Photo by Carlos Aristizabal
My father carried his son in the front pocket of his oversized blue jeans. He called him Moishe and, whenever there was any kind of bickering, discrepancy or challenge among my sisters and I, he’d announce in a charismatic, playful tone, “Let’s ask Moishe what he thinks.”
This statement alone worked wonders. The high-pitched, fraught chatter — well on its way to a full-blown argument, possibly with a side order of hair-pulling — would come to a complete stop. Three pair of bright blue eyes (courtesy of our mother, our father would often brag) skirted towards the front left side of my father’s pants (the right bulged with an overstuffed wallet working steadily with gravity to bring the jeans down).
This is what my father adored: a show. His endlessly long, bushy eyebrows furrowed in feigned seriousness as his hand dug in seeking to pull out the lone, wise son. In a sea of females, my dad’s imaginary male ally had already won.
My father tugged and pulled at the soft cotton meant to house Moishe. There was no movement. No sound. No one.
But my sisters and I relished his performance, watched carefully and with excited anticipation what would come next.
Even though we knew what would come. We always knew. It was the same answer each and every time.
“Moishe is feeling shy today,” Abba, as we called our dad, informed.
Before our faces would do a synchronize dive into frowns, or worse, we’d resume squabbling, Abba would rope us back in with hope.
“Wait! What is that?” he’d ask, twisting his torso to get his ear closer to Moishe’s alleged abode, despite his big belly’s displeasure.
“Ah, yes, I see Moishe. Yes, you are right. Yes. I will tell them now,” he said to our reclusive brother before straightening up and gazing at his young, captive audience with his hazel eyes. “Moishe wants you to stop bickering,” my father would exclaim with authority, then quickly rattle off a solution to the crisis while carefully ensuring each of our points somehow be incorporated in the peacemaking process.
It was brilliant how he accomplished this, how it worked each and every time. We knew there was no brother hidden in our father’s blue jean pocket, but for those moments, when our faces were still flushed from arguing, when we were consumed by the overwhelming sense of injustice and frustration felt by young children, Moishe, together with my father, stepped in to soothe and settle things.
My father never had a son. Moishe and his adoring young daughters were more than enough.
Happy Reading!
Alona Abbady Martinez
alona@bocaratonobserver.com