Read Online Dream House by Rochelle Krich - Free Book Online

over the back of his chair. My brothers did the same.
    “You and the boys should take coats, Steven,” she called as they hurried out of the room, her smile a half reproach. She removed the cream-colored lace mantilla from her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair and folded it.
    “Where are they going?” Bubbie G asked, searching my face with her once-bright blue eyes.
    “To see where the fire is.”
    Bubbie harrumphed.
“Nahrishkeit.”
Silliness.
    She pushed herself out of her chair and, using her cane, walked toward the family room. My nineteen-year-old sister, Liora, followed at a discreet distance to make sure she was all right. Bubbie doesn't like us to hover.
    My dad is fifty-six, but when it comes to sirens and fire engines in particular, he's as much of a kid as my brothers. So is my ex, Ron. I guess it's a guy thing. Norm, Mindy's husband, would probably be there. Zack's parents live on Poinsettia near Oakwood, seven blocks away from my parents. Maybe he'd heard the sirens, too, and followed them. I suppose that's why they call them sirens.
    Taking a napkin, I brushed challa crumbs off the white tablecloth into my cupped palm.
    “He's cute, isn't he?” my mom said, stacking plates.
    “Zack?”
    “Your dad. Zack, too.” A smile deepened the fine lines around her brown eyes. Even with the lines, she looks younger than her fifty-five years.
    I blushed. “Very cute. You picked a good one.”
    “I think so. Is Zack coming later?”
    “He didn't say.”
    Zack usually walks over Friday nights when I stay at my parents' home on Gardner (my Blackburn apartment is about a mile and a half away). We'd talked yesterday for over an hour. This morning he'd called to congratulate me on my story but had to hang up to prepare his Sabbath
drash
—his sermon. Fridays are
his
deadlines. Maybe making plans about walking over tonight had slipped his mind.
    “Could be he's tired, Molly. I wouldn't read into it.”
    “I'm not,” I lied.
    After clearing the table, I went into the family room. Bubbie G was sitting next to Liora, her thinning, short silvery hair a sharp contrast to Liora's thick, glossy dark brown mane; their ankle-length, A-line navy velour zip-up Sabbath robes striking against the tan leather of the sectional sofa. My mom and I were in robes, too. (My mom's was a sable brown; mine was black velour, part of my trousseau, but I didn't hold that against it.) It's always been our Friday night garb, and if you peek into Orthodox homes across the country, you'll probably find a number of women and girls similarly clothed, some of them in robes so elegant you could wear them to a banquet.
    Bubbie was listening raptly as Liora read aloud the week's Torah portion and commentary. Even large-print editions don't compensate for her failing vision. I sat at the end of the sofa's
L
and was engrossed in the local Jewish newspaper when the men returned.
    “It's a small one,” my brother Joey said, taking off his jacket and tossing it onto the couch. “Two trucks.”
    “Don't leave that there,” my mother chided gently. She's been asking Joey not to leave his clothes around for most of his twenty-two years. I would've given up by now. She turned to my dad. “Was anyone hurt, Steven?”
    He shook his head. “Norm said the place has been vacant for months.”
    “Thank God,” my mom said.
    “Baruch Hashem,”
Liora echoed. She's the most pious in the family, and since her return in May from a post-high-school year at a Jerusalem girls' seminary, she's been sprinkling more of her conversation with Hebrew phrases.
    “I talked to some of the firemen,” Noah said. “They wouldn't say, but I think it was arson.”
    I put down the newspaper. “What makes you think that?” I asked, my tone sharper than I'd intended.
    “The living room window was shattered. And I heard a fireman say something about lighter fluid.” Noah is a third-year law student at UCLA and shares my interest in crime, though our reasons are