Joseph couldn’t believe his son-in-law’s gall. What concern was it of his? In another few steps they’d arrive at the apartment, and if Joseph was going to speak his mind, he needed to do so quickly, before Gussie caught sight of them and careened into her father’s arms. “I don’t like to bring this up, but do I need to remind you about your loan?”
“Which I pay on every month.”
“I would argue that, if you’ve got enough money to invest in land deals, you might consider paying me in full. Or, at the very least, paying a portion of your wife’s hospital bills.”
They were nearly at the door that led up the stairs to the apartment. Joseph felt for his keys in his pocket. Had he gone too far? He tried to remember a time when he had been this honest with Isaac and couldn’t. It felt surprisingly good.
“I’m sorry if that sounded harsh,” he said, his back to Isaac as he put the key in the lock and turned it. “I didn’t mean for it to but I’m just tapped.” Joseph opened the door and held it for his son-in-law but when he turned around to look for him, Isaac was gone.
Esther had been unreachable ever since Florence died, but in the past week, her demeanor had turned icy. No one had ever described her as warm but, for Joseph, the seriousness with which she approached their lives had always been part of her appeal. She could be dismissive with customers and stoic with her own children but, in front of Joseph, she revealed herself. If he caught her with her guard down, her shoulders relaxed and her eyes bright, if she laughed at something he said or if she reached for his waist, intent on pulling him close, he felt sure he had earned the most coveted prize on earth.
There was little chance that Esther would pull him close this evening. When he entered the apartment, still puzzling over his conversation with Isaac, he followed the smell of schnitzel back to the kitchen, where he found his wife muttering over the stove. Joseph moved to kiss her hello but she swatted him away.
“Where are Gussie and Anna?” he asked.
“Gussie’s in the back, cutting up more magazines, and Anna’s out.”
“Out where?”
“How should I know where? I’m not her mother.”
There was an accusation in her retort, and Joseph felt it with all the blunt force Esther had intended. Ever since Florence had died, Joseph had wondered whether he was asking too much of Esther. Was it cruel to allow a girl almost precisely Florence’s age to share their home? And not just any girl—Inez’s daughter?
He wanted to tell her about the drive up to Highlands and theLafayettesighting, about Bill Burgess’s refund and the account he’d opened for Inez and Paul. But he didn’t dare say any of it, not until her mood lifted.
Joseph tried a safer topic. “Dinner smells good.”
Esther was not going to be distracted by a simple compliment. “If I had to guess where Anna was, I’d tell you that she’s on the beach, getting a private swim lesson from Stuart.”
“Our Stuart?”
Esther narrowed her eyes at him. “I didn’t realize Stuart was ours.”
“You know what I mean.”
“He most certainly wasn’t Florence’s.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Here’s what I know,” said Esther, straightening her back and drawing in all her breath. “I want Anna out.”
Isaac
Isaac’s instinct, after he hadturned on his heel and left Joseph fumbling for his keys on the sidewalk in front of the Adlers’ apartment, had been to go directly to the hospital, find Fannie, and tell her everything. He’d start with Florence’s death and the manic lies Joseph and Esther had told in the subsequent month but then he thought he might go further. It would feel good to tell her that her parents hated him, that they were turning Gussie against him, that he was sure her father was in love with Anna’s mother, and that he was never going to run Adler’s if Joseph had anything to do with it.
He imagined going further still. What if he could admit to Fannie that he was a disappointment to his own father, that he was a terrible father to Gussie, that he suspected that it was his fault Hyram was dead? Did she already know all those things? Maybe she did and there was nothing to tell.
When Joseph had thrown the loan in his face, Isaac had been flabbergasted. In the five years since the two men had entered into the agreement, Joseph had never once brought it up. Isaac fulfilled his end of the deal, paying the loan’s installments by check, which he deposited directly into an account Joseph had established at the Boardwalk National Bank for that purpose. And in return, Joseph acted as if the loan didn’t exist at all.
His father-in-law’s discretion was appreciated but didn’t help Isaac feel any less indebted to him. The loan was always there between them, the same way his own father had been permanently shackled to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Isaac hated feeling beholden to anyone, and these days, he felt beholden to everyone—even Dr. Rosenthal,who had accepted Isaac’s confession the night of Hyram’s birth and, miraculously, done nothing with the information.
An elderly couple pushed open the hospital’s heavy door, and Isaac held it for them as they moved outside. The man gripped the woman’s hand, and Isaac watched as he helped her down the steps, one at a time. While the door was still open, two young women in jewel-toned dresses skipped up the stairs and past him. One of them carried a yellow balloon that readIT’S A GIRL!in fancy script, and the other called out a quick thanks to him over her shoulder. Isaac, mesmerized by the swishing of their skirts, followed them across the lobby and up the stairs to the maternity ward, where he watched as they swooped into a room a few doors down from Fannie’s.
Isaac forced himself to slow down, to consider what he would do when he arrived at his wife’s room. He had pictured telling Fannie this secret ever since the night Esther had called him with the news. He imagined sitting beside her hospital bed, holding both of her hands in his, and saying what? That was always the part that got him—how to say it.Fannie, your sister drowned.No.Fannie, your sister drowned in early June.No, no, no. While Isaac didn’t necessarily believe that the news would send Fannie into an early labor, he had come to think that a healthy baby, already safely delivered into her arms, might make the telling easier.
On his walk over to the hospital, Isaac had tried to catalog the possible repercussions of telling Fannie the truth. All matters of health and well-being aside, what was on the line? It was possible that Joseph might demand repayment of the loan, even fire him, although both moves would be hard, if not impossible, for his father-in-law to pull off without penalizing Fannie in the process. If Isaac told Fannie that Florence was dead, Esther would never forgive him, certainly. But it was not as if she liked him now. Slightly smaller servings of brisket, delivered acerbically onto his plate at Shabbos dinners, seemed like something he could live with. The reality was that Esther and Joseph would have to be careful with him, or risk alienating their only surviving daughter, their only grandchildren. If either of them made Isaac’s life uncomfortable, he’d betempted to give up Atlantic City altogether, to move his family somewhere where they could start fresh. He pictured Fannie setting up house in a tract home in West Palm Beach. On Saturday nights, maybe they’d go out with Jim and his new wife.
Isaac had almost convinced himself that divulging the secret was the right thing to do when he rounded the corner into Fannie’s room and nearly walked straight into the wardrobe. The room was dark.
