The Two-Family House(65)

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have a full scholarship. I don’t have to pay any tuition. They’re giving me room and board.” Judith closed her eyes, savoring the words. “I have a full scholarship. I’m going to Radcliffe.” She braced herself for her father’s inevitable protest. He would be furious with her. Furious that he had been duped yet again. That she had schemed and withheld information. And this time he would be right. This time she had schemed. This time, she thought, he had every right to be angry.

But he wasn’t. When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her. Staring straight at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. An expression that she recognized only because she had seen it on the faces of other people’s parents. He was proud of her.

“May I?” he asked, pointing to the letter. She handed the pages over to him and held her breath as he read them. When he was done, he handed the pages back to her. “Congratulations,” he said. “English literature?” She nodded, and he went on. “This is a tremendous accomplishment, Judith.”

She was stunned. Claire had been right—her father had surprised her. She wasn’t sure what to say next. But she had to say something. “Did you ask me to have lunch with you today because of the letter?”

He took another sip of coffee. “I found that picture a few days ago. And then yesterday the letter came. I thought we should talk.”

“Where did you find the photograph, anyway?”

“Natalie found it in one of my old books.”

“Natalie?”

Her father sighed. “It’s a math book. Teddy and Natalie found it in the garage last fall. I started teaching them some simple equations. Teddy really enjoyed it. Then after the accident, Natalie wanted to keep studying with me. Abe brings her to the office on Thursdays.”

“Natalie comes to your office every week to study math with you? Really?”

For a moment her father looked like he might cry. “Sometimes we talk about Teddy, about the things he liked—comic books and baseball cards.…”

Judith could not believe what she was hearing. It was too much to take in, too many revelations in one day. She couldn’t put all the pieces together or reconcile the man she had grown up with her whole life with the one sitting across from her in the booth.

“I suppose your mother needs to be told about Radcliffe.” Her father was back to practical matters. “Would you like to tell her, or would you like me to do it?”

“Maybe it’s best if we tell her together.”

“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll do it tonight.”

Judith checked her watch. “I really should go, or I’ll be late for my two-thirty class.” She got up from the booth and adjusted her sweater. “Do you want to walk back with me?”

“You go ahead. I think I’ll stay and have a piece of pie. I used to love the apple pie here.”

Judith stared at him. “You know, I love apple pie too. I used to always look forward to Aunt Helen’s pie on Thanksgiving.”

Judith’s father shook his head. “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s something we have in common then.”





Chapter 48





ROSE


(September 1957)

Rose still couldn’t believe Judith was leaving, but Mort was adamant. “We can’t hold her back,” he said. Rose knew it wasn’t so much the fact that Judith was going away that bothered her. It was the fact that Mort and Judith had decided it together. There was something between them that night, an easy solidarity Rose had never sensed before. She didn’t like it.

“You had no problem holding her back last time!” Rose snapped at him after Judith was out of the room.

“Last time we didn’t know a lot of things that we know now,” he answered.

“So you know things now? What could you possibly know?”

“I know how hard Judith is willing to work for her education. How much it means to her.”

“If you didn’t know those things when she graduated from high school, you were a fool.”

“Then I was a fool, Rose.” Mort held up his hands in defeat. “But five years ago she was a child. This time she’s a grown woman, and she’s determined to go. She has a full scholarship. She doesn’t need our permission or our help.”

“Then why are you so quick to give her both?”

Mort cleared his throat. “Before Teddy died, you told me I didn’t pay enough attention to Judith, that I didn’t encourage her. Do you remember that?”

Rose wouldn’t answer him. “Look, Rose. We both know how bright Judith is. We can’t keep her from this kind of opportunity just because we’d rather have her at home.”

It’s not because I want to keep her home, Rose thought. She walked away from Mort and went upstairs to Teddy’s room.

After Teddy died, Rose hadn’t been able to go into his bedroom. She kept the door closed and pretended not to notice if Mort or one of the girls wandered into it. It was only a few months after the funeral that she was finally able to muster the strength to go inside. She had been surprised by how neat the room was, until she remembered that Teddy had died on a Thursday. On Thursdays she usually made the beds and tidied up the bedrooms. She must have done that the morning before he died.