The Tin Horse A Novel - By Janice Steinberg Page 0,14

each of our names with curlicues and flowers coming out of the letters. One day I saw a drawing he’d done of a storefront with fancy lettering on the window. I hadn’t yet learned how to read, but I recognized our name, Greenstein, and I knew & Son from seeing it on the sign at Fine & Son Fine Footwear.

Did I feel a sting of rejection, confronting this evidence that Papa wanted a son? Was there already a bud inside me of the attorney who would champion feminist causes? What I remember is that I, too, wanted a boy. I already had a sister. And, in my ignorance of human reproduction, I simply assumed that since it was what we wanted, the baby inside Mama was a little brother.

At the same time Papa became so cheerful, Mama seemed to be sucked inside her own thoughts. She burned things on the stove or got the buttons wrong when she dressed us or forgot to make us lunch. Worse than her distraction, however, were the times she did notice us. She’d always had a temper, but now if we took too long in the bath or we talked too loud, she’d pinch or slap us.

I say “we” and “us”—Barbara and I both referred to ourselves that way—but of course we weren’t the same person. Nor did Mama treat us the same. Her punishments for me could be arbitrary, as if she simply needed to relieve some anger and her eyes happened to light on me. I walked past her in the kitchen one day that spring, and out of nowhere she grabbed my shoulders and shook me for what felt like forever. Then, as if a storm had passed through her, she softly touched my terrified face and said, “You just looked like you needed a good shaking.”

But between Mama and Barbara, a clash could turn into war. Like what happened on the day Sonya showed off her telephone, the first phone I’d ever seen in a person’s house.

“Here, Char, call someone.” Sonya plucked the receiver from its cradle on the wall.

“No, thank you,” Mama said, but Sonya pressed the instrument into her hand.

“You hold it up to your ear,” Sonya said.

“I know how to use a telephone! But who do you want I should call? The mayor? The …” The idea of telephoning anyone was so foreign, Mama couldn’t even think of whom else she might call.

“Call Canter’s. Look, I have their number right here. I call and order a pound of corned beef, they send a boy to deliver it. So much easier when I’m busy with Stan.”

“You’d buy a pound of corned beef without looking to make sure they give you fresh and trim off the fat?” Mama sniffed and handed her back the receiver.

“You think they’d give anything but their best to a customer who telephones an order? In fact, I think I’ll order some now.” Sonya made a show of placing the call and telling the man at Canter’s to send her their leanest, most tender corned beef.

On the way home, Mama grumbled to herself more than ever. “The airs she puts on, you’d think she was the Queen of Sheba.… Who cares that Leo is forty-two and he’s got fat, pudgy fingers, and he laughs like a wheezing donkey? At least he has a head for business.… And I thought I was too good for Slotkin.”

Barbara and I had both gotten good at pretending not to listen to her muttering. We chattered to each other or chased one of the goats that grazed on the unpaved streets near Sonya’s new house. We scampered around Mama as she walked, spinning in circles until we staggered from dizziness. But sometimes, if she said something like, “Nine kids like my mother, I’d kill myself first,” my eyes leaped in search of Barbara’s; she was looking for me, too, and we exchanged frightened glances.

We knew not to respond when Mama talked to herself. So I was shocked when Barbara said this time, “Mama, who’s Slotkin? … Mama?”

For a moment Mama looked dazed, as if she were swimming out of a dream. Then she stared daggers at Barbara. “Was anyone talking to you?”

It wasn’t too late; Barbara could have backed down. Instead she repeated, “Who’s Slotkin?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said Slotkin. And you said Uncle Leo laughs like a donkey. Hee haw, hee haw!” She skipped a few steps ahead.

Mama was seven months pregnant, and she’d been complaining that she