“You just have to make everyone tell you everything.”
I dropped down in the chair closest to her. “Tell me everything, then.”
That won me a laugh. She brushed her fingertips lightly against my cheek. “When I was your age, I thought I had the whole world figured out.”
“Did you?”
“No.” She scoffed. “But I was too blind to see otherwise.” She raised her brows. “What did you burst in here for?”
“Oh. I wanted to know more about Marcus Barbanel’s wife, Sarah. Grandpa said you might know about her family, the Fersztenfelds.”
“Did he,” she said. She took a seat at her desk, before a monitor where she kept all her windows greatly enlarged. “They’re still around, yes. I might have some correspondences from LaurieFersztenfeld from years ago when I was looking into some family genealogy on my side.”
Everyone had really been sticking close to each other for a dozen decades, hadn’t they?
“Her niece wrote a book about all their old stories.” Grandma lifted her reading glasses so she could peer at the screen. “She says she sent me a copy? Hmm. Let’s go ask your grandfather.”
Back through the house we went to Grandpa’s study. He was notably surprised to see us both. Grandma marched up to him. “You have a book about the Fersztenfelds.”
“I do? Here?”
“Where else would it be?” she asked. “You have all the family history here.”
“I don’t remember a book about the Fersztenfelds.”
“You probably never read it. Laurie Fersztenfeld sent it to me years ago. It’s a small volume.”
The three of us divided up the shelves, searching title by title, until Grandpa finally pulled out a slim, unmarked volume with a triumphant “Aha!”
“Good.” Grandma plucked the book from his hand and placed it in mine, then swept us out. I glanced over my shoulder at Grandpa, and caught him watching her with a forlorn expression.
I caught up with her in the hall. “You met Grandpa around my age, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “A few years older, but yes.”
“How did you meet?”
“Through family friends.”
“No, I know, but—the first meeting. What was it like?”
“I’m not sure I remember the first time we met, but the first time I noticed him...” She smiled distantly as we reentered the sunroom. “Someone was having a party outside the city. It was spring—Passover. The younger kids were hunting for the afikomen, and we’d both been sent along, but we felt too old to be peering between books or under couch cushions. Not that anyone had put the afikomen under a couch in years, not since Arnie stood on it to reach a mantel, and crushed the matzo into a hundred pieces.” She laughed. “Grandpa and I sat on the porch steps as the kids looked, and he offered me a light.”
“Yousmoked?”
Her eyes danced and she took a seat on the couch. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever been young? Besides, it was different then.”
Pretty sure nicotine hadn’t been different, but sure. I dropped into a chair across from her. “When did you start dating?”
Now she looked out the window, at the shadowed snow, the white-capped trees and twiggy branches. Sunlight filtered through puffy clouds, turning their edges blindingly bright. “He asked me out for ice cream when I was twenty. Ice cream, then roller skating.”
“Sounds very 1950s,” I teased. “Were poodle skirts involved?”
She laughed. “I’d be careful mocking old fashions. You kids keep recycling decades; you’ll be back in poodle skirts soon enough.”
“Do you have pictures?” I was pretty sure I’d seen some old photos of Grandma, but not in a while.
“Lots. We were always going to parties and...” Her expression dimmed. “But it turns out he loved Ruth the whole time,” she murmured. “He was seeing her, too. None of it was real.”
