Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman

a doctor. He rationalized that Helene’s comments were no worse than his mother’s occasional remark about “those goyim and their cocktails.”
    â€œHelene, let’s let them get some rest,” Will urged, suitcase in hand.
    Right about now, Eric’s parents, also in town for the bris, were probably perspiring in their High Holiday wools and linens, chatting in the shadow of the enormous menorah outside the temple. They always took a break at one or one-thirty, right after Musaf.
    Will kissed Maggie’s cheek. “We’re going to meander down to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial before we head over to Amy’s.”
    Amy was a saint for putting up Maggie’s parents. “Call it a thank-you gift for that killer apartment, big brother,” she’d said of the apartment overlooking the zoo that Maggie and Eric had bequeathed to her.
    Helene slid her purse up her arm, toned from hours on the tennis court, and snuck another peek at Alec. “I hate to run off when I could make another casserole or help you with the laundry.”
    Helene had spent the past week knitting, whipping up concoctions involving Campbell’s soup products, and telling nonstop anecdotes about Maggie’s first days of life, while Will busied himself assembling baby gliders, swings, and strollers.
    â€œOh, no, Mom,” Maggie said. “Please, you’ve done enough. Go see the sights.”
    After they said their goodbyes, Eric and Maggie took their Thai food into the kitchen and sat down at the Ikea table Eric had moved from apartment to apartment and finally this house.
    â€œYou okay?” he asked.
    She rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you know what my mother told me? ‘I got back into my size four weeks after I had you, dear.’”
    â€œOh, babe.”
    â€œAnd back then a size four was a real four!” Maggie looked in the direction of the den, where Alec was sleeping. “I promise never to count your calories, buddy,” she said, tearing into a carton of drunken noodles.
    Eric registered the sounds of Maggie swallowing, Alec breathing through his stuffy little nose, the hum of the fluorescent kitchen lights — occupational hazard. He worked as an audio technician.
    Maggie was eating so fast she was barely chewing. “You ordered these from Spices?” she asked through a mouthful of noodles.
    â€œOnly the best for the mother of my son.” They’d been doing a lot of this third- person kind of talk since the baby was born.
    She gobbled up the rest of the order without speaking, spearing the last fat noodle with her fork. Then she said, “My parents don’t get the bris thing.”
    â€œDid you tell them that we’re going to have him baptized too?” Eric asked.
    She tossed the empty carton into the trash. “Of course. I tried to explain that a bris is a highly significant Jewish rite of passage rooted in a tradition thousands of years old, but achieving cultural competency isn’t exactly their life’s mission.” When Maggie was agitated, she peppered her speech with diversity-training jargon, nodding her head authoritatively at the end of every sentence.
    â€œIt will be over tomorrow.” He was eager to end the conversation.
    â€œBut I certainly wasn’t going to tell them how hard it was to find a mole who would circumcise a baby with a Methodist mother,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken.
    â€œMole” was how she pronounced mohel, no matter how many times he’d said, “rhymes with boil, honey.” Whenever Maggie mentioned either the bris or the baptism, it was like having the barber part his hair on the wrong side of his head.
    â€œWhy don’t you treat yourself to a nice hot shower while the baby’s sleeping?” he suggested.
    Maggie sighed, kissed him on the forehead, and trotted upstairs to the bathroom.
    Eric tried to doze on the couch. While Helene and Will