Wayne Hoffman - The End of Her

Advance Praise for The End of Her

A murder mystery wrapped like a delicious knish around a familial love story. The End of Her is the story of a journalist attempting to solve the long-ago puzzle of who shot his great-grandmother in her bed in small-town Winnipeg in 1913. But the why of it is at the heart of this beautiful book. Wayne Hoffman throws himself into this old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting (a true education for budding journalists) because he wants to give his mother the gift of her history before he loses her completely to dementia. The books portrayal of Alzheimers is horrible and hilarious; Waynes voice is warm, deeply loving, drily funny, and thankfully unsentimental.

Marjorie Ingall, author of Mamaleh Knows Best

This is one of those rare, fine books that gives you two of the dearest gifts in literature: a story so consuming you forget time, and an author with the gift to spin, from these supposedly ordinary lives, a profound chronicle of identity, family, memory, and loveand suspense, too.

Boris Fishman, author of Savage Feast

Wayne Hoffman has produced a fascinating and compelling story of his family history. Meticulously researched and skillfully written, he brilliantly weaves together the mystery of his great-grandmothers murder long ago in Winnipeg, his nearly decade-long search to find the truth about this tragic event, and his joyous and poignant relationship with his ailing mother that inspires him and propels his quest. In particular, his recreation of Winnipegs impoverished immigrant quarter during the first decades of the twentieth century and the various complexities that shaped the lives of his great-grandparents and relatives is an absorbing tale rich with detail and vivid personalities.

Allan Levine, Winnipeg historian and author of Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience

Other Books by Wayne Hoffman

Hard: A Novel

Sweet Like Sugar

An Older Man

Copyright 2022 Wayne Hoffman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage or retrieval system now known or hereafter inventedexcept by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaperwithout permission in writing from the publisher.

Heliotrope Books LLC

ISBN 978-1-942762-91-1

Cover design by Alexandre Venancio

Typeset by Naomi Rosenblatt

For my mother

and her mother

and her mother

Contents

Prologue : The Favorite

I was always my mothers favorite.

When we were growing up in suburban Maryland, my brother and sister used to complain any time they felt that I, the baby of the family, was getting special treatment. My mother would only feebly deny it; I was her zisa boy, as she called me in Yiddishher sweet boy. And I embraced my role: Of course Im her favorite, Id boast, because Im the best.

My ranking solidified further after my siblings left for college. My mother and I never fought, rarely even had a cross moment, during what are usually a teenagers difficult years. Shed spent so long stressing about my brother and sister, shed joke, that by the time she got to me, she had given up and become a more mellow parent. True enough, Id thinkbut then again, Id never done anything to cause her stress.

That changed during my senior year of high school in 1987.

During my last semester, I missed my curfew for the first and last time, and she was furious. I had a good explanation: I was taking my first, tentative, awkward steps into a season of sexual experimentation with Heather, one of my best friends. But I didnt dare tell my mother. I apologized for being late, but didnt explain why. I suspect thatmissed curfew asideshe was mad because she knew I was hiding something.

I was hiding more than she guessed.

I had started coming out to my friends the previous year, one by one, and as my senior year started to wind down, I came out to the rest of themincluding Heather. But I kept being gay a secret from my parents. That spring, I withdrew every evening into my bedroom, where I could make long phone calls to my friends and talk in private about what I was going through.

As a graduation present to myself, I placed a personal ad in an alternative weekly newspaper, and met a guy named Larry, an undergrad from Louisianablond, Catholic, with a soft New Orleans accentwho was spending the summer working in Washington. I had my first date with him, and my first kissonce he showed me how to do it properly. Larry was the first person I told, I love you. While I didnt tell my parents any of the intimate details, I didnt hide him completely. I told them I was spending time with someone named Larry, but said that he was a friend from the Jewish Community Center, where I was working at a day camp for the summer.

Of course, I couldnt tell them when I had sex for the first time, with Larry, a couple of weeks later. When I subsequently had a full-blown panic attack about AIDSthis was 1987, a scary time for a gay man to be having sex for the first timeand took Larry to a clinic to be tested for HIV, we had to wait a full two weeks for his results.

During those two weeks, I started to feel the weight of everything Id been through in the span of a few months. Id changed my appearance: I had a nose job over spring break, got rid of my glasses, and started growing out my (surprisingly curly) hair. Id graduated high school, learned to drive, come out to my friends, met my first boyfriend, fallen in love, and had sex for the first time. The coming months would bring more turmoil, as I got ready to move hundreds of miles away for college, leaving my friends behind. And now, while I waited for Larrys test results, I was forced to face the grim reality I thought awaited me as a gay man, based on what I had read about AIDS in the newspapers and seen on television: that Id probably die long before I reached thirty.

Of course, I couldnt explain to my parents why I was so anxious and edgy as I awaited the results of Larrys HIV test, but I was acting strangely; my mother surmised it had something to do with my new friend. I dont want you seeing this Larry character anymore, she said. We havent even met him. I protested, something Id rarely done, and told her Id see anyone I wanted to see. My mother started to cry.

Stop upsetting your mother, my father interjected. At which point, I said three words to my father I wish I could take back more than any three Ive ever uttered: Go fuck yourself.

This was not the behavior my mother had come to expect from her favorite child.

The rest of that night involved a lot of screaming and crying and slamming doors. Still, what followed was worse: weeks of awkward silences and cold stares. My mother didnt know what was turning her normally upbeat and compliant zisa boy into this angry adolescent, and I wasnt ready to tell her the truth. I was too busy worrying about my own future and my healtheven after Larry tested negativeto think about her. But my mother was clearly alarmed by me. Once, she was so rattled that she forgot where she parked the car at the mall and had to call a friend to pick her up. She waited outside on a bench in tears.