Challah Every Day - a short story by Florence Liberfarb...

Susan was getting concerned about her Mom. Most of the friends she had from her neighborhood had moved and Susan saw her mother becoming more and more reclusive.

“Life moves on,” Susan had told her, continuing to pressure her to move south and join the migration.

After much persuasion from both she and brother Wayne, Mom finally agreed, albeit without much enthusiasm.

“How can I leave my beautiful sofa?” Mom asked.

It was indeed beautiful, made of crushed velvet in swirling patters of midnight blue and wine red.

“It’s not tropical enough. The wrong style for the south. You’ll buy new things. Like your cousin Ethel’s condo.”

“To tell the truth, I didn’t care for it. Mirrors everywhere. Who can stand seeing themselves from all sides every day, with wrinkles, yet?”

After all the efforts to help make that move into the new condo, Susan surprised herself to find it was harder than she expected to say good-bye to Mom.

“You’ll see, you will love it there,” Susan told her, trying to convince herself as well. “You’ll make new friends and join a bridge club. We’ll call each other every day. And Wayne and I will visit often. And the children, too.”

As it turned out, shortly after the move, Susan got a big promotion at work. At the same time the children were becoming a royal pain. One even had a tattoo done. Never mind where! And Wayne’s youngest left the country.

Wayne himself wasn’t much help. His excuse was that since his company had merged, they gave him more responsibilities. Really, what his visits consisted of was flying in for the day, when he was on a nearby business trip. He would look over the condo for any structural damage, then into Mom’s medicine cabinet for the dates on her prescriptions. After that, he rushed her out to a crowded restaurant, along with his cell phone. And before leaving, he wrote her a big check, which she forgot to cash for weeks.

One day Susan called Mom.

“I’m coming down to visit you for the weekend,” she told her. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen one another and I miss you. I really do.”

“So suddenly? Just like that? Look, darling I know you’re a very busy lady. Why should you be in such a hurry? This weekend, you say?”

Just like her mother to be always putting the family first.

“I don’t want to hear any more about it. I’m coming. My plane will get me there about three o’clock this afternoon.”

On the plane, Susan decided to make the most of their time spent together. We’ll go to a spa, she thought. Do some shopping. Find a nice, quiet restaurant. Best of all they could have long talks, the kind she had with no other person in the world.

“Mom, you look wonderful!” she said hugging her.

Her mother did look a little flustered, though. Maybe she wouldn’t schlep her around too much. The phone began to ring, one time after another, as Susan unpacked and walked around the condo, checking on the refrigerator and grocery shelves.

“You’ve got a real busy phone. Why don’t we get ready to go out to dinner?”

“I didn’t mention to you before,” Mom interrupted, “I didn’t want to change your plans, but I made appointments I couldn’t get out of. I tried to juggle them around…”

“You mean a doctor’s appointment? That’s all right. I’ll take you.”

“No, no.”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“Excuse me,” she said, rushing to the door and then ushering in a gray-haired gentlemen with a noticeable twinkle in his eye as he looked at Mom.

“Hello, honey,” he said, reaching to embrace her.

Mom managed to dodge, as she introduced him to Susan.

“How do you do, Bob,” Susan replied, hoping he wasn’t going to interfere with their plans. He quickly made his wishes known.

“Is your daughter joining us for dinner, Trudy? She’s more than welcome.”

How come this Bob person was calling Mom Trudy? No one ever called her anything but Gertrude.

“This happened so quickly,” she told Bob. “My daughter coming today. She’s always welcome, the darling. But I didn’t have time to change the plans around and…”

“No problem” Bob said. “I’ll just call the restaurant and tell them to reserve another place for us.”

As he walked to the phone, and before Susan could object, the doorbell rang again.

“Oh, dear,” her mother said, growing more distraught.

She opened the door to yet another gentleman.

“Hello, Freddie,” Mom said, tremulously.

“How are you, Trudy dear. I’m a little early but…”

He stopped mid-sentence as he glanced at Bob, who promptly put the phone down, glaring back at him.

“What are you doing here?” Bob asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing, “ Freddie answered.

Susan looked at her mother in growing bewilderment.

“There’s been a terrible mix-up,” she tried to explain. “I had to shuffle my schedule around and I must have made some mistakes.”

For the first time in her life, Susan felt superfluous. But she didn’t have time to dwell on these feeling because apparently the two gentlemen were getting into a serious argument. They began shouting and name-calling.

“You think because your mother never loved you, you can come here? You come to the wrong place, Buster. I got here first,” said Bob.

“Look who is a Romeo! You’re on your last legs, Mr. Lover boy,” Freddie said, starting to push him.

The two women were becoming alarmed.

“Stop this!” Susan said, trying to defuse the situation.

But they were beyond listening. The pushing soon led to jabbing, and then one of them was on the floor. It was Bob. Her mother screamed. To Susan, it looked like a broken or badly sprained wrist. He just lay there, in a fury. When Freddie bent over to help him, he got a kick in the groin for his trouble. Now they were both on the floor.

“I’m calling 911,” Susan said.

While she was dialing, Bob yelled, “I’m not riding in the same ambulance with him! No way!”

As they waited for the medics, Susan took her mother aside and asked, incredulously, “Mom, is this how you live now?”

Mom shrugged.

Florence Liberfarb writes poetry, short stories and plays. You may freely republish this story for non-commercial use provided you follow the Publisher Guidelines and provide a hyperlink (electronic media) to the Wordly Web Site. You may not alter the copyright notice or edit the content of this story. Please notify the author of your intent to republish. Commercial use of this story requires written permission and payment of a royalty.

Challah Every Day by Florence Liberfarb

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Poems, Stories, and Plays by

Florence Liberfarb