My Mother's Sadness Summary

Alma Singer is named after every girl in The History of Love. Her brother, Emanuel Chaim, refuses to answer to his name. Once he tries to fly, and thereafter is known as Bird. Bird is obsessed with Judaism, wearing a kippah, writing the Hebrew letters of God's name everywhere, and following Mr. Goldstein, the janitor at Hebrew School. Alma's father David met Alma's mother, Charlotte, on an Israeli kibbutz. When the couple returned to Israel from a honeymoon in South America, Charlotte began translating books from Spanish and Hebrew into English. David was offered a job in America. They relocated to New York, where Alma and Bird were born. When Alma was 6, David was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within nine months. For a while, Charlotte kept everything as David had left it, then cleared out all signs...