Florence Adler Swims Forever(95)

Dear God. His wife was going to undo all the progress he had just made. Joseph reached for Isaac’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Tomorrow?”

Isaac looked very far away. He blinked hard, twice. “Hmm?”

“Tomorrow. We said ten.”

“What’s happening at ten?” said Esther.

Joseph didn’t answer her, just looked at Isaac with a steady gaze.

“I’ll come by the apartment at ten,” said Isaac. “I’d like to see Gussie.”

The mention of his granddaughter’s name made Joseph’s legs go numb.

“There’s a good chance we’ll be back over here,” said Esther.

Joseph studied his son-in-law’s face, trying to discern his intentions. Had he underestimated Isaac? There was only one way to know. “I’ll wait.”





Isaac


Isaac was surprised to find that, even after eight years of marriage, he could still fit everything he owned in one suitcase. In the breaking light of the early morning, he had packed his clothes and his good pair of shoes, his pomade and his shaving brush. Now he walked from one room of the apartment to another, examining the contents of cupboards, closets, and drawers, looking for items that were his and his alone.

In a chest in the bedroom, he found the tallis he’d worn to services when he was growing up, the tzitzis at each of the four corners tied by his mother’s hand. He packed it away in his suitcase. In a drawer in the kitchen, he found the old can opener that he’d bought at a five-and-dime in Florida. Technically, it was his and not theirs. He picked it up, felt the heft of it in his palm, and placed it back in the drawer. What if Fannie needed to open a can of dried milk or processed peas for the baby and couldn’t find it?

In the dining room, Isaac removed an old shoe box from the sideboard. In it, he and Fannie had stored important papers, photographs, letters that one or both of them wanted to keep. He took out his birth certificate and set it aside, then considered a recent bank statement. There was no point in bothering with it; nothing was in the account anyway. Near the bottom of the box, there was a small stack of letters that his father had sent him during the years he lived in West Palm Beach. One of them, written out of anger shortly after Isaac left Alliance, told him not to bother coming home. Another delivered the news that his mother had died. Isaac couldn’t bear to think of his father now, so he left the letters as they were—sandwiched between Gussie’s immunization card and a bill of sale for the Monitor Top refrigerator. Once he was settled, he’d write to his father, enclose a check to cover what was missing from the Campfire Marshmallows can. It would be a relief to square up with the old man, even if the accompanying letter was hard to compose.

At the very bottom of the box was a portrait of Fannie, Gussie, and Isaac. Fannie had had it taken at Perskie’s when Gussie was two or three years old. The child had been tired and refused to sit still, and the image had suffered as a result. Fannie looked miserable, and Gussie was a blur, her likeness closer to that of an aura than a little girl. The photographer had offered to retake the photograph, and so this failed version had been relegated to the shoe box—too dear to be thrown out but too imperfect to be framed. Isaac held the photograph close to his face and studied his own expression, which was not as dour as Fannie’s but every bit as distant. He tried to remember the particulars of that day. Had they eaten breakfast together? Gone for a long walk? Had he been happy? He moved to put the photograph back in the box but decided to keep it aside instead.

There was one document Isaac knew he wouldn’t find in the shoe box. He tried to remember what he’d done with it. He had carried it in his jacket pocket for several weeks this summer but, at some point, he had surely put it away. In a box? A drawer? Where? He could picture the envelope, its corners tattered, his wife’s handwriting scrawled across the front. He walked back to the bedroom, checked the pockets of his suit coat, and came up with nothing. It was possible that he had left it at the office. He looked out the bedroom window, which faced Atlantic Avenue. A paper boy whizzed by on his bicycle. Two blocks east, the sun was rising over the Atlantic. Isaac checked his watch. He had three hours before he was due to meet Joseph. There was still time.



* * *



Joseph seemed very relieved to find Isaac at his front door at a few minutes after ten. If Joseph had gotten any sleep the night before, Isaac couldn’t tell. But then again, Isaac hadn’t slept at all.

“Come in.”

“Where’s Gussie?”

“In her room,” said Joseph, taking a step backward to allow Isaac to maneuver past him and down the narrow hallway.

Isaac began to make his way toward the sun porch and could hear Joseph following a few steps behind. “Where’s Esther?”

“She went back over to the hospital.”

“Any word?”

“No, none.”

“I thought I might take Gussie for a walk.”

“I don’t know that that’s a good idea.”

“Sure, it is.”

Isaac found Gussie playing jacks on the floor of her room. Her back was to him and her hair shone in the bright light of the morning sun. He watched her count off several attempts before he interrupted.

“Threesies, huh?”

She whipped her head around to find him leaning in the open doorway. “Father!” she said as she jumped up, sending the little red ball and several jacks skittering across the hardwood floor.