Florence Adler Swims Forever(26)

When she handed the bundle over to Isaac, he was surprised at how heavy and warm it felt in his arms.

“He’s hot?” he asked, alarmed.

“That’s just the hot-water bottle,” she explained. “We’re trying to keep his temperature up.”

He lifted a corner of the blanket to reveal the red, wizened face of a tiny, old man—all forehead, no hair, eyes closed tight. His head couldn’t have been bigger than a billiard ball. Indeed, he was resting against a hot-water bottle, which had been wrapped in a towel.

The child was horrifying to look at, and somehow also vaguely beautiful. It was impossible, studying him, to pick out Fannie’s sharp brown eyes or Isaac’s hairline but it must have been the promise of those features, and others like them, eventually developing, that helped him see past his son’s strangeness.

“I convinced Fannie to ride the Dodgem cars yesterday. At Steeplechase Pier,” Isaac said as he stared down at his fragile son. He could feel his breath beginning to catch in his throat. A tear rolled down his cheek and landed on the baby’s forehead. He wiped it away with his thumb, which seemed huge when held up against his son’s miniature features. “Is this my fault?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not familiar with them,” said Dr. Rosenthal.

“You just bump into each other. I hit her once, maybe twice. Hard, I think. I mean, not really. It’s just an amusement.” He knew he was talking too much and tried to make himself stop. “She was laughing.”

“I wish we knew but sometimes these things aren’t so easy to pinpoint,” said the doctor in the same tepid tone in which he’d said everything else.

The nurse was kinder. “It’s possible she had high blood pressure, or some other condition. Sometimes these things just happen.”

It was hard for Isaac to comprehend that this child, who had to weigh less than two pounds, was the same baby Fannie had dreamed of for so many years. Why hadn’t Isaac given him to her sooner?

Isaac’s eyes settled on a card, which had been tucked into the baby’s bassinet. It read, Feldman, Baby Boy.

“We’re naming him Hyram,” Isaac said.

The doctor gave the nurse a look, and she retrieved the card from the bassinet. She pulled a pen from her pocket and scratched through the words Baby Boy. Above the strike-through, she wrote HYRAM in big, block letters. Isaac liked the way the name looked when it was all spelled out.

“May I see Fannie?” Isaac asked.

“She needs to rest,” the doctor warned. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

Isaac knew what he wanted to say but it was hard to get the words out. “I think she might want to see him, before he—”

“That’s not advisable.”

“No?”

The doctor shook his head.

Sometimes Isaac wondered whether things would have been different if Hyram had in fact died that night, as the doctor warned he would. If Fannie had never seen him or held him or begun to hope that he might live. Surely, they both would have had an easier time coping with the loss, might have avoided retreating to the furthest corners of their marriage.

No, Isaac wasn’t keen to spend the weekend at either the hospital or his in-laws’ apartment. He placed the letter in the top drawer of his desk, and was about to push the drawer shut when Joseph knocked on the frame of his door, leaning against it for support.

“I’m going to head home a little early today,” he said to Isaac.

“I was wondering if I might borrow your car on Saturday,” Isaac asked.

Joseph looked confused. It was Shabbos, and he had no doubt assumed Isaac would spend Saturday at the apartment, squeezing a week’s worth of mourning into a single day.

“My father took a fall.”

“Oh—I’m sorry, Isaac.”

“He’ll be fine. But I thought I’d take Gussie to see him. Maybe stay in Alliance overnight.”

Joseph didn’t say anything. Isaac sensed that his daughter was acting as a salve in the apartment, and that at least for Esther, Gussie’s presence—and the care she required—was providing a welcome distraction from grief.

“We’ll be back early on Sunday. With enough time to end Shiva.”

Joseph nodded his head slowly. “I’m sure it will be good for Gussie to get out of the house.”



* * *



Isaac and Gussie could have taken the train from Atlantic City to Norma and walked the half mile between the railway station and Alliance. But arriving by car was much more fun.

Joseph’s Oakland was a practical automobile, not at all flashy but also not without pep. Isaac followed Atlantic Avenue out of the city until, at Mays Landing, it became Highway 40 and he could pick up speed. He glanced over at Gussie to gauge her reaction. With the windows down, his daughter’s hair whipped wildly across her face. Occasionally, she peeled a strand out of her mouth and tucked it behind her ear. He should have thought to tell her to bring a scarf. No matter. She seemed happy.

When he had arrived at Joseph and Esther’s apartment at half-past nine that morning, Gussie had met him at the front door.

“She’s been watching for you since a quarter past eight,” Esther had told him, and Isaac wondered if she meant to insinuate that he was late, or that his daughter didn’t see enough of him. Gussie wore a yellow-and-white gingham dress, which looked freshly pressed, and carried a rucksack and a bag from the bakery.