After an hour passed, Abe decided to go in search of his brother. He left Helen in the care of Rose’s Aunt Faye and walked upstairs to Mort and Rose’s room. The door was open and there was no sign of Mort.
Farther down the hall, the door to Teddy’s room was shut. Abe knocked softly, then entered. He found his brother, sitting at Teddy’s desk, staring down at the collection of notebook paper, baseball cards, marbles and other little-boy paraphernalia precariously piled on top. It was clear that nothing had been touched since Teddy had left for school the day before. Mort’s face was expressionless, his eyes blank. Abe approached carefully, not wanting to startle him. “Hey, Mort.”
But Mort didn’t answer. He sat perfectly still, his body erect, straight against the back of the desk chair. Abe stood behind him and carefully placed his right hand on his brother’s shoulder. “How about you come downstairs with me and I’ll get you a drink. Or maybe something to eat? Are you hungry?”
There was a barely perceptible shaking of the head. Abe didn’t see it, but he felt it. He wanted to lean over and embrace Mort then, to share his brother’s burden, but all he could manage was to keep his hand where it was, motionless on Mort’s shoulder. Abe was frozen, connected to his brother by only the slightest touch of his fingertips. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes passed. He had no way to extricate himself. He felt it would have been unbearably cruel.
“Uncle Mort? Are you there?” It was Natalie, bustling up the steps, shattering their silence with movement and sound. This time Mort answered. “In here,” he said.
Natalie peeked in, saw Mort in the chair and ran over to hug him. She hadn’t been able to get near him at the funeral, and now Abe watched in amazement as his brother accepted Natalie’s embrace. For close to half an hour he had stood behind Mort, barely touching him, scarcely speaking, trying to find some way to communicate his sympathy, his solidarity, his love. All that Abe had contemplated, Natalie accomplished in an instant.
“I miss Teddy so much,” she told him.
“I do too,” Mort said.
She looked over Mort’s shoulder at Abe. “Daddy does too. Don’t you, Daddy?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I do.”
Natalie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. She looked at the mess on Teddy’s desk and then back at Mort. “Were you looking for the book?” she asked.
Mort nodded.
“He keeps it under the bed,” she said. “So he won’t lose it.”
She walked over to Teddy’s bed, kneeled on the carpet and pulled a large math textbook from behind the navy bed skirt. Abe recognized it. It was the book Teddy brought to their house every week when he came over for dinner. “His best comics are under there too,” Natalie told Mort. “In case you want them.”
She cleared off an area on the desk and opened the book to page forty-two. “This is where we left off last Thursday. Geometry. Teddy loves the shape drawings.”
Abe scanned the pages over Mort’s shoulder. “How do you kids understand all this?” he asked. It looked much too complicated for third graders.
“Uncle Mort goes slow,” Natalie answered. “We don’t do the stuff in here. It’s just like a map for us to follow. We do easier problems that Uncle Mort makes up. But we love looking at the book. It used to be Uncle Mort’s.”
“That’s terrific,” Abe said.
Tears ran down Natalie’s cheeks. “But now it’s all over.”
“You can still look at the book, honey,” Abe told her.
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “Not without Teddy and not without Uncle Mort.”
No one spoke for a long time. Then Mort took in a deep breath. When he let it out, he spoke. “I’m still here,” he said.
Natalie shook her head again. “But we can’t study together anymore. I can’t come Thursdays after school and Aunt Rose would be upset, and…” Her words ran together and turned to tears on her tongue. Abe couldn’t bear to see her cry again.
“Listen,” Abe said. “What if I pick you up from school on Thursdays? You won’t take the bus, you’ll come back to the office with me.”
“Why?”
“Whaddya mean, why?” He tried to smile. “You’ll come to the office and you can study with Uncle Mort there.” He looked at his brother. “How does that sound?” Abe held his breath. What if Mort says no?
Mort turned the pages of the book ahead to the next chapter. “Do you want to?” he asked Natalie.
“Yes.”
“All right,” Mort said.
Abe took his hand from Mort’s shoulder to wipe his eyes. “All right then,” he said loudly. “I better head downstairs and check on your brothers before they eat everything in sight. Wanna come down, Nat?”
“Is it okay if I stay with Uncle Mort for a few minutes?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll see you down there in a little bit.”
The last thing Abe saw before he left Teddy’s bedroom was Mort pointing something out to Natalie on one of the pages.
Chapter 44
HELEN
(January 1957)
Helen was making beds when she heard the doorbell ring. Natalie and the younger boys were long gone, but Harry’s first class was late that day, and he still had an hour or so before he had to leave for the train. Helen heard the sound of the shower running from the end of the upstairs hallway, so she knew he was awake.
By the time she got to the bottom of the steps, the doorbell had rung several more times. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” she called out. “Hold your horses!”
A familiar voice on the other side of the door answered, “What if I don’t wanna hold my horses? What then?”
Helen opened the door to find Sol waving a white bakery box in the air by the strings. “Who wants a Danish? You got a cup of coffee for me?” Helen stepped to the side to make way for him, and Sol breezed past her as if it were his house, not hers. “What are you doing here? It’s ten in the morning—why aren’t you at work?”
“Whatsa matter, you think somebody fired me? I wanted to see my sister. Is that so terrible?” He placed the box on the kitchen table and took some plates out of the cabinet. In his navy silk suit and bright red tie, he looked out of place sitting at Helen’s yellow Formica table. Like a city mouse in the suburbs, complete with a gold pinkie ring.
“You just don’t usually visit me on a weekday morning.”
“You want me to go?” He picked the box up and pretended to leave, but Helen pushed him back down.
“Don’t be such a comedian,” she told him. “Sit and I’ll pour us some coffee.” Sol sat. “I got Ralph covering the early shift at the newsstand,” he explained to her, picking a piece of lint off his tie. “God forbid all the lawyers shouldn’t have their papers first thing.”
“Mornings must be your busiest time.”
“How hard is it to sell newspapers to lawyers? They all got their nickels ready. Nah, lunch is when we see all the action. The fellas come over then, grab a candy bar, make a bet—”
Helen didn’t want to hear about Sol’s side business, so she interrupted. “Here, take your coffee. It’s hot.” Sol held the cup up to his nose. “Now that smells terrific.” He took a gulp of the coffee and set down the cup. “All right.” He opened the Danish box and looked inside. “I got prune, cheese and cherry. Whaddya want?”
“You know I like the prune.” Sol took one from the box and set it on her plate. “Good, I’ll take the cheese.” He took a large bite and smacked his lips. “Best Danish outside the city. From that little bakery by the gas station on Clark Street.”
“They’re nice in there. They always give Natalie a cookie when I bring her in.”
“Yeah.” Sol shifted in his chair and lowered his voice. “Listen, how’ve you been?” He put his hand over hers on the table and squeezed. Sol’s hands were huge, his nails buffed to a brilliant shine. The bottom of his pinkie ring pressed uncomfortably on Helen’s fingers.
It had been a month since Teddy’s accid
ent. After the first week of sitting shiva, Helen hadn’t really known what to do with herself. So she cleaned. Every drawer and closet had been given a thorough going-over. Sometimes she would find things that reminded her of Teddy. A marble that had gotten lost behind the living room sofa, a pair of snow pants in the closet, too small for her boys, that Teddy borrowed when he came over. She would sit wherever she found these things, on the couch or the floor, and cry until her tears ran out. She made sure to cry when the kids were in school. She didn’t want to upset them, especially Natalie.
At last, she answered her brother. “I’m all right.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s nice that you’re worried about me.”
“Yeah, well. It’s a horrible thing that happened. A tragedy. And for Natalie to see it—I can’t even think about it.”
“I know.”
“How’s she doing?”
Helen shook her head. “Teddy was her best friend.”
“Yeah, I knew she’d take it hard.” He cleared his throat. “I was a little surprised about you, though.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you know … You got a little carried away at the funeral. For a while there I thought you had lost it. But then I said to myself, This is how Helen is. She loves all these kids. She loves them all like they’re hers. What if it was Johnny? I said to myself. She’d have been the same way. Worse, even, if Johnny had the accident.”
Helen couldn’t look at him. Her eyes began to tear.
“Ah, don’t start crying. I shudda never said that. All this talk, I shudda never brought it up. I’m sorry.” He patted her hand. “Don’t get started, okay? I came over to cheer you up, not to make you cry.”
Helen took a paper napkin from the holder on the table and wiped her eyes. She stared down at the napkin and began pulling it into pieces. When she realized what she was doing, she got up from her chair, blew her nose with what was left of the napkin and tossed it in the garbage. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the Danish.”
“Good, right?”
“I can’t believe you left the cherry, though.”
“Whaddya mean? I love a cheese Danish.”
“I thought you loved cherries.” She started wiping the crumbs off the table. “Remember that cake Grandma used to bring us when we were little, from Gus’s? You always wanted the cherry from the top. Remember?”
Sol grinned. “Yeah, I remember. Every Friday.”
“She always let you have the cherry—you were her favorite.”
Sol brought his empty coffee cup over to the sink. “I wasn’t her favorite. Cousin Susan was her favorite.”
“Well, she liked you better than me.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Then how come she always gave you the cherry?”
“Jeez, Helen, you been stewing over that for twenty-five years? A stinking cherry?”
“It was a symbol!” As soon as she said it, she realized how ridiculous it sounded. Sol started to laugh.
“Who are you? Sigmund Freud?”
“She liked you better! You were the boy.”
“Bullshit!”
“Sol!” She didn’t like it when he talked that way.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“Anyway, why’d she give you the cherry every time? How come I never got it?” Helen started rinsing out the coffee cups.
“You didn’t need it.”
She turned off the water and looked at her brother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she didn’t give it to you because you didn’t need it. You were a happy kid, lots of friends. Why’d you need the stupid cherry?” Sol took one of the dish towels hanging from the handle of the oven and started drying the mugs.
“Why did you?”
“Because I was a miserable little bastard! Don’t you remember me at that age? I was terrible at school—I could barely read!”
“But Grandma always said how brilliant you were!”
“To make me feel better about being so stupid! Plus, I used to get beat up every day after school by that Rodney what’s-his-name. The kid a few blocks over. Him and his older brother.”
“Why’d they pick on you?”
Sol shrugged. “They had a sister, Juliette, Julie, something like that. Beautiful girl. Couldn’t take my eyes off her. I gave her a candy bar once.”
“That was nice.”
“Not to them. Every time they caught me looking at her, they’d practically murder me.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know any of this.…”
“That’s why she gave me the cherry. You didn’t need it. Pretty, good grades, always smiling. You had it all. Me, I had bupkis. So the old lady tried to make me feel special. Gave me the lousy cherry to cheer me up. If I had known it was such a big deal to you…”
“I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Now I feel terrible.”
“Why? That’s life, kiddo. Two sides to every story. You gotta look at things from every angle.”
“When did you get so smart?” She punched him in the arm and laughed.
“You better watch it, toots.…” And then he was chasing her around the kitchen like they were children again, Sol in his fancy suit and Helen in her housecoat. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. She could barely breathe.
Harry walked into the kitchen. “Hey, Uncle Sol.” He took in the scene, confused. “Why are you guys running around the kitchen?”
Sol took a deep breath and smoothed back his hair with the palm of his hand. “Just cheering your mom up a little. You want the last Danish?” Sol motioned to the box on the table. “I’ll take it with me,” Harry told him. “I have to make my train.”
“I’ll give you a ride in. I was leaving now anyway.”
“Thanks! That’d be terrific.” He grabbed the pastry from the box and took a bite. “Cherry—my favorite!”
Sol raised his eyebrows at Helen, and she choked back her laughter. “All right, you two. Get out of my kitchen. Go!”
Sol took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. “You call me if you need anything.”
She kissed him back. “You’re a good brother.”
Chapter 45
MORT
The Box Brothers factory on Long Island was more than twice as big as the old one in Brooklyn. Mort and Abe had larger offices, but Mort still worked with his back to the door, facing the wall. The same wedding portrait of Rose was on his desk, and although Mort’s new office had a window, nothing other than a few coats of pale gray paint adorned the walls. A bookcase stacked with neatly labeled rows of brown ledger binders was built into the back right corner, and the left corner was solidly occupied by an ancient metal file cabinet. There was nothing else in the room.
A week and a half after the accident, Mort was back at work. He put the oversized green math book in the center of his desk, lying on its side with the spine facing him. On top of it he placed a new silver frame holding Teddy’s school photo from September. In anyone else’s office, both items might have gone unnoticed among the ordinary clutter of files, family photographs and paperwork piles. But on the barren surface of Mort’s desk, the book and the photograph were painfully conspicuous. Mort knew, but for the first time in his life, he didn’t care about attracting attention. He didn’t care what questions people asked. Mort had given up his point system a long time ago. Either God wasn’t counting, or His adding machine was broken.
The first Thursday Abe brought Natalie to the office after school, the newer secretaries, Rhonda and Maryanne, insisted on opening up a tin of butter cookies in honor of her visit. Sheila, who had known Natalie since she was a baby, gave her a hug and asked whether she might like to help them answer the phones. Did she want to sit in the reception area with them? Use some of the blank typing paper for drawing? The women assumed Helen was busy for the afternoon and that Natalie was still too upset to be left at home without a parent. They wanted to make her feel welcome. But after
a few weeks went by and it became clear that Thursday was going to be Natalie’s regular afternoon at the office, everyone stopped making a fuss.
Mort wondered what Sheila and the others thought. Did they think it was odd that Natalie went into his office to do her homework? He got his answer one Friday morning when he was on his way to get a cup of coffee. Rhonda and Maryanne were waiting for a fresh pot to brew, so Mort headed back to his office. Once he was out of view, Rhonda picked up the conversation where Maryanne had left off. “… always so serious,” Mort heard her say. “No wonder Natalie does her homework in his office—it’s the quietest place in the building!”
Mort wasn’t offended. Rhonda was right—his office was quiet. The only time it wasn’t was when Natalie was there. He remembered the way his niece had frowned the first Thursday when she knocked on his door. “Do you keep your door closed all the time?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t concentrate unless it’s closed.” He had forgotten that she had never been in his office before. Most people hadn’t.
Natalie took a few steps into the room, looked around and frowned some more.
“You only have one chair.”
“I’ll get an extra one from the reception area for you.”
“But where do people sit when they come here to talk to you?”
“They don’t come here to talk.” Why did she have to ask so many questions? When he returned with the chair, Natalie had further observations.
“You need some more pictures. Dinah’s school picture was taken the same day as ours, so you should have that one. I don’t know about Mimi’s, though, because she’s in the high school. Do they take Judith’s school picture in college?”
“Let’s just start with the math.” There was no mistaking his brusque tone, and Natalie could sense his frustration. Her smiled dimmed, so Mort tried to explain. “I just don’t like a lot of photos and knickknacks around to get in the way. I like to keep my desk neat.”
“I understand. The thing is, I’d be really upset if my dad had a picture of one of my brothers on his desk and no picture of me.”
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