The Two-Family House(81)
“Not too humid?”
“Not when you’re on the beach! And the food—I bet you’ll have stone crab claws.”
“Are they good?”
“Delicious. One of the girls on my hall is from Florida and all she talks about are the stone crab claws. Plus you get to stay in Faye’s house. I bet it’s fancy as anything. Remember her apartment in New York?”
“Of course!” Dinah was finally smiling, and Judith wished she hadn’t waited so long to make that kind of effort with her sister.
*
They were sitting at the kitchen table when Rose returned from the grocery store.
“Is it all right if I borrow the car for an hour?” Dinah wanted to know. “I need to pick up a few things at the drugstore. Want to come, Judith?”
“You go without me. I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Sure.” Dinah took the keys from Rose and headed out of the kitchen with her purse. A few minutes later Judith heard the click of the front door lock. She was alone with her mother.
Rose busied herself unpacking the groceries. She sprinkled a chicken with salt and garlic powder and put the roasting pan in the center of the oven. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Judith told her.
“It’ll have to wait. I have too much to do before I leave tomorrow. I have laundry and phone calls to take care of, and I’m just starting dinner.” Rose slammed the oven door shut.
“Then I’ll talk while you cook.” Judith’s tone was desperate, but Rose chose not to notice. She slid a pile of chopped broccoli into a casserole dish and poured a can of cream of mushroom soup over the top, all without looking up. “Fine.”
There was no easy way to introduce the topic, no smooth transition Judith could employ. “I have to ask you a question, but I don’t know how.…”
“You don’t know how to ask me a question?”
“I don’t have … the right words.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been studying for all these years? Words?” Rose was exasperated. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. I have to start a load of laundry.”
Judith stopped her before she could leave the kitchen. “I heard you arguing with Aunt Helen,” she blurted out. “The night of the wedding.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Helen and I didn’t argue at the wedding.”
“It was before Uncle Abe’s heart attack. I was in the bathroom by the coatroom and I heard you yelling about a deal you made, thirteen years ago, you said. After that, I couldn’t hear anything else and I went back to the party.”
Judith waited for her mother to speak, but Rose didn’t say anything. She took a seat at the kitchen table and smoothed her skirt on her lap.
Judith kept talking. “I don’t expect you to explain everything to me. It was a long time ago, I know that. But I think you were talking about the night Teddy was born. The night Teddy and Natalie both were born.” Rose still didn’t speak, so Judith continued, “You were never the same after that night.”
“I was never the same? Nothing was ever the same!”
“Please don’t get angry with me,” Judith whispered. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I just want to ask a question. One question, that’s all. And I won’t bother you about it ever again.”
Rose crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “Go ahead.”
The air was thick with dinner smells and it was hard for Judith to breathe. There was nothing to do but to come out and say it. “I think you and Aunt Helen … that night. I think…”
“For heaven’s sake, just say it!”
“Is Natalie my sister?”
There was nothing exceptional about the moment that followed. Rose didn’t even seem surprised by the question. There were no tears, no shouts, no confessions. There was no hesitation before her mother spoke, and no excuses after. Judith knew the answer before the sound was fully formed. The only thing that surprised her was the flood of oxygen that filled her lungs the moment the word was spoken out loud. “Yes.”
Chapter 63
ABE
Abe was glad he was being discharged on a Sunday. After two weeks of hospital food, he couldn’t wait to get home and have one of Helen’s Sunday night pot roast dinners. She always made mushroom gravy to go with the roast, and those little homemade rolls he loved.
He had never been so happy to sit on the couch and watch the baseball game with his family. Helen didn’t follow baseball, but that first day home she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. She wasn’t watching the game as much as watching him, like she wanted to check his pulse. With all her staring Abe couldn’t concentrate on the game, so, sweet as could be, he told her maybe she should find something else to do. After that she made Natalie and George check on him and report back to her in the kitchen every fifteen minutes.
Sol, Arlene and Johnny were coming over to celebrate his first night home. Helen had invited Mort and Judith as well. Luckily, Rose was still in Florida.
“I told Mort to come over for dinner any night he likes while Rose is away,” Helen told him.