“eunice”

“I swear to god, I was mad at her all night. All I remember about that night is being mad at her. And not for- god. Not for any of the reasons I told her I was mad. Not for any of the reasons I told David I was mad- I told her it was because it was a weeknight and she had school the next day and I told David I was mad because, oh, he was supposed to be her first boyfriend and he wasn’t even Jewish, and- and- and it wasn’t any of that. It wasn’t.
“I told David that she was going to only get worse, you know, if she’s eighteen and she’s going out with a shaygetz then what was going to happen when she got to college? I told him that he needed to do something about it- yes, he needed to, like it was his responsibility and not mine, but I think- I think I only told him that- (this is- I haven’t ever really thought about it like this, put it in words. I’m not sure- I don’t want to say something I don’t mean. You can’t take it back when you do, and I know that no one else is here but if it’s said then some part of me believed it to be true and all that I have are myself and David now and that poor girl- I can’t say something about any one of them that I don’t mean- it can’t just be… out there like that. I just- nevermind…)

“My problem was never that he wasn’t a Jew. It- it feels good to say that. It wasn’t my problem. Oh, sure, I wished that he was but she- she-

“I wasn’t worried about that. I really wasn’t. I just- okay. I just told David that I was worried about that because I didn’t want to tell him what I was really worried about because it- I knew it wasn’t fair. And he would tell me. God, David would- of course he would tell me. He would always tell me. margaret, he would say, you aren’t mad at her. you’re mad at yourself. you’re just blaming her for putting you in a position where you get mad at yourself. He would tell me and he would- he would be right. So I told him it was- that if she was dating some shaygetz at eighteen then she’d be a downright whore for the goyim by the time she got to college. And I knew she wouldn’t. But I knew it was what he was most afraid of.

“And if I had told him the truth- why I was really mad- he might have told me what to say and- and maybe she wouldn’t have- she- god- she wouldn’t have-”
    
“Please- take your time. Catch your breath.”

“I told her I was mad because she was running around on school nights now- she was two months from graduation and she was already going to Stanford, she was set to graduate as salutatorian of her class- I would have found something else to pretend to be upset about if she had gone out on a weekend. I- I would have.

“I was mad because she was getting older, and that meant that I was going to die, because I wasn’t just a woman who had a baby, or a mom and her little girl, or the- the cool mom, you know, who could really just talk to her- I was mad because she could go out with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and I was mad because she wanted to go out with someone else and spend time with him when I was going to die. And it would only get worse. She would go out with more and more people, and I don’t even care if they were Jews or not- I was going to die and she wasn’t going to be there because she wanted to spend her time with other people, and I never minded her having friends before because I was in control, and now I wasn’t in control. And so I pretended to be mad about these other things.

“And if I had just- if I had just told David, he would have said, margaret, that’s got nothing to do with her, and he’d have been right and he might have asked me about- he might have asked me if I had talked to the boy instead of just- just assuming that he was a shaygetz and so it didn’t matter if he was nice or not. And I’d have had to talk to him.

“And I’d have noticed that his breath stank like beer. And I’d have never, never, never let her get in that car.

“And then- and then she’d still be here. If I had just- if I had just been honest with David or- or if I had told her the truth about why I was mad- she wouldn’t have died.

“Do you- do you understand that? It happened because I lied to myself! I- I- I- I did it. My lies. My secrets. They have power. You- you- of all people, you should know that. Secrets- what they can do.”