Florence Adler Swims Forever(93)

The lobby was empty. Joseph took a seat close to the door so he would be sure to see Isaac coming. What was his son-in-law doing out at three o’clock in the morning? He knew Esther had had good inten tions when she insisted that Gussie come to stay with them for the summer but now Joseph wondered whether it might have been better to require Isaac to look after his own child. Esther could have watched Gussie during the day, while Isaac was at the office, but if their granddaughter had gone home with her father in the evenings, it was likely Isaac would have spent considerably less time putzing around Atlantic City, doing God knows what.

Isaac arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. When he yanked at the big front door, he let in the smell of the ocean breeze, which whipped across Absecon Island at night. Joseph watched Isaac scan the lobby. He raised a hand, then waited for his son-in-law to cover the distance between them.

“What’s happening?” Isaac said, in lieu of a greeting.

Joseph was not inclined to give him the information he wanted, certainly not yet. “Where were you?”

“I must not have heard the phone ring.”

“Or your mother-in-law pounding on your front door?”

Isaac didn’t even blink. “Right.”

“So, I am to believe that, in the middle of the night, you woke up and thought, ‘I’d better check the front door to see if anyone’s left me a note.’?”

Isaac reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper, which he balled up and tossed onto Joseph’s lap. “Right. Now what’s going on?”

Joseph grabbed up the piece of paper and unfolded it, smoothing it against his knee. Sure enough, it was Esther’s note, short and to the point. In big letters she had written, The hospital tried to call you. Fannie is in labor. Where ARE you?

This behavior of Isaac’s was new, and it made Joseph nervous. Isaac might have always disliked Joseph and Esther but, until now, he had acted deferentially toward them.

“Are you drunk?” Joseph asked quietly.

“Where’s Fannie?”

“In her room but you can’t go up there right now.”

Isaac turned toward the stairs.

“Stop,” said Joseph. “The doctor said no more visitors.”

Isaac ignored him and kept walking in the direction of the stairs. Joseph was out of his chair in a split second, at Isaac’s side before he could fully consider his next move. He grabbed Isaac by the shoulder and yelled “Sit down!” in a voice far larger and louder than he’d ever used with his son-in-law, with anyone for that matter. Joseph watched Isaac wind back his arm, then watched it dawn on him that he was about to clock his father-in-law. “Please, sit down,” Joseph repeated, in a quieter voice than before.

Isaac unclenched his fist and returned it to his side. He looked around, found the nearest chair, and sank into it. Joseph followed, sitting in the chair next to him.

“Their plan is to try to let her get a little rest, and then take her to the labor room in a few hours.”

Isaac nodded vacantly. Did he even care?

“What’s going on, Isaac?” He didn’t smell like alcohol, just sweat.

Isaac didn’t answer.

“Is this about the Florida deal? I’m sorry I didn’t buy in.”

“It’s too late for any of that.”

“Investing or apologizing?”

Isaac let out a short laugh. “The first one. Or maybe both.”

“How much did you lose?”

“About five hundred. Plus everything my father had.”

Joseph turned his head to get a better look at his son-in-law. Was he hearing him correctly? “Does that include the money you took from Adler’s?”

It was Isaac’s turn to look surprised.

“Mrs. Simons figured it out,” said Joseph, “the new Northfield accounts.”

Isaac made no denials, didn’t even bother searching for an excuse.

How could a man who had so much always manage to believe he had so little? It was as if, looking at Isaac, Joseph could see straight through to the end of Fannie’s life. She might live a half century be yond her sister but she was always going to be burdened by a husband who was dissatisfied with his own existence, with hers as well. If Joseph did nothing, Fannie would drown, too, just much more slowly.

He did some quick calculations. Isaac had been repaying the loan for almost five years, which meant that more than a thousand dollars had accumulated in the account Joseph had established at the Boardwalk National Bank. In all the years Isaac had been making the payments, Joseph had never once considered forgiving his son-in-law’s debt. He thought of the money in the account as Fannie’s and imagined returning it to her eventually in the form of an inheritance or something more tangible that he could watch her enjoy. He had contemplated using it to help the couple buy a house or send Gussie to college. The trick, he had always known, would be to find the thing that Isaac’s greed couldn’t spoil, the thing he couldn’t beg, barter, or steal out from under Fannie’s nose. The thing that would most directly improve his daughter’s life. What if that thing was ridding her of Isaac?

“There’s a thousand dollars in the account at the Boardwalk National Bank,” Joseph said.

Isaac shot a glance at Joseph. “You’d let me have that?”