats. I told Mom I wasn’t freaking out, but the truth is that I am, at least a little bit. Not because of mucous, but because I’m in a room full of women barely wearing clothes. In the winter the Center is a little easier to take because the women wear full leotards with tights or long flowing yoga skirts. But as summer approaches, the yogaclothes get smaller and smaller. Some women in the room today are wearing tights, others yoga pants, and some are wearing those stretchy shorts like volleyball players wear. They’re like the bottom of a bathing suit, only there’s no beach and no water. There’s only me sitting ten feet away while they stretch with their legs wide open.
    Let’s just say I wear baggy shorts when I visit the Center. For my own protection and everyone else’s.
    “We’ll begin on our backs in a relaxed pose.” The ladies lie back.
    “My son is good at this one,” Mom says, earning another laugh from the ladies.
    I’m so glad I can be here to help Mom’s comedy act.
    I lie on my back. According to Mom this is called Dead Man’s Pose, but she doesn’t use that term today. I think it’s bad luck to talk about death with so many babies-to-be in the room.
    I look across at the sea of bumps. Some are little and