My mother sat with me at the kitchen table thumbing through a stack of mimeographed pages and a fat textbook titled Constitutional Law. Everyone at home seemed to accept that my days at Columbia were over, and I had yet to announce my decision. In the meantime, my mother accepted my stubbornness to continue with my coursework.
“You’ll have to be patient with me, Sandy,” she said. “I really want to do this right for you.”
“Take your time,” I told her. “This material is as hard for me as it is for you.”
“For a girl who didn’t finish high school,” she replied, “this is quite a challenge. I remember studying the Constitution in school. It always had a special meaning for me. Your grandparents could not imagine it—they had all they could do to survive.” She began to cry and could not continue reading. There was complete silence in the house—my father was at work and my siblings were in school. I heard only the crickets and an occasional car passing by.
“Marbury v. Madison …” she began.
Not that old chestnut again. I interrupted her: “Can’t we pick another case?”
“Will you excuse me? I have a headache. I need to lie down for a few minutes. Then we can start again.”
Her gentle hands closed the book and the folder, and she left the room. I remained in the same kitchen chair on which I always sat during the dinners that had so often been filled with talk and laughter. As I lowered my head onto the table, I could not help but think that, until I returned to college, she would have to juggle her love and responsibilities for my father and my siblings with the need to read to her blind son for hours each day. It was an appalling agenda, but as she had done in the past, she was prepared to sacrifice her very existence to help her family. Constitutional law cases—arcane theory and Latin legal terms—and concepts of physics are heavy going for almost anyone. For my mother, it meant reading dense, unfamiliar material for hours on end; for me, it meant comprehending and sorting out words and phrases that seemed to float in the effluvium of my mind. They were equally exhausting tasks.
Sue, facing her own college finals, had also been reading to me during those long days and evenings after my return to Buffalo. She knew about my decision to go back to Columbia, and her support gave me courage. But I needed my family to get behind this as well. The courage to tell them would have to come from me.
It all came down to one inevitable, dramatic moment at the dinner table. The scene lives in my memory with exceptional clarity. I quietly informed my family that I had decided to make a full return to the university. There was a mind-shattering silence. I heard Carl’s fork fall to his plate. Joel, Ruth, and Brenda stirred nervously in their chairs.
“You can’t go back,” my mother snapped.
“Duvid [David, my middle name, in Yiddish],” Carl began as he pushed back his chair, its legs screeching on the floor. “No, no, no. You must stay here. I will not allow it. You will not go back. You’re blind, you’re blind.”
“Carl, stop it,” my mother interjected. The more I remained calm, the more upset she became. But she knew that rationality would have to prevail if she wanted to prevent my return. She needed reasons. Anger was palpable in her voice as she said, “Sandy, it will be impossible for you to go back. Do you understand what it will mean?” She paused, then continued, “Why don’t you stay here in Buffalo? You could teach, you could get a good job, you could go to work for your father—he could train you.”
I slowly lifted the mashed potatoes to my mouth and chewed them automatically, quivering silently, toes tapping the floor as I waited for the next volley from my father, who was now standing at the head of the table. Afraid of what might happen, I suddenly felt that I had to fill the air with words. But first I tried to deflect the tension by turning toward my siblings, hoping to obtain their sympathy and support.
“I must go back, don’t you see? If I don’t graduate with my class, I’ll be set back for the rest of my life. I will never recover. And I can’t stay in Buffalo. There’s no future for me here.” They wisely remained mute.
In the context of the moment, that last statement was a bad lapse of judgment, but not nearly as bad as what I then inexplicably shouted as I jumped up: “Look at what your God did to me!” I pounded the table with my fist, shattering a plate, and ran toward my bedroom. Carl managed to grab my arm, almost ripping it from my shoulder as he dragged me into the adjacent room. My mother followed.
Having removed me from the presence of the other children, he bent my arm behind my back and flung me onto a sofa. Pouncing upon me, he unwittingly pushed my face into the coarse fabric. My mother, shocked, did not speak. Although I was strong, I was so startled by Carl’s swiftness that for a moment I did not resist. But the pain grew in my arm, neck, and head, and I started to struggle. As I began to suffocate, my head buried into the sofa, Carl screamed, “You will not go! You will not go! You will not go!”
My mother pleaded. “Sanford, you can’t go back alone. You can’t cross the streets of New York. You’ll get killed.”
Despite my own strength, I could not escape. Then I felt Carl’s ambivalence as he released
