Mrs. Chawa Klonimus filled the doorway, her silhouette broad and comforting, her eyes sharp with kindness. Her voice carried like the scent of fresh bread on a winter morning—something that reached straight into the hollow of him. When she said his name, hisrealname, in Yiddish no less, it was like being folded briefly into the life he’d lost. So warm and soothing to hear his real name for a change. For a moment, his chest loosened.
In this household, laughter always had room for him. At their table, he was counted as family. And yet every kindness pressed against the same hollow—because no warmth, no welcome, could erase the shape Maisie had left behind.
“Faivish, come eat with us upstairs.”
“You know he calls himself Felix now, Mama,” Raphi said from his bench, amusement tugging his mouth.
“Felix, Faivish, Blattner, Leafley…” Chawa waved her hand, unconcerned. “All the same. But to us—you’ll always be Faivish.”
The name cut deeper than he let show. He chuckled faintly, but it was forced, the sound thin.Maisie wouldn’t even know me now,he thought,not as Felix Leafley.
Raphi’s glance caught the sigh he hadn’t meant to let slip. So did Chawa’s. They looked at each other quickly, as if he wasn’t meant to notice.
He noticed.They think me a lovesick fool. Maybe I am. But I’ll never stop looking for her.
He forced a smile, hollow as it felt, and bent his head toward the floorboards. But memory rose unbidden: the Morgenschein practice, patients’ voices in the hall, evenings lit by lamplight with Maisie’s hand brushing his. That was before theBurschenschafthad shattered everything, before India, before the silence.
By the time he had clawed his way back across continents, the practice had been gutted—stripped by the university. Their home was gone. Deena vanished. And Maisie… nowhere. Only a gentile potter answered the door, speaking of his kiln as though clay could replace everything Felix had lost.
Now in London, the trail was cold. No one spoke her name as though she had been erased.
Chawa’s voice softened. “Eat with us, yes? Warm brisket makes even wandering hearts less restless.”
Felix inclined his head. He couldn’t explain that no food, no hearth, no family could still that ache. Not yet.
When he settled at Raphi’s side, the younger man nudged him with dry humor. “Eat something, for Mama’s sake. Spare us both the scolding.”
Felix almost smiled for real. The scrape of gold against wood, the measured clink of his tools, steadied him as he worked. Raphi’s presence filled the silence—not intrusively, but like ballast against a ship listing too far into a storm.
“She’d finally give up her rugelach recipe if you smiled more often,” Raphi teased. His tone was light, but the warmth underneath said what words didn’t:I know where your thoughts have gone. You don’t need to say it.
Felix’s jaw tightened. He bent harder into the work, twisting the wire as though precision could keep longing in check. Work had always been his shield. It dulled the ache, gave him discipline. But every curl of gold reminded him of what he should have had—Maisie’s laughter in the next room, a life that had been his and hers together.
Raphi watched him quietly, then murmured, “Even good gold can’t fill every hollow.”
The words caught Felix where his armor was thinnest. He didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed the wire flat, steadying his hands though the ache inside threatened to split him open.
“Ikh bin aykh ale zeyer dankbar.”I’m very grateful to all of you. The Yiddish surprised him—familiar and foreign at once—yet it came unbidden from his own lips.
“Far gornisht!”It’s nothing, Chawa replied with a smile, brushing her apron as she turned toward the narrow stairwell. Her steps creaked upward to the rooms above the shop, leaving the air behind her faintly warmer, scented with bread and cloves.
Though jewels for the Prince Regent glittered on the benches here, the true treasure was upstairs: the Klonimus family table, loud with laughter and soft with prayer, a place where belonging didn’t have to be earned.
Raphi chuckled, shaking his head. “She means you’re family. You know that, don’t you?” His gaze lingered where his mother had stood, fond and certain.
Family.The word throbbed inside Felix. These people were more than friends, just like Alfie—they read the weight in his silences, teased him out of gloom when it was too hard to bear the nagging question of where Maisie was and how she was. On those particularly painful days, the doctors from Harley Street and the Klonimuses stitched him into their own days without question. Thus, over his time in London, he had gathered more than companions: Nick with his surgeon’s precision, Andre with his pacifist stubbornness, Wendy with her quiet competence. Together, they had raised a practice at Harley Street that was both refuge and crusade. The Klonimus family had folded him into their search as well, passing letters through their network, scanning Europe for the one face he longed for.
But every night the ache remained. Staying still hadn’t made the longing fade; it had only taught him how to carry it. Each day without Maisie felt stolen, as if fate itself were mocking him.
Raphi leaned forward, tapping the half-finished candlestick in Felix’s hand. “So—are we finishing this? Or are you polishing wire to some great philosophical end?”
Felix huffed a laugh and set the pliers down. The lamplight trembled across the workbench, shadowing their hands. Upstairs, the smell of brisket thickened, rich and insistent.
“You should go,” Felix said, his tone lighter than he felt. “Be with your Laila and little Joseph. It’ll be his bedtime soon.”
Raphi’s grin was easy and affectionate. “Joseph? As if he sleeps before nine. I’ll stay as long as you need and then I’ll go and read him his favorite story, David and Goliath. There’s more gold to press.” He picked up the hammer again, his movements sure and unhurried. “Besides, Mama will save us both plates. She always does.”
Felix looked up. The corner of his mouth lifted, small but real. “Brooding as always,” he said.
