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Authors: Stephen Solomita
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to her ankles. Her gloved hands were curled into black crescents as she knelt, then ran a finger along the Hebrew letters that spelled out my parents’ names.
“My father loved my mother,” I told Julie after a brief silence. “He pursued her relentlessly. I think he wanted to fill the empty spaces in her heart, but, of course …Anyway, in David’s life there was Magda and there was work. And not the store, either. He didn’t give a damn about the store. For the generation that came of age in the Depression, work was sacred, an obligation, a rite. And my father was good at it, Julie. He survived the Depression, survived the post-war exodus of Lower East Side Jews. He survived long enough to die in his store, at age fifty-three, as he was marking down a rack of sport jackets.”
Julie rose to her feet. “What’s the point?” she asked.
“The point is that it’s time to go to work.” I took Julie’s arm and began to walk back toward the car. It wasn’t really cold, but the air was damp enough to produce a semicircle of drops on the edge of her hood. We passed a group of Hasidic men as we came out onto Main Street. They strode by us, their manner purposeful and certain, their beards seeming to float in the light breeze.
“Your mother outlasted him,” Julie observed as he got into the car. “He wanted to protect her, but she outlived him by fifteen years.”
“I said he wanted to fill her heart. I didn’t say that he succeeded.” I slid behind the wheel, started the car. “The truth is that she froze him out. He tried, but she froze him out. After that, the store was the only thing he had left.”
Julie leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re forgetting somebody,” she told me, “and you know it.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I know it.” The somebody, of course, was the boy who’d worked summers and weekends in the store. The somebody was David Kaplan’s son. The somebody was me.
“Home sweet home,” Julie said as I pulled to the curb in front of a two-story frame house on the south side of the road and shut down the ignition.
“Does have that look to it,” I admitted. Though it was the middle of winter, it was easy to imagine Thelma’s small yard in bloom. Azaleas and rhododendrons ran along the front of the house, skipping over a red brick stoop. The azaleas, low-growing and well-trimmed, were set beneath the windows, while the taller rhododendrons stood with their backs to the white vinyl siding that covered the house. A trellis, interlaced with the green, fingerlike stems of a climbing rose, framed the walkway between the sidewalk and the front door.
Inside, in the living room where Thelma led us, it was much the same. The furniture was strictly department store, Macy’s by way of A&S; it looked to have been purchased in the fifties and as carefully maintained as the family heirlooms of a tenth-generation WASP.
“I baked cookies.” A wide smile elevated the two deep lines that ran from the top of Thelma’s nose to the corners of her mouth, revealing what had once been a pair of fetching dimples. “Butter cookies. They’re still warm.”
She set a tray on the table and began to pour coffee into gold-rimmed cups. “Help yourself.”
After a sip at the coffee, I dutifully bit into one of the cookies. It tasted like a dog biscuit.
“Of course, I don’t use sugar,” Thelma said. “Not with my diabetes. And I don’t believe in those chemical sweeteners, either.” She was wearing a cashmere sweater over a wool skirt, the outfit considerably more valuable than the raggedy coat she’d worn to my office.
I swallowed manfully and nodded my head in agreement. “The cookies are … unique.”
Julie dipped the one she held into the coffee, the act carrying a certain desperate quality that had me smiling as I set down my cup.
“Thelma, I want you to tell us what Priscilla’s life was like before she met Byron. And I don’t want you to exaggerate.” I crossed my
“My father loved my mother,” I told Julie after a brief silence. “He pursued her relentlessly. I think he wanted to fill the empty spaces in her heart, but, of course …Anyway, in David’s life there was Magda and there was work. And not the store, either. He didn’t give a damn about the store. For the generation that came of age in the Depression, work was sacred, an obligation, a rite. And my father was good at it, Julie. He survived the Depression, survived the post-war exodus of Lower East Side Jews. He survived long enough to die in his store, at age fifty-three, as he was marking down a rack of sport jackets.”
Julie rose to her feet. “What’s the point?” she asked.
“The point is that it’s time to go to work.” I took Julie’s arm and began to walk back toward the car. It wasn’t really cold, but the air was damp enough to produce a semicircle of drops on the edge of her hood. We passed a group of Hasidic men as we came out onto Main Street. They strode by us, their manner purposeful and certain, their beards seeming to float in the light breeze.
“Your mother outlasted him,” Julie observed as he got into the car. “He wanted to protect her, but she outlived him by fifteen years.”
“I said he wanted to fill her heart. I didn’t say that he succeeded.” I slid behind the wheel, started the car. “The truth is that she froze him out. He tried, but she froze him out. After that, the store was the only thing he had left.”
Julie leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re forgetting somebody,” she told me, “and you know it.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I know it.” The somebody, of course, was the boy who’d worked summers and weekends in the store. The somebody was David Kaplan’s son. The somebody was me.
“Home sweet home,” Julie said as I pulled to the curb in front of a two-story frame house on the south side of the road and shut down the ignition.
“Does have that look to it,” I admitted. Though it was the middle of winter, it was easy to imagine Thelma’s small yard in bloom. Azaleas and rhododendrons ran along the front of the house, skipping over a red brick stoop. The azaleas, low-growing and well-trimmed, were set beneath the windows, while the taller rhododendrons stood with their backs to the white vinyl siding that covered the house. A trellis, interlaced with the green, fingerlike stems of a climbing rose, framed the walkway between the sidewalk and the front door.
Inside, in the living room where Thelma led us, it was much the same. The furniture was strictly department store, Macy’s by way of A&S; it looked to have been purchased in the fifties and as carefully maintained as the family heirlooms of a tenth-generation WASP.
“I baked cookies.” A wide smile elevated the two deep lines that ran from the top of Thelma’s nose to the corners of her mouth, revealing what had once been a pair of fetching dimples. “Butter cookies. They’re still warm.”
She set a tray on the table and began to pour coffee into gold-rimmed cups. “Help yourself.”
After a sip at the coffee, I dutifully bit into one of the cookies. It tasted like a dog biscuit.
“Of course, I don’t use sugar,” Thelma said. “Not with my diabetes. And I don’t believe in those chemical sweeteners, either.” She was wearing a cashmere sweater over a wool skirt, the outfit considerably more valuable than the raggedy coat she’d worn to my office.
I swallowed manfully and nodded my head in agreement. “The cookies are … unique.”
Julie dipped the one she held into the coffee, the act carrying a certain desperate quality that had me smiling as I set down my cup.
“Thelma, I want you to tell us what Priscilla’s life was like before she met Byron. And I don’t want you to exaggerate.” I crossed my
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