Seth seems to dislike Eli and Leora more and more as time goes by. In stark contrast to the doting, protective exclusive love affair he’s having with Rafi. Then I find out why he suddenly stopped hitting the children, and why he’s so protective of Rafi. Can I stay with this man who is so self-protective and dangerous?
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Homeless... at Home
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It's been quite a year.
I'm maintaining emotional distance from Seth, for my own sake. It's less exhausting for me, allows me to better protect the children, and seems to be better for him, too.
Each of the children told me, in his own way, how badly Seth was hurting them. I talked to Seth about it and not long after that, he started being more patient with them.
Then Seth suddenly seemed to notice Rafi's existence and sort of fell in love with him. But Seth seems to have a grudge against the other two.
The children's problems in school came to the notice of social services, and they tried unsuccessfully to convince Seth to agree to family counseling.
Hopefully this sabbatical year in the US, starting this summer, will be a beneficial change of pace.
We had such a nice Friday night dinner with Nora and Sam's family. I hardly recognized my own children.
My children and Nora's were almost daily companions when Rafi was a baby, but now that we're all so busy, they don't really know each other any more. Eli and Leora weren't even very enthusiastic at the prospect of having dinner at Nora's house.
All six children dealt with the situation very effectively, though. Instead of the stiff quiet ignoring of each other that pre-teens could have chosen, they started bantering and teasing each other, and presenting a united front at trying to get the parents' goats. They were all so happy and witty in their joking around! Staying well within the limits of reasonable behavior, and yet acting free and a bit wild. Singing was joyous and loud. (We sang Shir Ha-Maalot to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.) A good time was had by all.
We'll have to get together with them more often. Maybe we can put some joy into our own Shabbat dinners.
Kay sent me a clipping about someone who - like Seth - listens to the radio every waking minute. The article said that's what disturbed people sometimes do when they're troubled by 'hearing voices'.
I thought to myself, "Yeah, but Seth doesn't listen all the time. He doesn't listen on Shabbat." A chill crept up my spine when I realized that Shabbat is the day that he's jumpiest.
And that growling sound he makes when he eats? Is that an attempt to drown out something he's 'hearing'?
When he gets angry at one of us, has he heard a voice telling him that we might do something to harm him? Or does he hear something and thinks one of us said something? Or does he just want to distract himself by causing a ruckus?
Maybe he prohibits conversation because he's afraid he won't know what I'm saying, and what he's generating inside his head. Or maybe he wants me to be quiet so that he CAN listen to them. Maybe they're more interesting than I am.
Or maybe he can only turn off the voices by turning off the verbal processing centers in his brain.
He has even developed a non-verbal way to tell me to stop talking, hasn't he – his little I'm-not-interested chime.
"Ima, what's that clunking sound?" Rafi asked as I kissed him good night.
"I don't know. Abba's doing something downstairs."
We stopped talking, to listen. There was a clunking / crashing sound that just kept on and on.
"It sounds like he's hitting the wall with a bat." Rafi guessed.
"Yeah. It does. Well, good night. I'll go see. Sleep tight!"
"And don't let the bed bugs bite you, Ima!" He giggled.
As I went down the stairs I could hear a rhythmic grunting accompanying the thumping. Seth was in the corner by the stairs, with the broom, crashing it repeatedly into the corner - smashing it against the baseboards, the floor, the wall, hard enough that the wooden part of the broom was making good solid contact, not only the bristles. A grumbling grunt with each jab. Cockroaches, maybe?
I peered into the corner to see what he was attacking. "What's wrong, Seth?"
"This filthy house is what's wrong!"
"But I'm about to clean it, Seth!" I indicated the dining room chairs upended on the table, and the sofas and end tables shoved into the middle of the vacuumed carpet. The bucket, mop, and vacuum cleaner waiting patiently.
Now that Seth finally lets me clean Thursday nights after the children are in bed, instead of Friday mornings, this is my favorite night of the week. He agreed only reluctantly. Provisionally. We were going to 'see how it goes'.
I thought it was going really well. I love to come downstairs Friday morning and find everything clean. I can work a couple of extra hours and still have time for the children's homework and for the upstairs cleaning, and I'm not trying to mop the kitchen floor while Seth is cooking Shabbat dinner. I keep hoping I can get our Fridays well enough organized that we can even go on a family outing for a couple of hours. Maybe in the spring when Shabbat starts later.
But I guess I've got another think coming.
He turned his back to me and started crashing the broom at the corner by the front door. The acoustics provided by the hollow wooden door were even more impressive.
"Seth - I'm just about to vacuum ... There's no point ..."
"If the house were cleaned on Friday morning as it should be, instead of earlier in the week, it wouldn't be so filthy by the end of the week!"
The only activity that takes place between Thursday at eleven when I finish up, and Friday morning, is sleeping. "Well, Seth, then maybe on Monday night I could just go around and ..."
"No, Shlomit. Maybe on Friday morning you could 'just' stay home from work and get ready for Shabbat like everyone else in the country does."
It didn't seem the right moment to mention that just about everyone else in the country has someone come in to clean once a week.
So, I'm up here writing and he's down there clunking out a message to me.
I've got my own message to send out: Di-di-dit - Dah-dah-dah – di-di-dit. Or is it: Di-di-dit - Dah-dah-dah - Dah-di-di-dit?
Should I give up on the Thursday night cleaning? It's a wonderful boon to my impossibly crowded schedule. But certainly not worth shattering the peace we've had at home lately.
Seth is so gentle and protective of Rafi, now. He went right from smacking Rafi around, to guarding him as though he's a china headed doll.
Guarding. As I was supposed to be doing when Rafi was in the womb. As I never managed to do when Rafi was out here with the rest of Seth's adversaries.
It's ironic that after trying so hard to cause me to miscarry - if that was why Seth was so demanding during that pregnancy - this same child is now the apple of his eye.
I just wish that his new relationship with Rafi didn't so often take the form of favoritism over Eli and Leora.
The children watched a documentary on the discovery channel that had some very familiar aspects.
The program told of a farmer named Gary who was a happy family man until his youngest daughter became ill and died. He was devastated by this tragedy, and soon after, he decided to get a university degree.
His wife was surprised, because he had never been much of a student. But the family made the necessary adjustments to accommodate Gary’s total devotion to his courses and to campus life. He studied uncharacteristically hard, and graduated four years later.
Just when his wife thought she could now count on him to provide for the family, he surprised her yet again. She told the interviewer that she woke up one morning to find a woman in her bed. Her husband had woken up convinced that he was a woman named Mary.
"Mary" left home and got a job in the city. People who knew Mary during the next five years never doubted that Mary was a woman. His wife convinced Mary to come back home, and for the next three years he/she lived with the family – as the children’s ‘Aunt Mary’.
Until one day, Mary was hit on the head, blacked out for a moment, and came back – not as Mary, and not as Gary – but as an infant. For the next three years the family cared for this helpless baby. We were shown a picture of the oldest daughter feeding him from a baby bottle as he lay on the bed wearing a huge diaper.
After three years as a baby, Gary woke up one morning as Gary, and went down to breakfast. And was astounded that his children had aged ten years overnight. He had no memories from the years that he was Mary, or from the years that he was an infant. Nor did he remember going to college.
Could Seth be suffering from something like this?
Gary’s family used the same phraseology in talking about Gary as we do in talking about Seth. Referring to real Gary as ‘going away’ or ‘coming back’. They talk about ‘Baby Gary’ and ‘female Gary’ and ‘college Gary’ as we speak of ‘bad Abba’ and ‘good Abba’. They say, ‘he woke up as Mary,’ the way my children will say, ‘he came home as Bad Abba today’.
As with Gary, it has sometimes taken a traumatic event to jolt Seth into a different self. My threats, the children’s fears, or seeing Rafi and me so seriously threatened in the hospital, have brought him back from his ‘Bad Abba’ self.
One shift into a bad persona was precipitated by the news of my endangered pregnancy with Rafi. Our marriage ceremony seemed to flip him from ‘in-love Seth’ to ‘control-freak Seth’.
As with Gary, there is no communication among Seth’s selves. They aren't aware of each other. Good Seth never apologizes for the things bad Seth has done.
Seth's voice changes from one mode to another, as does his weight. And maybe his age, too. He seemed so old for the four years of this most recent depression.
In the documentary, every time the narrator said ‘MPD’, it sounded as though he were saying, ‘empty’. These people are anything but. There’s a three-ring circus going on in there.
I'm reading a novel that takes place in China at the time of the revolution. Every few months the latest disastrous policy was discarded and another, equally disastrous, took its place. And every time one of the revolutionaries' policies didn't work out, there had to be scapegoats. Whoever had supported the old policy (however unwillingly) or whoever knew too much, was punished.
From the things Seth mutters or shouts when he's angry at Eli or Leora, it seems he's trying to blame Eli and Leora for the violence of the past four years. Or to blame them for remembering the things he did. Will he ever be able to have a healthy relationship with us as long as we are a constant reminder of those years?
It would be easier for Seth if he could just sit us under a helmet and zap us total recall of a different set of memories. I wish he could! I wish I could fill the children's memories with a childhood where they had been respected and valued by their father instead of knocked around and insulted. I wish I could look back on eighteen years of a loving, supportive marriage. Of lovingly raising Eli, Leora and Rafi together.
Seth probably thinks Rafi doesn't remember, because Rafi was non-verbal when the worst of it was going on. A pre-verbal child can still store memories of events, and can certainly absorb feelings.
We visited Mom and Dad when Eli was fifteen months old. I was chatting with Mom in the kitchen, when I suddenly heard him cry out. I rushed upstairs to find him sitting on the floor in one of the bedrooms, crying with fear and pain. He didn't seem to be hurt, so I comforted him and then distracted him with one of the cookies that he had made with Gram that morning. The memory of that incident stuck with me - I guess because it was an unsolved mystery.
Then a couple of years later, Eli and Leora and I were dismantling a broken alarm clock, and Eli was reluctant to touch it. "Be careful, Ima! You can get a shock from alarm clocks!"
"That's right, but we took out the battery. We can't get a shock if there's no electricity flowing in it."
"One time at Gram and Grampa's house I was playing with their alarm clock and I got a shock!"
"Eli! Really? Where was the clock? In what room?"
"By Gram's painting things. Upstairs."
Even though Eli couldn't tell me at the time what had happened, he could store the event - and the fear - and tell about it later when he had learned to talk.
Another book we're reading at book club has me really spooked. It's about a woman whose husband can be fine for awhile, but then has sudden outbursts of cruelty. The reader screams at her after each episode, "Don't trust him this time! Get out!" But the wife feels sorry for him, and she stays.
Last night, I guess Seth noticed the concentration with which I was reading - even his blaring TV couldn't distract me. He asked what the book was about. It's the first time he has acknowledged the fact that I read books from book club. Books he didn't bring into the house.
I thought for a moment. About why it's so obvious to me that the woman in the book should get away from her abusive husband, whereas it's not obvious to her.
"It's basically a story about a frog." I told him finally.
"A frog?" He leaned around to look at the cover of the book. A picture of a house.
"Yeah. They say that if you throw a frog into hot water, she'll try to jump right out, but if you put her into room-temperature water and slowly heat it up, there's no point at which she'll decide things are too hot to stay. And you can boil her right to death and she'll just sit there and let it happen."
I'm glad that Seth is so good with Rafi, but in some ways that makes it worse. Until now they could just accept that Abba doesn't like his children. It couldn't be anyone's fault. But now that he is a good father to Rafi, Eli and Leora feel even more rejected.
Ironically, if he would make further progress and accept two of the children and reject only one, it would be so much worse for the rejected child. And therefore for all of us.
Oh, Shlomit, stop it! He's keeping his hands off them and even giving some positive attention to Rafi. I should just be glad for the progress he has made.
Leora and I were at her classroom tonight for a workshop to make decorations for Tu-B'Shevat - Arbor day. The purpose of these workshops is to involve the parents with the class and with their children. Not only to decorate the walls.
Both of us were watching the interactions between the little girl across the table, and her father. Estie is a chubby little eight year old who is obviously the apple of her father's eye and knows it. She flirted with him and he glowed with love for her. He was thrilled to be wrapped around her pudgy little finger. She leaned against him and he patted her. Called her my sweetie and my cutie. She called him "Abba-leh" - little Abba.
Our childhoods are a sort of workshop, aren't they. The home and family are a microcosm of hands-on experiences, giving us practice in dealing with the world out there.
Little Estie is learning that she is valuable because she is valued. She is learning that she is charming and can charm someone into doing things for her. One of the most important people in her life worships the ground she walks on. What a fantastic, firm basis from which to launch a child into the world.
Leora is smarter, prettier, wittier, more talented than Estie. But with the self confidence that Estie has already learned to have, I doubt that anyone will ever notice Estie's shortcomings.
On the way home I commented, "Estie and her father are cute together, aren't they."
"Yeah, Ima, even when she put the paste on the wrong side of the flower, he just said, 'It'll be great! I was just thinking that we need some flowers that aren't so shiny! Let's do some more like that!' Abba would have said, 'Now look what you did, you idiot. Can't you ever do anything right?' Estie's father is like the fathers on TV, isn't he." She sighed.
I went to the library last week to look for a book about depression. So I can decide if I can trust this latest upswing in Seth's condition, or if I should try to fix this leaky roof now that it has stopped raining.
I learned alot. But I can't possibly learn enough from books to be able to make a decision on which to base the rest of my life. So I called Batia – a marriage counselor who goes to our synagogue.
Last night, when Seth thought I was at dancing, I went and talked with her.
Batia asked me to describe one of Seth's depressions. "The worst was the most recent. It started the winter that Eli was five. Four years ago." I described how it was to live with a person who doesn't talk, who growls and slams around. Who hits small children for recreation.
I described that Shabbat when Seth slapped and kicked Eli. Batia leaned forward and stared at me as I talked, a look of consternation on her face. Her gaze was so intense that I stopped talking – wondering if I had a sesame seed between my teeth.
"Shlomit, you are telling of experiences that could make a person cry. Your eyes, in fact, have a sad, haunted look to them. But ... you're grinning! You have a silly grin plastered on your face. It's incongruous to say the least."
She was absolutely right. I was wearing my village idiot look. The same innocuous grin I put on when Seth goes out of control. Partly to fool myself into believing that everything is going to be fine.
"You're right, it's weird. When I think about Seth's bad periods, I go right back to all the feelings,” I put my hand to my chest, “but I never noticed that I also revert to the body language."
I summarized the years since the beginning of that depression, while Batia took notes and made tick marks. "So that's it." I said, "He's alot better now, but I ..."
"Ten!" Batia cried as she made another tick in the corner of her page. "Plus any I missed before I started counting. Ten times or more, you have said, 'He's better lately'. But Shlomit - most of my marriage counseling is for people whose marriages are way better than what you consider to be the good times! He has still got complete control over ... your life. You two still have absolutely no communication. No relationship. Your children are still scared shitless of him.
"You have no idea what's causing this calm period, Shlomit. All you do is sit and wonder ..." she consulted the notes she had taken, "if he's getting professional help, if he's on medication, if he was shocked by the children's comments last spring, or by the fact that Social Services got involved, if his friendship with Sam is keeping him happier, if he suffers from lack of sunlight in the winter. You wonder and wonder - as someone might wonder about a total stranger. But you're just as mystified about the guy who shares your bed!
"You have no marriage, Shlomit. Go ask a hundred people to define 'marriage' and see if yours fits any of the definitions.
"Most people living in your present situation would come to me in great distress begging for help to change things. You're coming in hopes that things will stay as they are, because compared with most of what he has dished out to you, this is heavenly!"
"Well, of course, Batia, I'd love to have a real marriage - like what my parents have. And I have made progress. I read a book that has really helped me. Dance of Anger. It explained that I just have to change, in myself, the behavior that is allowing him to continue as he does. I have changed how I relate to him, and there do seem to have been shifts in his behavior because of it …"
Batia shook her head. "Dance of Anger assumes that both people are playing by the normal rules, Shlomit. That both will stay within acceptable limits of behavior. And Seth, when he hits your children to make sure you obey, does not fit into Lerner's paradigm.
"I have only met Seth socially, so I can't make a diagnosis. But, when you described your pregnancy with Rafi, when you felt that you had to comply with Seth's demands, even though it was dangerous for your unborn child ... his behavior was totally out of bounds.
"For that reason, Shlomit, I can't help Seth. I'm a social worker, not a psychiatrist. My job is to help normal healthy people who are having problems with their relationships. And I can only help a person who comes to me on his own initiative. Has Seth ever expressed concern, Shlomit, over the things he does to you or the children - and their ramifications with regard to the marriage or the father-child relationship?"
"Not really. Well, no, not at all. I have never had any indication that his behavior worries him. Except that he did stop hitting them ..."
"Well, of course he stopped, Shlomit! He's on probation with Social Services for child abuse! This is real to him. The fact that his wife and children might fear and dislike him isn't real, because he doesn't care about your feelings. But that the police might show up at the door to arrest him - that would impinge on him, so that is real.
"Well, as I say, Shlomit, I haven't talked to him. This is all just based on what you have described.
"You came wanting to understand your husband’s depressions. The gloominess and taciturnity sound like classic depression to me, but the cruelty ... I've never heard depressed people described as being cruel. And his obsession with controlling you ... that doesn't fit at all with depression. Depressed people are withdrawn. Self absorbed. All his idiosyncrasies are not related to depression, as far as I can see.”
“The idiosyncrasies themselves aren’t what are hurting us, Batia. I’m willing to put up with them. And the controlling, even. It’s mainly these mood shifts and rages, and, as you say, the cruelty.”
“You can't pick and choose, Shlomit. You can’t allow some facets of your relationship and of his behavior to be totally outrageous, and hope to just tweak the most harmful aspects into line. It’s all related.
"To give you an answer I can make standing on one foot, Shlomit, I would say that it's foolish to trust an apparent change of personality in such a volatile person."
From now on, when we go grocery shopping, I'm going to take a book along and wait for Seth in the car.
Seth has decided to shop at the big hypermarket, instead of in town. If his eyesight were good enough that he could drive, I'm sure he would just go by himself. All I do anyway is to push the cart while he decides what to buy. A few times I have made suggestions, but he just said, verbally or otherwise, "No." A few times I casually put an item into the cart. As a wife in any normal marriage would expect to do, right? He always took it out. Sometimes he would at least throw me a disgusted look. Often he didn't even bother. Maybe he thought some other shopper had put it in by mistake.
So I spend two hours each Friday morning watching him shop, instead of going in to the office to make up hours at work.
But this week was the worst.
I have never mastered Seth's system of bagging to his satisfaction. I can understand keeping frozen food together, refrigerables, vegetables, cleaning supplies. Packing so that nothing will squash or break. But Seth has complex rules that are essential to his karma. Normally, when two people shop in a supermarket, one person unloads the cart and the other person bags, right? But of course I'm not permitted to bag, because I do it wrong. And of course, if I don't understand the correct system for packing, I can't unload in the correct order, either.
So, after having uselessly pushed the cart around the store for the interminably long time it takes him to select each item, I stand uselessly at the checkout while Seth dances back and forth, carefully selecting the items to be put onto the belt, and then meticulously tucking each item into its appropriate place in the appropriate bag. Sometimes he has to try several configurations before he is satisfied.
OK. It's a game with him. And usually, the checkout clerks are lethargic and slow, or they’re so happy for some slack time that they don't mind waiting for him. Today, though, the clerk was very efficient and kept getting ahead of him. She frowned at me, and I tried to pretend I was with the family behind us.
Finally the clerk called out to me, "Are you his wife?"
Sheepish, "Yes ..."
"Well, why don't you help him take stuff out of the cart! Why should he have to do everything?"
I put a couple of cans on the belt - there were mostly cans left at that point, anyway - but Seth bustled over and snatched a can of olives out of my hand, growling at me through clenched teeth, "I'll! Do it!"
I was mortified.
So. From now on, instead of two wasted, boring, frustrating hours, I'll have two hours sitting in the car, to read or write or mark up printouts.
This Friday, when we drove to the supermarket, I took along some printouts I needed to edit for work. When Seth got out of the car, I said, "I think I'll just stay here and get some work done."
"You're not going to come in?"
"Well, all I ever do is push the cart, and you can do that, yourself."
"Oh. Is this some new thing of yours?"
"No, Seth, I just prefer to spend couple of hours working instead of watching you shop."
"Well, Shlomit, I don't have time to argue about it right now." He turned toward the store. "Enjoy your work!" he called back sarcastically.
Many pages later he came out, and as he was slamming the bags into the trunk, he pointed out that he didn't notice anyone else editing manuals in the parking lot. All the other married couples were shopping together as you would expect.
"But Seth, that's just it! We don't really ..."
"You know, Shlomit," he interrupted my words and his slamming, "We don't have to shop together. I can easily walk downtown to the shuk."
Sure enough, this week, after a silent breakfast, he went shopping on his own, with his big green backpack.
I really thought this was one of those issues that was making a big impact on my life and virtually none on his. OK. Forget it. Whatever. If he ever asks me to, I'll go along and be his docile little cart pusher. But he won’t ask, now. I’ve wrecked it. Grocery shopping will be an unpleasant issue between us for the duration.
Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, right now I feel very strong.
I feel more like myself lately. When I think back to my childhood, teenagehood, and college years, I can relate to that person. But when I think of the person I was for all those gray years until I started my revolution two years ago, I don't recognize her. I can't believe she's the same person I was before I was married, or who I'm getting back to being, now.
I keep meaning to tell you about Leora. I start laughing just thinking of it. We were the only family to show up for a guided tour of the mini-zoo. The naturalist was showing us around. I'm proud of my children's knowledge, and I'm always astounded at the extent of it. The guide would introduce something she had intended to explain, and my children explained it to her! I guess it's from our discussions at home, because the vocabulary was in English, and they kept having to ask her the Hebrew words for things. One thing she asked the children, about each animal, was whether they could tell whether it was male or female.
They got to the chicken pen and the guide pointed to a rooster. Leora said, "Oh, he's OBVIOUSLY male!!!" The guide asked how we can tell. So then Leora - you've really got to demonstrate this, not just write it - she stuck out her chest and puffed out her cheeks and went strutting around with her eyes closed and her nose in the air and her little tush wiggling back and forth out behind, and her head swiveling back and forth, and said, "Because he walks around like this."
At age eight, she has managed to distill out this essence of maleness.
Love, Shlomit
Maybe a couple should get rip roaring drunk once a month and just let it all hang out.
On Friday I was sick with a high fever. I was lying in bed, and I heard Seth kicking toys around in Rafi's room and muttering and swearing. I could barely lift my head, so I just lay there, letting him deal with whatever it was, in his own way.
‘His own way’ was to come in and stand by my bed. "Are you planning on getting up to clean the house? If I have to waste time cleaning, I can't cook and we won't eat."
How is it that I manage just fine, when he's not here, to clean and shop and cook and also to maintain a pleasant atmosphere in the house? And usually manage some fun activity Friday afternoon as well. OK. I abbreviate the cooking, and abbreviate the cleaning. Enlist the children's help. Get up earlier. Work faster.
My feverish condition made everything feel unreal, as I staggered out of bed and started cleaning the bathroom. Delirious with fever, scrubbing the stupid bathtub, I just started shouting - telling him I think he's crazy to throw a tantrum any time I'm sick, and to force me to get out of bed.
He said, "Well, it worked, didn't it! You would still be lying there! You only got up because I made you!"
By then everything seemed like a dream, and I wasn't even sure whether I was really scrubbing the tub, or was back in bed hallucinating it, and I wasn't sure if I was really speaking my thoughts out loud or not, so I just kept on going, listing all the things he does that prove to me that he's insane. It felt so reckless and good.
Seth started screaming, "You're irrational! Stop! You're irrational!"
So the crime of that event, I guess, is not that he forced a sick person out of bed to clean the bathroom, and not that she gave in, but that she disobeyed the rules of propriety and restraint, and actually told him what she thought of him.
Last night, Seth called me upstairs and said there was something on TV that I would like. (I have watched probably twenty minutes of evening television, total, in the two years since my mini-revolution.)
It was a movie about a writer in a wheel-chair who had been kidnapped by a crazy woman fan. I couldn't understand, exactly, whether she was trying to kill him, or if he was trying to kill himself. I assumed Seth was kidding, because it was obviously so awful, but when I wanted to go back downstairs he angrily told me to stay.
I watched for a few more minutes - thinking maybe they were going to mention my home town or show a quilt like my mother's, or an actor who looks just like somebody we know. Some reason he would have called me up to watch.
After a few more minutes of bad acting and gruesome personality sketches, I said, "Heh, yeah. Pretty weird!" and again turned to leave the room.
Seth spat out, "Where are you going! I thought this show would be right up your alley, Shlomit. It's on the same level as the trashy novels you read with your so-called book club, and all the stupid psychological child care books you've been reading the past couple of years."
"What do you mean, Seth?"
"I mean what I said, Shlomit!"
I guess there was a message there. Maybe because I've shunned TV to spend time reading, he must compare my books with the worst that TV has to offer.
I've got a few minutes before I have to get the children up.
A neighbor at folk dancing last night said she watches me every morning saying good-bye to my children. I realize that must be a sight!
Rafi has to be waiting in front of the house at 7:30 for the transportation to his special kindergarten, so I'm often brushing Leora's hair out on the sidewalk. There's always the last minute running back into the house for this and that. Sometimes I'm reading to Rafi as we wait, or somebody is finishing up a bowl of cereal. Often one of our cats or an interested stray is out there with us.
Then, of course, often we are in the middle of learning a song or teaching Rafi a new letter or Eli is holding forth in one of his unstoppable explanations to Rafi. The kid is a walking encyclopedia.
Till Malki mentioned seeing us, I hadn't stopped to consider what it all looks like to anyone watching.
Love, Shlomit, neighborhood entertainer
Seth made one of his strawberry custard pies this evening, because 'someone from work' was coming over for coffee after supper. I put the children to bed a little early and straightened up the living room. Seth put a bottle of sparkling wine cooler in the fridge.
Roni and his wife arrived, Seth introduced us, and we sat on the patio to have coffee and cake. Seth was in a really good mood. Cheerful and friendly. Roni and Sara are very nice. The three of them started talking about the lab.
At first Sara tried to involve me in the conversation: "That whole business with the head of the isotope group was a riot wasn't it!" - "How about that oscilloscope the guys had to 'borrow' from the storeroom! What a story!" - "Isn't it a shame about Benny ..." - "Were you as surprised as I was to hear that Ayelet might come back after all?" I just nodded noncommittally, racking my brains to find some shred of news from the lab that Seth might have told me about.
After several attempts at including me, the three of them just gossiped together. Analyses of people in the group, updates on how the various projects were going, complaints about budget inequities. Roni had even filled Sara in on some disastrous menus in the lunch room.
I sat there gazing at this cozy threesome. Must be nice to have your husband come home and say, "Remember the new technician I told you about? Well ..."
It would have been nice, now, to have Seth lean toward me and give me some background on things they were discussing.
I do sometimes hear stories where someone else messes up and Seth saves the day. Or cases where Seth manages to manipulate the whole group into doing what he has decided, even when no one else agrees. Of course, I like to hear that my husband is successful and influential, but this kind of 'sharing' leaves a bad feeling in the room.
Oh, well, it's not a big deal. He just doesn't think to tell me what goes on during his day. But, here he is, obviously remembering and appreciating the episodes Roni and Sara are laughing over. Maybe because he doesn't want to hear my work stories, he doesn't share his?
When we had finished our coffee and cake, Seth went inside and came back with the cold 'champagne', four wine glasses and a big grin. Roni and Sara oohed and aahed significantly. "Whoa! Seth!" Knowingly, appreciatively. Laughing. Roni bashful. Sara clapping her hands in glee and then hugging Roni around the shoulders.
I didn't have a clue. Birthday, maybe? I just kept up my demented dashboard doggie imitation.
Seth poured the bubbly and we all raised our glasses. Seth proposed, "To the new head of the Nonlinear Optics group!"
"Only until you get back from sabbatical, Seth!" Roni protested.
Ah. So that's what this is. Roni is taking Seth's place as head of the group for the year that Seth will be in the US.
We all had a few sips of the wine, and Roni and Sara headed back to Tel Aviv.
I'm disappointed, of course, that Seth doesn't share any of the lab gossip with me. Actually, though, there is a strict religious injunction against gossip. 'The evil tongue'. Because more harm than good can come of chatting idly about someone else. There's a strenuous campaign against gossip, throughout the religious community, because it's so insidious. And so much fun. Even if you're just spreading good details or innocuous facts about someone - it's just better to mind your own business. But Seth didn't hesitate to join in the banter with Rafi and Sara tonight. It's just with me, I guess, that he doesn't indulge.
But something puzzled me about this evening. I carried the sugar and coffee canisters into the kitchen where Seth was washing cake plates and mugs. "I'd thought maybe Sam would fill in for you as group leader."
"Yeah!" Seth smiled a wicked little smile, "So did he!"
"But they picked Roni ..."
"Oh, I picked my own replacement." Again that self satisfied tone, and I realized that Seth hasn't been going over to Sam's lately. I wondered if the falling out was the cause or the result of Seth's choosing Roni.
"Roni doesn't even seem so thrilled with the honor," I observed.
"Nah, nobody wants to head the group. You get bogged down with paperwork and meetings and all sorts of diddly stuff. You barely get to spend any time in the lab. Nobody wanted it." Again that wicked grin. "Except Sam," Seth spat out derisively.
OK. I think I'll take advantage of the prohibition against 'lashon hara' and just stay away from this puzzle that's none of my business anyway.
It's late, and I desperately need a shower, but I haven't written in this diary in ages - since the packing frenzy for the sabbatical started.
Just a few notes about the good-bye beach party / 4th of July party that Zahava threw for me. Such a nice way to part from everybody for the year.
Zahava is smart - she put Seth in charge of the bonfire. She said that would give him something to do so the rest of us could socialize.
Seth is always so good with other people's children. Back in grad school I watched him interact with our friends' four-year-old so patiently, seriously, at her level. Listening, explaining, asking questions. I can remember thinking, all those years ago, "He'll be a good father."
Tonight at the bonfire, he was supervising a dozen children roasting marshmallows, and lighting sparklers. A group of little boys was making stick-torches. Each child would show Seth how well his was burning and Seth would say, "Great!" or "Wow!” I was watching and marveling as I got out my guitar and the songbooks.
Then Rafi got his stick burning and cried, "Look, Abba!" And Good Seth turned to Bad Seth in a split second. He charged and lunged for Rafi and snatched the torch away and threw it into the fire. "Don't mess around!" So good with the others and as soon as it's one of his own, he's a bear.
Oh, well, mostly it was a good evening. The singing around the fire was so nice. Leora started us off, as always, with "The Other Day I Met a Bear" - a good song to get everyone going because they only have to repeat after Leora's clear sweet voice. Easier than trying to find a song everybody knows. I have a dozen Rise Up Singing songbooks left from the crate Kay and I bought together - another half dozen I've given away to friends. Zahava wants to borrow them to take to a Nature Society weekend next month and she'll just return them to the house while we're in the US.
The singing was still going strong when we left to get the children to bed and do some last minute packing. OK! Shower and bed! US minus three days and counting!
My children are tired of hearing me say that.
The house we're renting for the year is so well organized. As though set up by someone with the same lifestyle as mine. Meaning, run by a woman, I guess.
I've never felt at home in our house. Because Seth set everything up to be convenient for his lifestyle. I'm always fighting my own house.
Here, there's a desk in the bedroom for paying bills and doing filing and for household-related correspondences. Everything well organized and close at hand. And there's a computer table down here in the playroom. Zahava gave me a beautiful 'Women of the Bible' calendar as a going away present, and I have it hanging here, by the window. Kay gave me a framed photograph of three fifties-era little girls that remind me of Kay and Jeanie and myself when we were growing up. That's propped by the keyboard. A pretty coaster for my morning brew. I have registered for a course in C++ at the college here, so I can get back to programming when we return to Israel. Four years of technical writing is enough. I'll do my homework down here in my own little corner. I don't have a corner at home.
The desk in our bedroom in Israel is used as a TV table so Seth can watch in bed. I have no place to write letters or sort or file. Doing taxes or sending a check to a charity involves getting the envelopes and stamps from the living room and a pen from my back pack, taking everything to the dining room table (assuming it's clear of meals and homework and games and projects), and then afterwards putting everything back and filing the papers away upstairs. Seth doesn't need a desk, I guess, so we don't have one.
Back home, the television sets are the focus of the living room and the bedroom because he watches all the time. Mealtimes are so nice in this house. More like what I grew up with. Not only because we're eating real cooked food, on a real set table, instead of just dragging out cans and cucumbers and leftovers, and having people zap whatever they can find to eat. But also because there's no TV in the kitchen.
The kitchen back home has a boombox, and racks and racks of the tapes Seth buys for himself. When would I ever listen to music? If I cook, the children are helping. When I wash dishes, one of them is reading to me. If I do have some peace and quiet, I need the time to ponder. The only tapes I always find time for are Kay's, whenever she sends me her latest.
Gee - I keep thinking of things. I can 'see' our house better from thousands of miles away than I can when I'm in it.
Back when we first moved into that house, Seth planted bushes under the clothesline out back. Sounds like a story about the foolish people of Chelm, doesn't it. So I have to stand way back and lean over to hang clothes. If the thing I'm hanging is longer than a child's T-shirt, it has to go way at the end where one bush thoughtfully died. As the children get bigger, there's less and less line space that can accommodate their clothes. By the time we get back, 90% of the lines will be for underwear, and the rest of the laundry will be folded and overlapped there at the end. What does it matter to Seth if it's a pain in the neck? It's not his neck. Laundry is my job.
He did once cut the bushes back, but that was because his mother told him to, not because I was inconvenienced. Just after Leora was born, Seth's parents were visiting and I was out hanging laundry. In leaning against the bushes to reach the far clothesline, I had jabbed my fresh C-section scar on a sharp branch sticking out. A jolt of pain went through me and the accompanying wave of adrenaline carried me into the shelter to grab the clippers. I was hacking angrily at the bushes when Seth's mother came out and suggested that I wait for Seth to come home if the bushes needed to be trimmed. I just blurted out the whole frustrating painful business with these stupid bushes I had been dealing with. Next day I came out and found that they had been cut back. A bit. Of course, they've grown back in the intervening years, when his mother hasn't been here to champion my cause.
That's why the walk-in closet will never get decent shelves. When does he ever go in there? Bed linens and towels are my look-out. Ditto tools and duffel bags and the vacuum cleaner. Why should he spend good money to solve a problem that he never needs to deal with?
Ditto the shelter that still has the rough concrete floor. I'm the one who sweeps up the cement dust and battles the roaches who congregate in the cracks.
I hate having places in my own home that are dirty and disorganized and impossible to straighten or clean.
And there's no place in our bedroom or bathroom for me to put anything - for display, or to be at hand to use. I have a bedside table, but that's where Seth dumps his clean clothes while he takes a shower.
This house has sink enclosures! I've been daydreaming about sink enclosures since we first saw the floor plans of our house. I once got estimates for having them put in, but the project never got off the ground. Because, I realize now, Seth doesn't need one. He plunks his clean underwear on my bedside table, and keeps his toiletries in or on top of his medicine cabinet. He never goes into the family bathroom where the bathroom cleaning supplies are on top of the medicine cabinet so we couldn't use that space up there for toiletries even if the children could reach it. And all the family medicines are in that cabinet. The cabinet in the master bathroom is just for Seth's deodorant and tubes of procto-goo and shaving cream and whatever else he (the master, after all) needs. He has a personal medicine cabinet, and the four of us have to manage with the other one. No wonder he doesn't see bathroom organization as the critical problem it is to me.
Wow. I never even realized all of this until I got to this new house, and sat down to write about the contrasts!
Of course he wasn't going to be receptive to my idea to finish off the shelter and organize storage in the laundry room so that the shelter could double as a workroom for sewing or carpentry. Why should that interest him? He doesn't do sewing or carpentry.
Nothing is convenient in that house. When you need to hang something there's no hook. When you need to put something down there's no surface.
The horrid sputnik lamp. It was a dozen years ago that I caught a glimpse of a strange-looking thing in a shop window. Imagine a black metal ball with twelve chrome tubes of various lengths and angles sticking out from it, each tipped with a flame-shaped light bulb. "What a monstrosity!" I giggled, "Imagine having that in your living room!" Well, two hours later, we did. He has never ceased to goad me about that lamp, which I'm sure he only bought because I hated it. He even joked that he was going to bring the sputnik lamp along with us for this year. I hadn't wanted a chandelier in the living room at all. Table lamps or pole lamps are more conducive to reading or conversation. I love this living room! No chandelier to draw the eye upward.
I hope you're not even wondering who dusts that complicated thing and polishes all those chrome phaluses, and runs from shop to shop searching for replacement light bulbs when they burn out.
Our living room can't be lived in. We had a nice full-sized sofa that folded out to a comfortable double bed. Great for putting a sick child on so he could be with the family. Then suddenly, Seth announced that we were going to get a new living room set. So many things we need, and haven't been able to buy because we're always scrimping, and suddenly he binges on living room furniture. I guess nobody's going to come in and ooh and aah over your sink enclosures or closet shelves. (Well, come to think of it, when I visit people, that's precisely what I do ooh and aah over ...) The shopping trip was strange; he didn't seem to care about anything but the price. OK. That's natural for him, but this time he was looking for the most expensive. We wound up with two 2-seater sofas and end tables of heavy, solid, expensive, rain-forest-depleting teak. These sofas are too short for lying on. Maybe that's the point. You're supposed to sit up prim and proper in the living room. And sick people should be upstairs in bed where they belong.
We've lived in the same house for nine years, and we haven't done anything to it but change light bulbs when they burn out. The children and I painted the walls five years ago. I put up Mom's hand-made Jonah quilt and a dozen of her watercolors. Everyone else in the neighborhood has paved their patios, put up pergolas, laid flooring in their bomb shelters, redone their kitchens and bathrooms, added lights, enlarged their windows, finished off their attics, landscaped their yards.
And the baskets. Seth hates baskets. I think they lend softness and a natural feel to the house. Efrath seems to feel the same, because there are baskets all over this house.
I love this house.
Frank Lloyd Wright thinks of a house as a shelter / container / facilitator / cradle for the inhabitants' activities. He actually sanctifies time over space. Designs the spaces around how the family spends its time.
Before putting ruler to drafting board, FLW interviews the future inhabitants and asks, "What do you do with your time? Entertain guests? Read? Cook? Work?" Then the structure is designed to fit that. Do you spend time together in the common areas, or separately in your own wings of the house? What flows around? Smells of cooking? Sounds of music? Conversation? Houseguests? Toddlers? Basset Hounds? Are you oriented toward the outdoors? Do we want vistas of the surroundings, or to feel protected and insulated from them? Are interpersonal encounters casual or formal? Do we need little nooks for people to slump down into, or gracious parlors where people can crook their little finger?
Designing a house from the heart out.
This house we’re renting is just a plain subdivision house. But the vibes make it a good cozy fit to a family, whereas our house back ‘home’ is a cold empty shell. Maybe it’s just that this house holds no ghosts of tantrums past.
And of course, it's heavenly to be a two hour drive from Jeanie.
She was visiting Friday afternoon with her two little cuties. It will be so nice to see them every few weeks instead of every couple of years.
Jeanie is planning to do home schooling. She'll be wonderful at it - she's so smart and highly motivated and patient and resourceful. I wondered, though, how she would know if everything were going OK, or if one of the children had a specific orientation that had to be dealt with. If there are rough spots, how will she know whether these are always the rough spots or if she is not presenting the material effectively or if there is a learning disability?
I showed her the three letters I brought along from the children’s schools, describing the results of their psychological evaluations, when social services was trying to sort out our problems.
Seth's parents arrived just as Jeanie and the children were getting ready to leave. When I came back in from walking Jeanie out to their van, Mom was reading Leora's report explaining that she's of superior intelligence, even though she’s doing abysmally in school.
"What's this?" Mom asked 'casually'.
"Oh … Social Services back in Israel summarized the children's ... situation ... so the schools here can know ..."
"It says here that Leora isn't performing well in school! Shlomit!" Mom jabbed her finger toward me with every syllable, "You have to find out what's wrong and get it taken care of!"
The way she had neatly divided blame between me and Leora made me angry.
"Without delay!" she added when I didn't answer.
To spill the beans or not? Why am I the only one who's supposed to behave herself? "Well, Mom, we know the major cause of the children's problems in school," I said finally. I felt dry-mouthed and light-headed and my heart was pounding.
She averted her gaze. Looked down at the report and then out the window. "Well, whatever it is, you should do something about it ..." she trailed off, and seemed to be about to make some comment about the bushes by the front porch.
I probably should have just taken a deep breath and concurred that the bushes certainly were bushy today, or whatever she was about to say. But I didn't.
"It's Seth, Mom. He ... you know he has been violent with them. It finally came to the attention of social services that ... there are problems between the children and their father."
"Oh, I'm sure it's not bad enough that social services needs to get involved, Shlomit! I hope you didn't go telling them …"
"No ... they just ... found out." Isn't she missing the point here? "But isn't it better if someone does step in, if the children are being hurt and ... if I'm not able to protect them on my own?"
"I'm sure no one needs to 'step in', Shlomit!"
"Well, they will, Mom. If Seth can't control himself. If there's a violent incident that the school or a doctor or … the police find out about - the children could be taken away from us."
"Shlomit! You can't let that happen! Social Services should never have been brought in to your family affairs! You don't seem to realize that this is a very serious situation!"
"Of course it's serious. I could lose my children because of Seth's ... problems. But the only one who can keep it from happening at this point is Seth, Mom. It's very unfair - to me and to the children. I never agreed with how he treats them. And they never did anything to deserve it."
"Shlomit ..." she paused. Working something out in her mind. "It seems to me that this is all because of ... of how you've been lately. You're ... different from how you used to be. You always used to seem so ... supportive of Seth. You wouldn't have talked like this a couple of years ago. You just have to go back to the way you were back then, and he'll go back to the way he was. I'm sure of it."
She remembers that I always acted happy. Always played the caretaker. Seth's cheerleader. Gave him the emotional strokes he was always starved for. Yes, we made a good picture to her. Good daughter-in-law doting on her troublesome son. Hanging on his every word. No matter how he behaved. And for all my efforts - I was rewarded with the rages and depressions and insults and silences of the first sixteen years of the marriage.
I nodded my head slowly. "I'm sure you're right, Mom. I'm sure that if I went back to how I was back then, he would go right back to how he was. Yes. I'm very sure of it."
"Well, then! That's the solution then!" she stood up. Satisfied at the successful outcome. "You were going to show me the rest of the house, Dear."
Can't get that ball out of my court, can I?
"These children are so sweet," Seth's mother purred. "Shlomit, don't you wish you had had children earlier?"
I paused with the fork half way to my mouth. What was she trying to pull? She had asked me that question twenty minutes ago when we were alone in the kitchen, and I gave her a truthful answer. That Seth had been in no condition, the first years of our marriage, for me to consider bringing children into the household. Obviously, she didn't want to hear that answer. So now she is asking the same question at a dining room table full of family. Counting on me to be polite. Even though she is being rude by trying to put me on the spot.
"No, Mom, it would not have been a good idea. We just talked about this, didn't we?"
Must be something about this American air that’s making me feel free and independent.
I bought a papaya today. It's so nice to be the one doing the shopping and cooking. Seth doesn't get a hot dinner at lunchtime this year, because the cafeteria isn't kosher, so he's ready for a real supper when he gets home, instead of a cheese sandwich. I think we're all healthier than we were in Israel. The children have better color, even with the weak American sunshine.
I remember how shocked Zahava was, last year, when Vivy brought some persimmons in to work, and I asked if I could take one home to the children, as they never get interesting fruit. Zahava asked why I don't just go out and buy things. Well, now I can!
Paul and Nancy invited all of us siblings and children to Nancy's family's island up in Canada for a week. The experience of being in a beautiful place, isolated from the world, with everything you need, and the people you love the most … could heaven be any more heavenly?
Early Wednesday morning, Eli, Leora, Rafi, and I set off in the White Elephant. It was one of many nice drives the children and I have had this summer – we have put nearly three thousand miles on the old van since we bought her last month. We have book tapes from the library to while away the miles. The children navigate, and they manage the seat rotations every time we stop at one of Ima's frequent comfort stops.
We got to Nancy and Paul's house in Michigan, and the next morning we all headed for The Island.
It was just getting dark as we got to the landing at the bay. We loaded their motor boat with duffels and children and bags of groceries, and had a beautiful full-moon-lit ride out to the island - past dark wooded islands with cozy-looking lit up houses on them. Soon we were pulling up toward our own cozy light at The Island.
Next morning, after pancakes, we all swam and canoed. The children took turns in a rubber dinghy.
All day, we were aware that Kay's and Jeanie's families were driving up from Ohio. They would phone the store before closing time, so the store could CB to us with their ETA, and someone could meet them at the landing. At 5:30, the CB woke up and the message came in that they would be at the landing in half an hour - the time it would take the motorboat to get there to meet them.
Just about the time Paul must have been half way to shore in the motorboat, it began pouring rain. Nancy started a fire in the fireplace so people could warm up when they came in. The downpour kept up, and we were getting gloomier and gloomier thinking of them all out there in it. Cold, with only soggy PJs, sleeping bags, and Huggies to look forward to. Then I heard a voice say, "Somebody take this," and there was Paul with a very bewildered Chris in his arms. I wrapped the toddler in a towel and set him in front of the fire. Then we heard laughter coming from outside, and the rest of them trooped in, dripping wet, but in very high spirits.
What a hubbub! All fifteen of us were there, now. All talking at once. Helping to cook. The four of us siblings, half of the spouses, and all of our children - nine of them, ranging in age from one to ten. Dinner was made and eaten.
After the six oldest children were asleep in the cabin next to the house, the six grownups played Taboo. You must make your teammates guess a word. You're not allowed to say the word, of course, and there's a list of related words that you're also not allowed to utter. So instead of letting your brain's speech centers construct the clues you want to give, you must monitor each syllable that comes out. We all sounded as though we were translating word-by-word to a language we had just learned yesterday.
The week flew by. Interesting things to do each day. Time for the cousins to become reacquainted, and for us parents to converse.
On the final leg of the drive back to Ohio, when the children had fallen asleep in the back seat, I thought of all the smiling that went on up at the island. In among the swimming and paddling and sailing and cooking and eating and dish-washing and sleeping and hiking and tabooing and picture taking and strumming and singing, there were smiles the whole time.
Then this morning, here at Mom's, I lined up our duffels, preparing to do a laundry. We had wound up with worn clothes mixed in with the clean clothes, because we always seemed to be getting wet, and needing dry clothes, so we put the wet ones on the line to dry, and then put them back in the duffels. Or we needed warm clothes for a boat ride, and then got back into shorts afterwards. So my plan was to sniff each item, and launder anything that smelled like lake water or sun screen or ice cream or fish bait or rock slime or trail mud or sweat or kerosene. But, strangely enough, it seemed that all I could smell were the pine needles.
Friday evening, at the Island, Jeanie was getting her children into their pajamas in front of the crackling fireplace. Celeste voiced doubts about being able to fall asleep without Daddy there to kiss her good night. "How about good night kisses from half a dozen aunts and uncles instead?" Kay proposed. "That should almost add up to one kiss from your Daddy." "And seven cousins!" volunteered Leora.
So putting the little children to bed turned into a giggly kiss-fest that we celebrated the following nights, too.
While Jeanie's children were brushing their teeth, Leora said, "It would be different if Abba were here, wouldn't it?"
"Not only for us," agreed Eli, "Everybody would feel different. Even the grown-ups. It's not only that he would be yelling at us."
How much of the joy we felt all week was just relief at Seth's not being there? To be surrounded by people we can trust to accept us and be fair to us. To just be ourselves. To not have to walk on eggs.
Even when Seth is at his calmest, it’s still easier just not to have him around.
The second evening on The Island, Kay and I went out in a canoe. We had plenty of time to talk, because our children know we steer so badly that we couldn't get back to shore very quickly even if we were trying.
"Kay?” I swiveled around to face her, resting the paddle across my knees. “Are there things things in your life that are easier because you have Tom?"
This reunion reminded me of Nancy's comment a couple of summers ago - that it must be difficult being on vacation with three children, without my husband. Since then I've wondered, in various situations, whether it would be any harder if Seth were out of the picture. Usually I merely concluded that it would be easier.
"Oh, it’s definitely easier having Tom around!" Kay answered, bringing her paddle into the canoe, too. "Certainly with the boys. The fact that there's another parent to share the decision making and the worries, and ..." she grinned, "to whom I can brag without feeling conceited. It's good to have him there at teacher conferences. Helping with homework and school projects. Those elaborate Halloween costumes he rigs up! Spencer’s bed with the drawers and hiding place was such a nice father-son project. I love to hear them talk computers and sports and politics together, or discuss a book or movie. Tom definitely enriches their lives. He’s such a good role model. When they were little, he helped with the work involved in dealing with small children. Now, he adds to their sense of security. Adds enrichment. Provides reality checks when I need them.
"Also, of course, Tom deals with servicing the cars and changing storm windows and dealing with the city about the assessment,” she grinned. “The guy things. He did at least half of the work when we renovated the house. All my nesting frenzies are more rewarding because he's there to help plan. I feel more confident with anything I do, after I have bounced my ideas off of Tom. OK. He's a computer nerd and isn't into all the touchy-feely stuff, but he definitely gives moral support. Also in my career as a singer / songwriter / storyteller. Well, as you know, a mother can't have a career unless her husband is willing to take up a lot of slack.”
Kay laughed, “One day last month I came back late from a gig, and as I drifted off to sleep, I mumbled, ‘Tomorrow I really have to mop the kitchen floor!’ I got up the next morning, and tackled the floor first thing. It was only when the sponge mop wrung out clean that I realized Tom had already washed the floor before he left for work!
“And, of course, just to know there’s a back-up if I’m sick or frazzled by having too much going on at once. That extra pair of hands. You remember when I was pregnant with Spencer – that all-day morning sickness. If Tom hadn’t been there to take care of Tim – and of me! – well, it would have been a real nightm …”
Kay looked up and saw that I was near tears, staring – not at the moon on the water, but at a six-year-old memory. Downtown with Eli, on the way back to the car from the doctor – mine or his, I can’t remember which. Eli was four, lying back in the stroller, wiped out with hepatitis. I was pregnant. Weak and crampy and frightened. Eli had said he was going to throw up again, and I had tried to get him out of the stroller so I wouldn’t have to clean it up, too, but I wasn’t strong enough to lift him in time, and only managed to get myself messy as well. I just crouched there next to the stroller, wishing I had somebody to help me. At that moment, it was the farthest thing from my mind to wish that Seth would appear.
Kay put her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry. I … That creep. You shouldn’t have to go through what he puts you through, Shlomit.
"To answer your question - definitely, Shlomit. Oh, life would be much harder without Tom. And – there would be less point to it, somehow."
I felt like Alice getting a glimpse into wonderland.
We spent Rosh Hashanah with Seth's parents in New Jersey. It was nice. Once we got there.
Seth spent the first hour of the trip squabbling and picking fights with the children as usual. I really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. The four long trips the children and I took this summer were so pleasant, full of singing, car games, discussion, and joy, and I had been attributing this to the new van, to the nice weather, pretty scenery, interesting cassettes, tasty ginger snaps - anything but the fact that grouchy old Seth wasn't along to turn things sour. We had been looking forward to this trip and here he was ruining it. At the next rest stop Rafi asked to sit up front, and I readily agreed – happy to have some congenial company.
When Rafi sits up with me on the long drives, I get a chance to focus on him. We talk, and he comments on things he sees. In Israel, children under fourteen aren't allowed to sit in the front seat. When Seth sits up front he never talks to me - just listens to the radio or dozes, and barks at anyone else in the car who makes a peep, so he can hear the radio.
As we drove, I sensed that Seth was angry. How is it, that an angry silence feels so different from a regular silence? I had assumed that Seth was going to navigate, so I hadn't studied the maps ahead of time, but when I asked him how I should go, he told me grumpily to stay on 95 - which seemed to me, with one eye on the map and the other on the road - to be wrong. As it became clear that we were hurtling toward downtown Philadelphia, I asked him again and he said that he'll navigate only if I let him sit where he wants.
Any time I let myself depend on Seth, he uses his one-up position as a weapon.
Wow. I just read that article you sent. At first I thought you wrote it and sent it in, basing it on my descriptions of my situation. So many of her sentences are word for word what I have said or thought:
- The fact that the abuse predates the things he would blame it on.
- "Coming from a peaceful home environment, I was unprepared for his rantings."
- His wanting her to spend all her free time with him. His requirements that she give up family and friends.
- Her hoping that "his tantrums and jealousy stemmed from insecurity that would dissipate once he accepted my unconditional love."
- "Bit by bit he tore away my self esteem. I was chastised and humiliated for practically everything."
- "Sometimes he would go for months without hurting me, and I would become optimistic. Maybe it would last, this time. But it never did."
- "He marched from room to room critiquing my homemaking skills."
- "I obediently handed over my paycheck to him."
- "I feared that if I pressed charges he would be even harder to deal with."
- "He became a quiet horror. He wouldn't speak to me for days at a time."
- "He became a regular scrooge, spending money on what pleased him without consideration for us, while the rest of us dressed in hand-me-downs."
Spooky.
Yesterday evening, as Jeanie was getting her children ready for the drive back to Harrisburg, Seth came downstairs with his new Jurassic Park video, and asked her if she would like to borrow it.
I was stunned. I had thought of loaning it to her, especially because she had loaned Seth six seasons of StarTrek NG when Seth was here by himself in the summer. But I didn't dare suggest that Seth part with his new video so soon. (Plus, I had been counting on it as entertainment for Leora's birthday party next week.)
I marveled at his generosity, calling myself a creep for stereotyping my husband as only ever offering something if he needs something in return.
Then he said, "Maybe you could do me a favor, then. I can get a five dollar rebate on the video with six Jell-O proof of purchase seals ..." He paused, holding the video tape against his chest.
Jeanie said, "Oh! And you don't eat Jell-O because it's not kosher. Actually, we don't eat it either, but I guess I could buy some.”
Seth continued to clutch the tape – waiting for her to continue. “… and I can mail you the barcodes."
"Fine." Seth said, and handed her the tape.
I had to look away from him, I was so embarrassed. He could just have given her the rebate coupon and said, "Here, we can't use this - maybe you can." Or bought the Jell-O, gotten the rebate, and given the Jell-O to her.
I'm so embarrassed.
And you know what? I'm just realizing as I write this … Seth has no idea that Jeanie is going through the hassle and outlay of buying Jell-O and mailing the barcodes, because she is nice, and because we're family. He thinks everyone operates the way he does, and that she agreed to help out because he put the bait of the movie in front of her.
And right now, he's every bit as proud of himself for this maneuver as I am ashamed of him for it.
Clueless. He'll never understand Earthlings.
Thanks for the recipes and the letter and your new songs. We ate spaghetti pie the night I got the recipe.
I think things would have been very different over the years if we had been living in the US. If I had had normal contact and support from people during the bad times, I wouldn't have stuck with the marriage.
Meanwhile, the school year here is off to a good start. Rafi and I have an hour every morning, after Eli and Leora leave for school, to read the library books that I bring home by the crate-full.
This week we read a book entitled, "A Family That Fights". The father hits the mother but not the children. But, as with your article, there were lines that could have been direct quotes from our experience. Much of the time things are pleasant, when the father is in a good mood. The book says all families have disagreements, but in this family, the father fights with his hands. It describes how the children feel: "The worst time of day is when Dad comes home. Henry can tell that his mom gets really nervous. Henry knows she is scared because Dad might be in a bad mood. As soon as Dad comes home, everyone knows what kind of mood he's in. If he's feeling happy, he scoops Joe up and puts him on his shoulders. He laughs and tells silly riddles. If he's in a bad mood, anything can start a fight.”
The child is preoccupied, in class, with what's going on at home, just as my children were. When the child is at his friend's house, he pretends he lives there. (Eli once told me he wished he had me for a mother, and his friend Michael's father for a father. As recently as last week, Leora started listing character traits I should look for in a new father for them if I divorce Seth!) The older boy tries to make the younger ones be extra good when Dad is in a bad mood.
You and I were spanked as children, back in the '50s. But spanking a child on the bottom, when they did something they know is bad, is totally different from random pushes, snarls, punches and kicks to the nearest part of the child just to vent the nastiness of the adult, when the victim has done nothing.
A spanking is in control. When I was spanked, I never feared that Mom or Dad would hit with all their strength, or that it would go on and on and not stop, or that it would lead to kicking or that I would be injured. I never felt they were trying to hurt me as much as possible, or that they hated me. I always knew what the punishment had been for.
Love, Shlomit
Well, Miriam Adahan has done it again. Her book about raising children to care, and her book about striving for emotional maturity were so insightful. "Emotional maturity" - imagine a world in which everyone had achieved it.
Well, yesterday, I saw an ad in a magazine for her new book, ‘Living With Difficult People’. When I saw the title, I stood right up and went to the phone to call the Jewish bookstore.
"Do you have 'Living With Difficult People'? Miriam Adahan?", I asked urgently. "One copy? Oh, great! I need it desperately! I'll be right there!"
Ten minutes later, I was walking into the shop, and realized that I now had to identify myself as the one who had desperately needed a self help book. I smiled sheepishly. "I'm the one who called ..." The saleswoman laughed as she handed me the book.
It's another of those books where the writer could have been looking into my windows, watching our household.
There it was, in the fourth line: This book was written to help people protect themselves from those who refuse to strive to be emotionally healthy.
Here's a vote of confidence for what I've been doing: The book says that often we can do little to stop them, other than to maintain emotional and physical distance.
There was something on the radio yesterday about keeping separate bank accounts for money that comes from one side of the family or the other, so that in the event of divorce, it won't have to be divided. Seth went over to the radio and listened carefully.
I know that he has money from his parents that I'm not supposed to know about. Then a few days later, he got a letter from 'Winfheimer and Winfheimer'. I remembered hearing his parents talking about Winfheimer in connection with his aunt's estate. Seth took the envelope and didn't say anything more about it. Then over bagels at his cousin's house last Sunday, Cousin Mark blabbed, "Hey, Seth! I guess you got a letter from Aunt Esther's lawyer, too …" Seth choked on a poppy seed. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. He's welcome to his family's money.
Rafi seems to have a grudge against Seth, and has been refusing to do things with him. Which is sad, because Rafi is the only one Seth will do things with. Seth made sure Rafi understood that his Hanukkah present was from Seth and not from both of us. Last summer Seth bought a fancy cloth kite at Air&Space, and made it clear that it's only for Seth and Rafi, not for the rest of us. Rafi claims he hates Abba because Abba used to hit him all the time back in Israel. They really don't forget, do they.
Is Rafi aware that the family is split into factions with Seth on one side and Eli and Leora on the other, and he would rather align himself with his siblings?
How does Seth feel when the children lavish their affection on other men. Uncles, grandfathers, my friends from work, and willing neighbors are targeted for climbing, tickling, teasing, wrestling, joking, wanting to be carried and spoiled. Maybe he just feels glad they wouldn't think to pester him like that.
We visited Jeanie on Sunday. For awhile I didn’t think Seth would go. He hadn’t eaten at all the day before. I didn't know if he felt unwell, or was protesting my plans to go. I couldn't get him to commit to a time to leave the house on Sunday, but we left in good time. On the way out, he had me stop at a store where he wanted to 'buy something' which turned out to be a thermos. But whatever it was the day before - and the sparring that was going on between him and Leora, and his general grumpiness over Shabbat, he was fine once we got there.
I love getting into a quick witty dialog with someone. I do it with Eli sometimes. Straight-faced but outrageous. We know each other well. And I had it through the network with Benji, at work. It was embarrassing to be sitting there typing away, rapid fire, seeming to be working, and then suddenly explode with laughter. My office-mates would ask, "What's Benji up to?"
It makes me regret that I missed that, in my marriage.
I'm weary.
Yesterday evening Seth was in a bad mood. It felt like three years ago - the children taking turns crying. Seth exploded at Eli, who ran from the room shouting, "I hate Abba!" I keep trying to assume they have forgotten and forgiven, but it's still pretty close to the surface. Eli is always the most forgiving. Seth has such a reputation with us, now, that he can't even be just normally grumpy, without bringing back memories of the bad times.
At least, he has been staying away from us. If he can't control his moods, at least he can avoid us when he is in one. Seth has been staying home while we take walks, and taking walks when we come home from ours.
I need to digest something that happened last weekend.
On Friday evening, Leora and Rafi and I were at home, waiting for Seth and Eli to come back from a walk. Rafi suddenly cried out that his foot hurt him. He fell down on the carpet and lay face down gripping his foot. He was silent, and I thought it was those seconds after a little kid has cried out all of his air, and hasn't taken the next breath. But when I went to comfort him, he was unconscious!
I picked him up, and Leora saw his face, and screamed. It was gray and all pulled downward, and his eyes were rolled up. Then his arms bent and moved jerkily upward. I started shrieking "Rafi" as Leora shouted "911! 911!" and ran for the phone. I grabbed him up, still shouting his name, and ran to the front door and opened it - with an idea to get him across the street to the neighbors and call from there, where there were other adults to deal with the phone and child at the same time. I didn't know what needed to be done, but I felt certain it should be done right away. Just as I opened the door, Rafi loosened up and said, "Don't shout. You're scaring me."
I put him down to sit on the edge of the kitchen table. He said that he knew I was yelling at him but he couldn't hear me. He said he had felt that he was shaking. He put his hand on his chest and said that his throat hurt. When I asked if he had stubbed his toe, he said no, his foot had just started curling over to the side so hard that it hurt so much. We three just sat there, catching our breaths, being glad Rafi was alive and conscious.
But the really strange thing happened afterwards.
Seth came home from his walk, and Leora and I told him about Rafi's seizure. “If you could take Eli and Leora across to Sara's house, I'll get Rafi ready to go to the emergency room,” I said.
“No!” Seth shouted. “There's no need! Nobody needs to know about this! My grandfather used to have fainting episodes. It just runs in the family, that's all. It's nothing to get upset about!" I described the seizure again - it was definitely not a 'fainting spell'.
I was surprised, because for the past year, Rafi has been his favorite. Why would he be reluctant to make sure the little boy is OK?
Seth didn't actually witness the seizure, but even so - wouldn't he trust me? Leora's wide-eyed narrative corroborated how serious it was. Or at least indulge me: "Fine. Take him over to Holy Cross if it'll make you feel better." But he was actively discouraging me from taking this little boy to the doctor.
Then, Seth dropped the bombshell.
“Anyway, this happened once before and there were no lasting consequences.”
What was he talking about? "When did it ever happen before, Seth?"
Seth tisked and said, "Back in Israel. Last year. He got hit, and he went stiff for a few seconds, that's all. There were no lasting consequences." The way he used the passive tense, I knew it couldn't have been Eli or Leora who had hit him, because he would surely have named the culprit in that case. And … we just saw a 'consequence' didn't we?
I asked, "Where was this? At the play ground?"
And Seth, more and more annoyed that I was pursuing this, said, "No, at home. Just forget it, OK, Shlomit? Just forget all about it."
Seth finally agreed, grudgingly, to let Rafi sleep in our bed so we would know if he had another seizure. By now Seth was angry at me for taking the whole thing so seriously.
Seth was pouring the wine for Kiddush. The discussion was over, but my mind was jabbering away like crazy to itself. The only explanation is that Seth hit Rafi once too often and once too hard, and caused him to have a seizure. So it was THAT last year - not my revelations about how the children fear him - that made Seth stop hitting them.
It couldn't be that I knew about that first seizure and forgot it, could it.
And Seth fears that if Rafi were examined, it might show that the child has suffered repeated blows to the head, and then someone would start asking questions. In fact, the first question a neurologist would ask would be whether the little boy had ever been hit in the head. And I would have to answer.
Everyone knows that for a child to be hit on the head can cause 'neurological damage'. Well, isn't that what an epileptic seizure indicates?
Seth is on probation in Israel. If this came to light, the children could be taken into care.
I guess he's on probation with me, too, though I doubt whether that matters much to Seth.
I casually asked Rafi, and then Eli and Leora, if they remembered this other seizure Seth mentioned, but they don't.
What kind of human would injure his child and then not mention it even to the mother, and then actively stand in the way of his getting medical treatment?
I already believe that Seth's treatment of me during my pregnancy with Rafi could be responsible for Rafi's problems as an infant, his hearing and speech problems, the fact that he has no sense of smell, the strange sleepy illnesses that come over him.
I had been assuming that it was all ancient history, though. Now there's this new doubt.
This new fear.
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Copyright 2020 by Shlomit Weber
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