Saving Elijah

thunder and the lightning crack that followed it. "Remember what Dad used to say about thunder and lightning?"
    When Alex was Elijah's age, he'd been terrified of storms. At four and five he'd appear in our bedroom at night during a thunderstorm, and Sam would take him into our bed and say, "It's only God, blowing His nose." Alex, a born skeptic, would say, "God doesn't have a nose, Daddy." Or, "I'm not a baby, Daddy. Don't make up stories." And Sam would argue back, all the while distracting Alex from his fear. "What do you mean, God doesn't have a nose. Of course He has a nose. How could He smell all His flowers without one? Or what about grass, or the sea? Or waffles? My mother told me God has a nose, and I believe it."
    "Mom, will you give me a break?" Alex said now. "Dad isn't here anymore."
    I glanced at Elijah, who hadn't asked what his father had told his brother about storms, but sure seemed interested in this one. I sighed. Dinner. I turned my back on my sons to forage for food again, but I felt the older one watching me. Macaroni? Used the last box yesterday. Spaghetti? There was a box in the cabinet, but the leftover sauce in the fridge was growing mold. Cheese casserole? We'd come a long way from chicken Marsala.
    "Maybe I should go with Dad," Alex said.
    Please, not that, too. I took a deep breath, then turned to face him. Calm, be calm.
    "I'd surely miss you, honey."
    "I know, but Dad misses me, too."
    "Well, maybe after Dad gets settled."
    Kate came in just as I said it. "There's no point in going to live with Daddy, Alex. Because they're getting back together."
    Alex frowned. "Oh, come on, Kate, that never happens. Don't you know anything?" He glanced out the window at the sheeting, pounding rain, then left the kitchen and headed upstairs.
    "Quite a storm, huh, Elijah?" Kate said.
    Elijah nodded, without turning away from the window. "It's just like music, Kate," he said.
    Kate put her arm around her little brother and looked out the window, where a small maple tree was bending like an old man in the force of the lashing rain and wind. She closed her eyes.
    "Yes, I suppose it is like music," she said after a moment.
    I looked, too, and listened, but I couldn't hear anything except the sound of rain and thunder. I turned away. In half an hour, I had hot dogs on the table.

    *    *    *

    The next day Charlotte arrived.
    "You look terrible, Dinah." She stood at the front door wearing a long linen sheath, lilac, with a matching jacket, and espadrilles. Her car was parked on the street.
    "Thanks." I knew how I looked.
    She looked stricken at my sarcastic tone, and apologized. I had no choice, I invited her in.
    "Dinah," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table, "you know I'm not the kind of mother who interferes, but I'm not the kind of mother who can just stand by through something as serious as this. I want to help. Now, what's going on between you two?"
    This wasn't helping, but I sat down at the kitchen table across from her. "I really don't want to talk about it."
    My mother lowered her eyes and folded her hands together. "I always hoped we could have the kind of relationship where we could talk to each other, Dinah."
    I stared at her.
    Elijah came in then. "Gramma!" His face lit and he stretched out his arms and Grandma Charlotte took him in.
    I turned away, I couldn't bear to look, and went to get the mail. The box was stuffed with envelopes. Standing in the driveway, I started to flip through them. All bills. I had no idea how I was going to pay them, since I wasn't working. I was going to have to start figuring out the answers to such practical questions, assuming I could get my mind to focus on anything practical for longer than five seconds. If Sam really wanted this, we were going to have to come up with a plan.
    Wait a minute, this one wasn't a bill. Small, fragile letters too small to read easily. The return-address corner had only the street name and zip code, not the sender's name, but I recognized Ellen Shoenfeld's writing from the last note she'd sent me. I opened the envelope. This one was much longer, the whole page covered in tiny script.

    6 August 
    Dear Dinah,

    Sleep has always been hard for me, because the nightmares never go away, waking and sleeping. Now I cannot sleep at all, for many weeks. I am eighty years old and this is not a good thing for my health.
    They call us survivors but I would say a different term. When we started to get our strength back after we were