Florence Adler Swims Forever(88)

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

“I don’t know. Fear, probably.”

What bothered Esther the most, when she really thought about it, was not that Joseph had loved someone else but that he hadn’t trusted her with the information. Had he thought her so fragile? Their relationship so flimsy?

“All this time, you’ve been working with Anna to get Inez and Paul to the U.S, and I’ve been left to wonder why she matters. Instead of sitting around like a dingbat, I would have appreciated being given the chance to rise to the occasion.”

Joseph sat down on Anna’s bed, placed his hands on his knees. It took him several long seconds to find his voice.

“I’ve always regretted the way I treated Inez.”

“You wish you’d married her?”

Joseph looked at her as if she were deranged. “No, I just wish I’d been honest with her.”

“You were.”

“I think I knew, long before I met you, that I wouldn’t marry her. I should have told her sooner.”

“You were young.”

“It’s no excuse.”

“So, this is your penance?” Esther waved her arms at Anna’s dresser, her bed. “Bringing her daughter to the United States?”

“I should have done it a long time ago.”

“Brought her to the U.S.?”

“Both of them. After the war. It would have been easier then.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Esther let out a short laugh that sounded angrier than she’d intended. She was so tired. Had that little blue letter really arrived a year ago? She put the stack of papers back in the drawer and moved her hands to her face, rubbing her eye sockets with the tips of her fingers. Inez could have asked for anything from Joseph, and he would have said yes because he was a decent man. Of that, Esther was sure.

“There’s something else, Esther.”

She watched her husband run his hands up and down the length of his thighs. “What?”

“We got another denial letter from the U.S. consulate.”

“The affidavit is no good?”

“It’s more than that. The consul wants to see hard-and-fast proof that Inez and Paul will be able to support themselves when they arrive in the U.S.”

“If they can’t get their money out of Germany, how can the consul expect them to prove anything?”

“I’ve provided my own bank statements, auditors’ statements, deeds. Have promised to offer my support until Paul can get on his feet. But none of it is enough.”

Esther felt a twinge of pity. For Anna, yes, but also for Inez and Paul.

“So, there’s nothing more to do?”

“Maybe. Now the consul’s suggesting sponsors open U.S.-based bank accounts in the applicants’ names.”

“Which you have not done.”

Joseph didn’t say anything, just looked away.

“You’re telling me you established a bank account in Inez’s name?”

He glanced at her briefly, then down at her feet.

“What did you fund it with?”

He didn’t answer.

“Joseph, what did you fund it with?”

“The money from Florence’s Channel swim, and some more besides.”

Esther felt sick. “How much?”

“Twelve hundred dollars.”

She grabbed the brass footboard of Florence’s bed and steadied herself. “You put twelve hundred dollars in an account in her name?”

Joseph just nodded.

“What happens to the money if they never get out of Germany? Can you get it back?”

“A beneficiary can inherit it upon their death.”

“And the beneficiary—”

Joseph looked her straight in the eyes.

“Anna,” said Esther, softly. It all came back to Anna. Anna might as well have usurped Florence’s life completely.

“It felt like the right thing to do. If they don’t make it out, Anna will have no safety net. Assuming she stays.”

“Safety net? What about Fannie? Is she entitled to a safety net? How about Gussie? Did you think of them at all?”

“I think about them all the time.”

“If you had asked me, I might have suggested that we use the money to pay Isaac’s portion of the hospital bill or forgive that damned loan you made him. Give our daughter a clean slate.”

“You think money is all it’s going to take to give Fannie a clean slate?”

They didn’t speak of it often, their mutual dislike of their son-in-law. What was there to say? That they should have been more vocal, should have demanded more for their elder daughter? That they’d let Isaac’s Jewish faith obscure his other—less desirable—traits?

This, she realized, was what it felt like to grow old. Eventually people felt so weighed down by the yoke of their own bad decisions that they could scarcely move.

“When the renters are out of the house,” Esther started, “I wonder if I shouldn’t move back into it on my own.”

Joseph didn’t say anything, just nodded his head in a motion so repetitive that Esther felt the urge to cross the space between them and grab his face between her hands to steady it.