Father sighed, folding his hands in his lap. It seemed to cost him something to look her in the eye. “I—I couldn’t manage the mallet earlier. My hands… they wouldn’t do it. Faivish stepped in. He did the gold foil fillings. He’s as good as I was before the tremors.”
The knot in Maisie’s stomach pulled tighter. Her deepest hope sat within reach—Faivish at her side, her father still at the heart of the practice, Deena safe under their roof. It should have been happiness. It nearly was.
But sometimes, wishes came true at the wrong cost.
She’d imagined her father placing Faivish’s hand in hers with pride under thechuppah, a wedding canopy decorated with flowers for them. Instead, Father’s tremors had worsened. And lately, his gaze lingered on her not with joy, but with a quiet sorrow she couldn’t name—creases etching deeper at his brow, his mouth tugged downward as if some unspoken regret lived there.
She wanted to help and would have given everything to see Father smile again. But the truth sat heavy in her chest: he was fading. Slowly, perhaps. But unmistakably. And Faivish’s place beside her felt less like a celebration and more like preparation. If only she knew how and what to prepare for… her heart dropped.
Not because Faivish wasn’t worthy. But because it meant her father could no longer carry the weight himself. What if this was as close to her dream as she’d ever stand—a future shaped by fear and tenderness, always one pane of glass away from shattering?
“I’m afraid I can’t work alone now,” Father said. “I will soon retire to mere paperwork and lectures for the faculty. You’ll be essential in carrying the highest standard for our patients into the future.”
Maisie blinked, her lips parting, the surge of emotions caught somewhere between disbelief and worry. She turned her attention toFaivish, whose gaze briefly lifted to meet hers before darting away again. His profile, outlined by the soft glow through the window, betrayed absolutely no self-congratulation.
“I’m not permitted the highest standard,” Faivish said quietly, finally breaking the silence. “Otherwise, the university would allow me access to the new techniques.” His words were clipped but steady, though Maisie heard the undercurrent of frustration.
She knew what he meant. Civil rights or not, prejudice still lurked in the corridors of the faculty, polite enough to smile at him in lecture halls but cold enough to bar the doors to certain privileges. The techniques Father had brought back from the university—ones that could transform a patient’s smile—had been offered to other students without hesitation. Gentile students. Preferably titled ones.
Faivish had been Father’s most gifted pupil, but still, Rector Hofstätter had found reason to delay his training in them at university, and only Father had taught him privately. Maisie knew that now.
Vienna might grant Jews the right to live and work openly, but it did not grant them the same welcome.
Faivish downed the tea she had poured for him, setting the cup down with a precision that belied the anger behind it. His self-control was immaculate; only in his eyes could she glimpse the turmoil beneath.
She caught the faint downturn of Faivish’s lips as he moved to the treatment chair, his hands deftly adjusting the headrest and smoothing the clean white linen across its surface. His shoulders squared—not with pride, but as if bracing for a weight that would never lift.
“I don’t understand.” She heard the words, she knew the facts, but the why still stung. Faivish adjusted the headrest, smoothing the linen with precise care. “On paper,” he said at last, “I have every right to the same instruction as any other student. Yet somehow, invitations to special lectures are misplaced. Demonstrations begin just before I arrive. Newer methods always seem to be taught to others.”
His voice was steady, but Maisie heard the controlled strain beneath it, the bitterness of years spent swallowing the same truth. It wasn’t law that kept him on the margins—it was the quiet narrowing of eyes, the polite omissions, the doors left half-shut.
She wanted to reach out, to pull him into a world where the air wasn’t so sharp, where he didn’t have to carry the burden of being acknowledged, yet never fully embraced.
“Don’t worry about it, Maisie. It’s hardly worth noting,” Father said. His voice was light, brushing past an awkward moment. Yet, the tightness around his mouth always came at the cost of leaving things unspoken. “Just university politics,” he added, and the words fell slower now, weighted with the truth Maisie had come to fear.
“Politics, indeed,” Faivish muttered, and though his voice stayed even, Maisie heard the bitter edge beneath it—one she’d learned to recognize over the past few months. It was the sound of him holding back more than he said for fear of trespassing into dangerous territory. He’d told her that this was a promise he’d given his mother the night his parents had been taken from their shop and killed. He’d keep his head low. And yet, she could tell how he bristled against it.
Father exhaled heavily, his hand settling beside the half-spilled tea. His gaze fixed on Faivish for a long, unreadable moment, as though weighing something important. “Perhaps it is time you knew—” he began, but then stopped abruptly, his mouth tightening.
Faivish straightened a fraction in his chair, the movement subtle but alert. “Professor—there’s something I’ve been meaning to—”
Father’s hand lifted in quiet interruption, his eyes softening in a way that sent a shiver down Maisie’s spine. Whatever passed between them was invisible to her, but she felt it like a sudden draft through the room.
From her place across the table, Maisie’s fingers tightened into the folds of her apron. The silence between the two men seemed to stretch, filling the space with unspoken things that pressed against herchest. “T—tell me what is wrong!” she blurted, the words tumbling out before she could stop herself.
Faivish turned toward her, his expression smooth as glass. She searched for a crack, a flicker of truth—but all she met was that calm mask he wore whenever he wanted to spare her worry. He glanced once at Father, a look that felt like a plea for leave to speak. But Father’s gaze was steady. Closed.
“Perhaps another time,” Faivish said at last with a sigh that resonated with the one Maisie suppressed. His voice had gentled, but the words still landed like a door shutting. He set the brass tray on the table and aligned the instruments, each click of metal against metal too careful, as though order might erase the moment. “The next patient is waiting.”
The murmur of women carried in from the waiting room—light, eager voices that belonged to a world untouched by the heaviness pressing in here. Father said nothing. Maisie stood rooted, her arms slack at her sides, the weight of unsaid things settling heavier than any tray. She narrowed her eyes, watching Faivish step into the corridor, the door closing softly between them.
The swell of voices outside rose momentarily, then dimmed again, as if the practice itself held its breath.
Father sighed, the sound worn, and reached for his tea. His hand trembled before the cup touched his lips, and he set it down untouched. “Another time,” he murmured—not to her, not even to Faivish, but as though repeating a thought he’d carried too long.
From the other side of the door came Faivish’s steady tone, muffled but sure: “You’re the best now, Professor. You’ll take my place someday.”
“I promise I’ll do everything you’ve taught me.”
