B.B.

B.B. was a short story written by Chaim Batok. The story was about a child, B.B., whose parents disagree on the issue on having another child after B.B. The mother wished to have a child while the father did not want to bear the responsibility of a new child after their second child, Timmy, died. It was an interesting story.

I can infer that B.B. studied biology the night before Mr. Geissen went absent. This can be seen from the topics which she is studying. She was studying cells and genes. Such topics only appear in biology, thus we could say that B.B. was studying biology. Since Mr. Geissen was the person supposed to give B.B. an exam on the topics she was studying on, Mr. Geissen must be B.B. biology teacher.

B.B. thought that Timmy dry and chapped lips were inherited from Tinny's mother as Timmy's mother lips were also similar in feel. This can be showed when she thought about Timmy's lips when her mother kissed her on the cheeks. B.B. might have thought that it might be her mother's gene that caused Timmy's death as Timmy had the same lips as his mother when he was seriouly ill, although this thought go unspoken among the family.

B.B.'s mother cried in the night when she found out B.B.'s father did not call back the day he went to his trip to New York. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy the next day. She was probably worried about B.B.'s father or realised that her husband had decided to leave her and B.B. This can be seen from the fact that she asked B.B. whether her husband had called back during breakfast with B.B. She even asked B.B. that question when B.B. came to visit her in the hospital, and B.B. found her crying when B.B. went back to the room. Therefore, we can say that B.B.'s mother cried after knowing that her husband did not call back. Her crying was probably about her husband.

When B.B.'s father told B.B. not to tell B.B.'s mother that he had wanted to play professional football after college, B.B. might have thought that keeping secrets was normal, even great. She somehow felt it was good to keep secrets that time, proving that she thought it was normal keep secrets.