Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,37

slim in her flats, her face shaped like a doe’s.

“Uncle Lavie,” said Miriam.

“They’re Conservadox.”

“Oh,” said Miriam. “Conservadox. Rachel, this is my sister, Ayala.”

“Hi,” I said.

Ayala held her hand up coolly in a sort of wave but didn’t say another word. I disliked her immediately. I was glad when she left the room, just as promptly as she had entered. Her beauty was a reminder of the outside world, the type I had considered most valuable. I wished she weren’t there at all.

The kitchen was a ’60s wood-paneling affair, with a linoleum floor, yellow countertops, and every inch of wall space covered in oak cabinets.

“Can I help you with anything?” I asked Mrs. Schwebel.

“Nisht,” she said. “Everything is done.”

Noah and Ezra were seated at a small kitchen table with a box of Little Debbie honey buns.

“If you’re going to open them, open them now,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “I don’t want to hear a single wrapper crinkling after sunset.”

Then she turned to me to explain, “Opening the wrappers is considered work. Once night falls, that’s it. No opening, no buns.”

She turned her back to the stove. Noah and Ezra began pulling out every bun, opening all the wrappers.

“How many are you opening?” she scolded them playfully, with her back still turned. “At this rate, we’ll need a Shabbos goy.”

“We plan to eat all of them, Mama!” said Ezra.

Hearing Ezra use the word mama made me feel a pang of longing. I was not really longing for my mother, who certainly was no mama. I wanted another mama, a fictional one. I thought about what my dream mama would look and feel like. Would she be like Mrs. Schwebel? Would she be like Ana? If it were possible to create the mama I’d wished for, I wasn’t even sure who she would be. My wish for that mama had always been a response to an absence. I didn’t know how to think about a mama in terms of presence. In my fantasies, I’d cobbled together scraps—fragments of women who’d crossed my path. I’d never come up with a mama from scratch.

“We’re going to help them with these buns,” said Miriam, picking up a honey bun and taking a bite.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “I guess you’re not starting your diet this Shabbos.”

Mrs. Schwebel’s tone was playful, not cruel or accusatory. But I felt sickened by her comment, panicked, like I needed to quarantine Miriam from the word diet, or the word diet from Miriam, lest it contaminate her.

“I am starting a diet,” Miriam said, casually taking another bite. “The cake diet. It’s very hot right now, very popular.”

“A cake diet, really?” asked Mrs. Schwebel.

“Yes,” said Miriam, chewing thoughtfully. “Honey buns, Swiss rolls, brownies, cupcakes, fruit pies. But not Twinkies.”

“Why not Twinkies?” I asked.

“Not kosher,” she said.

“Well, share some with Rachel at least,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “She’s so nice and lean.”

Miriam offered me half the honey bun, and I took it, though I felt like a traitor. We’d never discussed weight between the two of us. I didn’t like her being compared to me, or to anyone.

But then Mrs. Schwebel came over, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “All of my children are beautiful.”

“Open up,” said Miriam, holding the last piece of honey bun to her mother’s mouth.

“Mmmm,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “The cake diet.”

Mr. Schwebel was already seated at the dining table. He wore a yarmulke, and I saw tzitzit dangling from his pocket. He smiled at me and nodded softly but didn’t say a word. Even once everyone had sat down around the table, he just looked at us all with amused eyes. He seemed to defer to Mrs. Schwebel on everything.

He would open his prayer book and then she would send him into the kitchen to gather a missing condiment. When he returned, she sent him back for another set of candles to replace the current pair, because she wasn’t happy with them.

“Hurry,” she said to him. “It’s sundown in seven minutes.”

When Mrs. Schwebel was finally satisfied, she signaled that we were ready to begin. Then she stopped again and turned to Miriam.

“Oh shoot,” she said. “I forgot. Miriam, before the sun goes down, take Rachel downstairs and turn on the light in the basement.”

Then she turned to me.

“It’s on a timer and will turn off by itself at eleven p.m. But we want to make sure that there is enough light for you to get changed into pajamas tonight and settled.”

“Oh,” I said. “I wasn’t planning on staying over.”

“She’s not staying