A Castle in Brooklyn(77)

Florrie cleared her throat.

“My dear, he was here. But not for the reason you think. Oh, dear God, do you mean to say he lost his life on his way home?”

Deborah ignored her question.

“What are you saying? Wasn’t he on his way back to tell my mother that he was leaving? That he planned on leaving her and leaving me?” Her voice rose with each word.

Florrie looked at the girl directly. She was so young.

“No, he wasn’t leaving you at all. He was leaving Esther for the last time. I should know. I was sitting next to her on this very couch when he arrived because, you see, we were always together, the two of us. And when Zalman, your father, arrived unannounced, walking in without a word in that jaunty way, cap still tilted on his head, well, it was as if the years hadn’t passed at all, and we were on our way to another ball game! We were shocked by his arrival, of course, and it was quite a while before any of us said a word. And then, well, we talked, the three of us barely able to catch our breaths. Mostly about the memories and the places we would go, the meals we had, the walks. And even about Gary. We could share our memories without the tears now, for the pain had been so long ago. Oh, Zalman loved that child like his own!

“And then we talked about our lives since, and how much of it was sad with so much loss. But much of it, especially for your father, was happy too. And he told us all about his life then, of his wife, the girl he had met on the farm, and mostly of his young daughter. What was her name?”

“Debbie,” interrupted the girl.

Florrie smiled, her eyes crinkling. “I’m sorry. I’m getting old, I guess. Of course, Debbie. He cared only for you, you and your mother, the woman from the farm who had brought such joy, such calmness, such a sense of home to his life, he said. You two were his world, and he didn’t have to share you with anyone! I think that’s why he came here, to see Esther and recapture those memories one last time before going home to the woman, the child, he truly loved.”

Deborah leaned forward, her eyes glistening.

“Do you mean he wasn’t going to leave us?”

Florrie shook her head.

“Maybe once that would have been true. It was you and your mother he loved.” She hesitated.

“And one other. Of course, he had always loved Jacob. That’s why he wanted to build this house; both he and Jacob wanted it.”

The room grew silent as the two remained locked in their thoughts, and then the girl brightened as she remembered something. She walked over to her large black bag, which lay slumped on the floor at the entrance, where she had first placed it. And, bringing it to the couch, she removed a giant-size document. As she began unraveling the paper, Florrie recognized it as a blueprint, a blueprint for the house. The friends had consulted it each day during the building process; it was something both the girl’s father and Jacob had shown everyone proudly after the couple first moved in. Drawn in Zalman’s own hand.

“Isn’t it spectacular? He brought it with him when he came back to the farm, before he married my mother. I think he was so proud that he had drawn it and that he could do this for the man who saved his life. He used to call it King Solomon’s castle—that’s how he referred to Jacob, like wise King Solomon, a builder of castles. That’s how I knew of the home. Even my boys, though they are only seven and three, love to hear that story.”

Florrie stood, removed the vase with the one purple orchid from the surface of the coffee table, and, taking the blueprint from Deborah, flattened the paper across the glass as they both crouched close. Their examination of the document was almost childlike in its delight, each pointing out the width of a bedroom window, the slope of the roof, the depth of the closet in the hall, even each wide board of the front porch. All was considered, one reliving the home’s past, the other imagining its future.

After about twenty minutes, Florrie began to feel her knees lock and, bracing herself against the table, slowly got up as Deborah returned the blueprint to her bag. There was no need to offer a tour of the home, Florrie reasoned to herself, since the young woman already knew each nook and cranny without ever having lived there. Florrie understood, too, why owning a home, this home for her family, meant so much to her. So instead she offered her a glass (there were still a few in the cabinet) of cool water from the tap, and suggested they go outdoors. After all, it was a lovely spring day, almost a perfect day.

They stepped onto the front porch and stood next to each other, each quietly admiring the house. It stood now, its siding repainted three times, more of a sage green, with complementary peacock-blue shutters, the wooden porch with two Adirondack chairs, double-sealed windows, white roof, brick chimney. No moat or stately balconies, but a home, a little weatherworn, with the slightest scent of burning ashes still within its walls. It was a castle.



A full sun was emerging from between the clouds as each took a wicker seat in the backyard, placing their glasses on the small wooden table on the deck. They each sat back, instinctively tilting their chins toward the sky, which glimmered a peaceful blue. The grass, in a multitude of greens, stretched serenely before them, faded finally in a circle of grown trees that stood stalwartly in the distance. In the back stood the colossal, tired oak, but close by in the forefront was the apple tree, which in spite of the turbulent unfolding of the years, remained stoically rooted, its thick branches curving upward, which in a few months would bear the same tiny yellow apples on each twig. Like the house itself, a promise.