Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman Page A

were taking in the new war memorial, his parents were probably enduring the hardest stretch of the fast, the two o’clock headache and grouchiness. For the first time since he married Maggie, he thought about the Yom Kippurs he’d spent as a kid, the mid-afternoon fights Amy picked with Hannah, and the sanctuary that reeked of the bad breath of hundreds of fasters who had gathered to hear the shofar, the signal that this day of torture was over. On the drive to Grandma Goldie’s house, Eric and his sisters used to guzzle orange juice and wolf graham crackers, a warm-up for the table of bagels, lox spread, marble cake, and Aunt Sylvia’s faithful pan of macaroni and cheese.
    A wail interrupted the gentle ache creeping up on him, and Maggie rushed downstairs and swooped up Alec.
    Eric stood over the glider, stroking Maggie’s damp hair; Alec’s jaw moved up and down furiously, and his tiny hand rested atop her breast. “Looks like he’s getting the hang of it.”
    Maggie nodded, gazing at Alec’s profile. The phone rang, startling him, and he spit out a mouthful of milk and started to cry.
    Eric grabbed the receiver.
    â€œWe’re at Hannah’s. What a ballabuste, as your grandma Goldie would have said,” Eric’s mother announced. “She even made that god-awful icebox cake for the bris.”
    Eric laughed, and his mother put his father on the line.
    â€œYou want to stop by?” Eric detected the urgency in Simon’s voice. He knew that his father wanted nothing more than for the family to break the fast together.
    Eric begged off, claiming the baby needed rest for his big day tomorrow, and stretched his arms out to Maggie, who handed over Alec.
    â€œSo did your parents give you a big guilt trip about not ‘breaking the fast’ with them?” She made air quotes with her fingers.
    He was expected to reply with some disparaging comment about Simon and Brenda, because this was how they spoke of each other’s parents to one another —Maggie and Eric against the world — but he couldn’t bring himself to do it today. “They understood.”
    â€œDid you tell them how perfectly the fine chefs at Spices prepared your Yom Kippur shrimp?” She giggled meanly.
    â€œI think our little guy has a present for us.” He felt the baby’s wet warmth under his hand. “I’ll take him upstairs and change him.”
    Eric was relieved to have a moment alone with Alec. Maggie so rarely got on his nerves. He didn’t mind the Christmas tree she plunked in the living room last December, or the ham and chocolate bunnies she served to a tableful of her friends last spring, but this bris talk felt different. Bad different. Uncomfortable different. He and Maggie had married quickly, out of passion, against their parents’ wishes. They assured everyone that they’d figure out this interfaith stuff, that Maggie understood better than anyone how to merge two cultures.
    When he came back downstairs, he saw that Maggie had leaked breast milk on the T-shirt she’d borrowed from him. He jumped at her request to run to the mall and pick up some nursing pads.
    Eric felt insanely Jewish trolling through Montgomery Mall on Yom Kippur. He surveyed the array of shoppers, taking note of the varieties of blond: a highlighted soccer mom lugging a huge Crate and Barrel shopping bag, a dishwater twentysomething manning an electronics kiosk, a towheaded toddler wearing the remnants of a chocolate ice cream cone on her chin. Would Alec inherit Maggie’s hair? Would he turn out dark-haired, pockmarked, and irreversibly chubby, like the Solonsky men?
    A heavily perfumed saleswoman smiled at him when he walked into Mimi Maternity in search of breast pads. After discussing Maggie’s cup size at excruciating length, they picked out their best estimate of the right-size pads.
    He wandered down to Sears to look for a lawn mower. Why not?