Saving Elijah

attention to him," Kate said. "Using 'scrumptitious' would be like artistic license. Right, Dad?"
    Sam agreed it would, except that soda wasn't exactly nutritious. Still, it wasn't a bad idea, he said. "Maybe you'll follow dear old Dad into advertising," he said.
    "Mrs. Kotchkins said she thinks I should really pursue music."
    "Well, whatever makes you happy, Kate," I said, thinking that I really should talk to her about the conversation I'd had with Lucia Orsini during Elijah's illness, about Kate and some of her friends picking on Allison.
    Even Alex participated in our daily dinner ritual, telling us that he was planning to try out for the junior varsity baseball team.
    After dinner, Sam retired to the home office we shared to work on his concept. I went into Kate's room, where I found her on the phone, as usual. I motioned for her to get off, then waited while she finished and sat down on the bed. She took it pretty well.
    "You're right, Mom," she said. "Allison is a pain in the ass, nobody can stand her, but I feel kind of sorry for her. I already apologized. It was stupid and mean."
    I gave her arm a little squeeze. "I'm proud of you, Kate."
    She leaned back against her wicker headboard and crossed her arms in back of her head. "Yeah, ain't I the greatest?"
    I told her to come down and say good night when she'd finished her homework, then played with Elijah for a while before I helped him get washed up and into his pajamas. We looked at his Creatures of the Deep book together, and I sang him his lullaby, then I waited until Alex and Kate were settled in bed before going into our bedroom, Sam's and mine, and setting the stage for romance. I lit a phalanx of candles, found a soft jazz station on the radio, and slipped into a slinky negligee. Sam seemed surprised when I came to him in the office as he was shutting down the computer.
    "What's this?" he said.
    "This was your idea. Stranger."
    He followed me into the bedroom.

    *    *    *

    I spent a few hours the next morning working on a column I was going to call "Diets for the New Age." There was the Whole Book Diet ("You don't read the Whole Book Diet, you eat it. One page at a time. Made of edible reconstituted protein . . ."); the Astral Projection Diet ("Project your pinchable midriff onto Brooke Shields, your flabby thighs onto Jane Fonda. And Heather Locklear gets your rear end!"); and the Time Machine Diet ("Travel back in time to when buxom and round was all the rage. Keep the same old body, but now everyone will consider you a prize instead of a cow...").
    I dropped the column off at the newspaper offices and rushed over to the Jewish Community Center. They all seemed glad to see me and I thanked them for their cards and prayers while Elijah was sick. They remembered him from the day he'd had to leave Sue Weinberg's art class, and in response to their concern I told them a little about his experience in the hospital. That led to a half-hour discussion about illnesses and hospitals and doctors, a favorite subject of the over-seventy set. We heard about Pearl Ott's back pain and arthritis and polyps. (Her rheumatist was an absolute genius, in case we were wondering.) We heard about Rose Felber's daughter Belle, who had meningitis when she was very small, but was fine in the end, thank God, though blind in one eye. (Which was nothing, everyone agreed.) We even heard from Abe Modell about why he became a dentist instead of a medical doctor ("Dentistry! Now there's something you can really sink your teeth into!").
    "You're a little long in the tooth for that kind of story, Abe," said Carl Moskovitz.
    "Ha, ha, ha, Carl!" said Pearl Ott, who didn't appreciate their brand of humor. Pearl wasn't my favorite of the bunch.
    For their next class project I suggested they write about what they most regret, and they seemed to like the idea.
    I asked Ellen to stay after class. "I was very moved by your card, Ellen," I told her loudly. "It was generous of you."
    She eyed me with those trenchant eyes. "Generous?"
    "I mean because of what you must have been through yourself."
    "You think I can't wish good things for others because I've been to hell myself? Because I live in hell?"
    "Is that how it feels, like hell?"
    "That was how it was, that is how it feels. I lost my whole family, you know. Both my mother and my father."
    "I'm sorry."
    "Ja. I mean, yes. I never like to speak that language. I spit on that language."
    I closed my eyes.
    "And my sister, and my