Posts by Janet Berg

Sylvie Beckman, no longer a dreamer, sat in front of the lighted mirror at her makeup table and examined her premature wrinkles. Her magnified eyes curiously returned her stare. She rubbed her eyelids with a cotton ball until they reddened, removing her eye shadow and mascara. The four walls surrounding her got tighter as she thought of the big house in Holland she had lived in growing up, until she was a teen. She remembered how her slight frame had stiffened as she stood in the middle of her bedroom, covering her ears from the air raid blasting through her shuttered window.

When she was a baby, Sylvie Rosenberg’s mother propped her up in a highchair and fed her with a silver spoon too big for her mouth. The nanny was the only one who managed to get pabulum down the child’s obstinate little throat, cooing at her with a breath that smelled like cooking vanilla.