The Middlesteins Read Online Free PDF Page A

these arguments
     that always ended with Richard throwing up his hands and walking away and Edie turning
     to Rachelle and crooning gently, “Marriage is for the birds,” and then making a chirping
     noise and smiling.
    This, for her family, for her husband, she would do. She could do it, easily.
    But nowhere was it in her job description as wife and mother and homemaker to be the
     one to let her mother-in-law know that her teeth were turning to shit.
    “Why isn’t your father saying anything?” she asked Benny. “Do you think he noticed?”
    It was after dinner, and the kids were in bed, their last text messages sent for the
     night. Benny and Rachelle were out back. Benny was taking long puffs from the last
     remaining bit of a tiny pin joint. Rachelle was shivering like a small, precious,
     expensive dog. January in Chicago, they must be insane. The pool was covered with
     a tarp. They both wore large, insulated, puffy coats.
    “You know as much as I do,” said Benny.
    It was the incisor on the bottom left, and the tooth next to it. They were both black
     at the root. Rachelle could see them only when Edie smiled, and she smiled a lot when
     the twins were around.
    “Do we have to talk about this now?” he said. The chill of the air and the smoke from
     the joint united into one giant cloud. He ground out the rest of the joint under his
     shoe.
    “When would you like to talk about it?” she said.
    He put his hand at her neck lightly and then circled his hand around her hair into
     a ponytail. At any given moment, she could never be sure who was in control of their
     relationship.
    “Never?” he said.
    “She’s your mother,” she said. “You’re not worried?”
     “All I ever am is worried about her,” he said sadly. His eyes widened, he made a
     tiny choking sound, and then he was crying. She threw her arms up and around him,
     and the two of them stood there in the cold embracing for a while, two puffy coats
     in the night. Between them hovered a shared thought: that they were in this together.
     And when one of them failed, the other must succeed.
    “Maybe you could talk to her tomorrow?” he said finally. The prickle of his beard
     against her face as he spoke stimulated her.
    “I could,” she said. “I could do it while the kids are at dance class.”
    “There you go,” he said softly.
     
    * * *
    For three weeks, the twins had been taking hip-hop dance lessons in preparation for
     their b’nai mitzvah, and they had made some progress, but Rachelle was worried they
     wouldn’t be ready in time for the party, or worse, that they would embarrass themselves.
     The plan was for them to do a routine after dinner, followed by a video montage of
     the twins through the years. Then a dessert bar would be wheeled out, including a
     make-your-own sundae station and a bubbling chocolate fountain, surrounded by cookies,
     pound cake, and strawberries. Rachelle had seen those fountains before at other bar
     mitzvahs and once at a wedding, and she thought they were more trouble than they were
     worth—what a mess! Chocolate everywhere, but everybody had one at their parties now,
     and she would not disappoint her children, her babies, her miracles.
    They had insisted on the dance lessons as well. They had no shot at singing, which
     some of their peers did for the performance portion of the party. Even Josh and Emily
     recognized that they would be setting themselves up for failure; Josh’s voice was
     in the midst of some serious and dramatic changes, and Emily—brassy, deep-voiced Emily—had
     been rejected from the school chorus three years running. But they were diligent kids,
     and had both played soccer since grade school, and were fit and athletic, and they
     understood what it meant to show up and practice. They had promised to take it seriously.
     They had promised results.
    And she trusted their instructor, Pierre, who had toured nationally and, in one instance,
     internationally, with a