May We Be Forgiven

household and one for myself—carefully noting each expense and from what source it was paid. Not only does it give me something to do, it protects me from a nagging fear of being accused of mismanagement.

    C y is increasingly frail, more forgetful, and having trouble “containing” himself. All this prompts a visit to the doctor, who basically says, “You get what you get and you can’t expect more. None of us last forever.”
    I ask the doctor to step out of the examining room for a word in private. We leave Cy on the table, his pale, hairless long legs nearly blue, and veined like a plucked chicken.
    “What does that mean—‘none of us last forever’?” I say just outside the door. The doctor shrugs. “How old are you?” I ask.
    “Thirty-seven,” he says.
    “You got a fuck of a lot of nerve,” I say to him.
    “What do you want?” he asks. “You want painkillers, you want Valium? You tell me,” he blithers on.
    “What I want is compassion, some understanding of what it’s like to be sitting there in that gown that is one step away from a funeral shroud and worrying what it’s all about.”
    “Right,” he says. We go back into the room, and the young doctor hops up onto the exam table next to Cy and says, “Can you hear me okay?”
    “No need to yell,” Cy says. “I’m old but I’m not blind. I can see your lips moving.”
    “You’re doing very well,” the doctor says. “The more you can get out and exercise, go for walks, the better; just keep moving, and enjoy yourself.” And he hops down off the table, hands me a couple of prescriptions: a statin for Cy’s cholesterol, Flomax for the prostate, Valium as needed for anxiety. He winks at me and is gone.

    A shley, continuing her embrace of Judaica, asks me to please get tickets for the High Holy Days. Having declined to renew the membership at the temple George and Jane belonged to, I find myself online buying tickets from a “liquidator.” The idea that one “buys” tickets to an annual religious event bothers me; I’m aware that for many Jews the High Holies mark their annual visit to temple, and it’s also when synagogues raise their funds for the year—but it doesn’t feel right.
    I meet some guy on a corner and pay six hundred dollars cash for two “member” tickets to Yom Kippur services at a conservative temple in Scarsdale.
    Excited, Ashley insists we get there early to get good seats. We sit for hours and hours, and when we finally get to the Viddui, the communal confession of sin, I find myself right there with the rest of them, beating my chest, repenting “for the sins that I have done before you.” There are at least twenty-four sins: the sin of betrayal, having an evil heart, causing others to sin, eating what is forbidden, speaking falsely, scoffing at others, being scornful, perverse, rebelliously transgressing, the sin of having turned away from God … I am pounding my chest along with the rabbi as he recites the litany of our wrongs. I am guilty. I am guilty of even more than I realized I could be guilty of.
    “We’re bad,” Ashley whispers to me. “Just listen to all that we have done, all the harm and trouble we cause.”
    I sober up for a moment. “We’re human, Ashley. We atone because, despite our best efforts, we will always do harm to others and ourselves. That’s why each year we ask those we have hurt for forgiveness, and each year we present ourselves to God and ask to be forgiven.”
    She starts to cry. “It’s just so terrible,” she says.
    “Which part?” I ask.
    “Being human.”

    O ut of the blue I get a call from the Department of Social Services with regard to scheduling a home visit for a pending foster-care application. “We had a cancellation; the social worker can come tomorrow, or I can book you for December 23 …?”
    “Tomorrow is fine,” I say. “What time?”
    “Anytime between nine and five,” she says.
    “Could we narrow it down?” I ask.
    “No,” the woman says.
    “All right, then.”
    The social worker pulls up at 2 p.m. in a small nondescript car. Tessie barks.
    “I don’t like dogs,” the woman says when I open the door.
    “Would you like me to have her wait in the other room?”
    “Please,” the woman says.
    I put Tessie on a leash and ask Madeline to hold on to it. I escort the social worker, and her fat folder, into the house.
    “So the boy is already living here?” she asks.
    “Since the spring,” I say, “at the request of