The Nature of Love

Chapter 7

Copyright (c) 2014 Phyllis Zimbler Miller

All rights reserved.

The trial of former football star O.J. Simpson on double murder charges is held in Los Angeles. – Spring, 1995

1995

          I turned off my television and returned to my computer. The entire country was fixated on the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. As an historian I could say it was my duty to watch this history-in-the-making.  After all, I had as much prurient interest as the next person.

          Maybe that was why I was writing this historical novel about Judith. I wanted to know what happened behind the doors. And if I couldn’t know for sure, I would undertake historical revision – filling in the blank spaces the way it might have happened.

       I had been thinking about my daughter Leah's baby who had an ear infection that antibiotics cured. I told Leah that penicillin only began to be used for medical treatment of bacteria in the early 1940s, actually about the time I was born. Before then children died of ear infections. "Aw, Ma, that's ancient history," Leah said.

       Ancient history. Not for Judith and her family.

***

Judith’s Story

1911

      Sylvia had fussed on the train ride to Chicago. Judith feared that the baby had an ear infection; she cried continually.

      Please God, please may it not be an ear infection.

      Lillian had an ear infection when she was two. Her fever was high and she cried for days. Judith and Jacob borrowed money to take the child to a doctor.

       He examined her and said, "There's nothing I can do. It is in God’s hands. Try to keep her comfortable. Sponge off her body with a damp rag. Keep her drinking."

       Judith made chicken soup. With shaking hands she forced the soup down the little girl's throat. Jacob went to synagogue each day to recite the prayer for restored health.

       One day the crying stopped – and Lillian smiled.

     Judith hurried to the synagogue to drop coins into the alms box. She had promised that if Lillian lived she would give charity in the child's honor.

      Thank you God, her honor not her memory.

     Now Judith's hands shook as she felt Sylvia's forehead. No fever. Please God, no ear infection.

     "Shalom aleichem," a tall man on the platform yelled out as Judith stepped down from the train holding Sylvia in her arms.

      "Aleichem shalom," Jacob called back from behind her.

      This clean-shaven man wearing American clothes must be Jacob's cousin Chaim.  There was no physical family resemblance to Jacob.

      "Here, let me help you," he said, scooping Sylvia from her arms. "All the kinder who come to the deli love Uncle Chaim."

        Her child. Someone had taken her child.

       Lillian yanked at her hand. "Mama, I have to go. Where's the outhouse?"

      Chaim laughed, his chest bumping against the baby in his arms.

     "There's no outhouse, little girl. There's indoor plumbing. Come, I'll show you."

     Chaim led them along the platform. "Go on.  Through that door is the ladies' room," he said.

     "Please may I have the baby back," Judith said.  "I want to wipe off her face."

     His eyes moved from Judith's face to her breasts as he handed her Sylvia.

     She plopped the baby on one hip and yanked Lillian through the door.

     That look from Chaim had made her stomach flipflop.  What had they gotten into?

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If you would also like to read women’s fiction that takes place in the future rather than the past, check out THE MOTHER SIEGE here on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/MSintro