orange blossom ring

“What haven’t I had for a while, you ask, Brenda? Cold-cuts. I haven’t had cold-cuts in a while.”

Philip brought up an arthritic hand and stuffed a bit of roast beef sandwich into his mouth. To eat of Brenda’s cooking, much more so than to hear of Brenda’s thinking, was a pleasure for him.

“You remember what Doctor Fried said about too much sodium.” Brenda didn’t look up from her knitting, her usual vocation after synagogue.

“Yes, yes, I remember, but if Doctor Fried and her stethoscope had a booth at Zabars,” Philip projected, “I know for a fact there wouldn’t be a single morsel of turkey left! My, the belly on that woman.”

Brenda brought an index finger to her lips and giggled. “She looks quite the nosher.”

Philip sighed, the unfriendly droop of his face descending a bit into his neck. He took another nibble of sandwich, sipped some water from a tall glass and smacked his lips. “She may be a few too many matzo balls from buxom, but at least she’s decent. No deceptive bone in her body.”

The machinery of Brenda’s pinched, slight fingers paused. “Honey, don’t bring this up again,” she breathed.

“Bring up what? In my own house, paid for with my own damn money, what should I not bring up?” Philip’s voice grew harsh, its strained alto quality rising like a sprain. “That she had the decency to marry within the tribe, not run away with some goy putz — ” bits of pickle relish spewing from prominent lips “ — not bring shame on the family that put her through medical school — ” white bread trembling “ — through rent payments — ” sliced meat quivering, tomato slices shuddering “ — paid for the damn food that made her so fat in the first place? Inform the town idiot, what is he not to bring up?”

Bernard sat stolidly by the window on a jade chaise lounge, looking outside.

Brenda’s gaze was sewn to her knitting. “Your blood pressure,” she quietly pseudo-advised, unrelated to Philip’s question.

The old man’s face was twisted with disgust. “Did Abraham live to one hundred and twenty with his fingers up his ass and his dentures in the toilet?” He slammed his lunch down, stood up and left the foyer. Moments later, the belabored steps of his sock-clad feet could be heard rising up the staircase.

Silence fell on the room like a drape.

“You mustn’t blame your father for his temper,” Brenda said at some point. “It’s all this cholesterol.”

Bernard stared out the window into the neighbor’s across the fence. Their driveway was empty. A hand limp along the windowsill, his ring glinted in the afternoon sun. An ornate minute hand across the living room from Bernard drifted, a satellite over its moon.

Brenda’s knitting continued glacially. “It’s just such a shame you bring us this disappointing news. Why do you not think of us?”

A small dog’s strained barking could be heard from outside. The satellite crept closer to the southern pole of the moon.

“Although, it is nice that you should fly over and spend the Sabbath with us. Have you seen what we did with the orange trees?”

Bernard felt the impulse to stamp his foot down hard enough that it would break through the wood panelling beneath the carpet. Instead, he scratched his wrist. The ring seemed so much heavier than on the day Callie had put it on him. It wasn’t heavy enough to keep him in that room.

“I’ll take a walk about now,” Bernard said, and left through the front door. He pulled out his phone. A text from Callie.

>> ?? What did they say?

He wanted to lie and wished he were young enough that he could get away with it.

>> i dont think we’ll get them in the seats let alone paying for any of it

Bernard shut his eyes and breathed deeply, standing on the front steps. The California summer sun blazed and warmed him in his t-shirt and navy chinos. When he looked out again into the road, a family of Orthodox Jews was promenading along the sidewalk; occupied stroller out in front, young sister on the left flank, older brother to the right, smiling mother in black shawl pushing her infant, stone-faced patriarch in black suit and hat to her left. Somehow they resembled a textbook picture of the Oregon Trail.