by Marc Simon
A minor squabble broke out as to who was going to take short-term custody of the demigod Alex until his next of kin had been notified, which in turn raised the question, who exactly was his next of kin?
Margaret Conroy had the answer.
Alex remained remarkably calm until Mrs. Conroy and her husband Marshall, who’d slept through the entire fire, brought him Abe’s house, but as soon as the front door closed, he wailed, “Grandma, where is Grandma? I want Grandma, I called her, but it was too hot from the fire to go upstairs and I was afraid, and then I crawled out through the screen door where the cat went, and I sat on the steps but she didn’t come out and the firemen came and then the men took her. Where did they take her?” As he babbled, tears rolled down his cheek and onto Abe’s chest and singed his father’s heart.
Arthur and Benjamin came running down the stairs. Arthur said, “Why is Alex home?”
Benjamin said, “Why is he crying?”
Abe said, “There was a fire at your grandmother’s house.”
Benjamin, who hadn’t stuttered for two years, said, “Wuh…where’s Grandma.”
Abe thought about what Mrs. Conroy had said when she brought Alex home, how smoke was still rising from charred Ida’s body as they carried her out, and sympathy pains shot up the backs of his legs. He explained to his sons that their grandmother was hurt, yes, but that they’d rushed her to St. Margaret’s, it’s a damn good hospital, boys, and he wondered if he’d sounded convincing, but from the looks on his son’s faces he knew they had their doubts.
“But are you sure she’s alive?”
Arthur punched Benjamin. “Sure she is, dummy. They don’t take you to the hospital if you’re dead.”
“That’s right, Arthur,” Abe said, even though he wasn’t sure his son was correct. “Boys, listen, they probably won’t let me in there tonight. I’ll go see your grandmother first thing tomorrow.” He wondered what he would see. He thought about a recent incident at the shop when Angus Foley’s shirt caught on fire, and how he howled, and how by the time the boys got close enough to rip the shirt from his back Foley’s flesh peeled off like strips of burned bacon, and that was nothing compared to what he imagined could have happened to Ida in a house full of flames.
He held Alex tighter. He shivered involuntarily. His precious little boy had almost died. If Irene were still alive, they wouldn’t be in this mess and Alex wouldn’t have been there at all. God knows what he saw in that burning house. It could have been the kind of thing that could scar him forever.
With his brothers and his father hovering around him, Alex gradually calmed down. Abe tried to feed him meatloaf and peas, but when he turned it down, he made a butter and jelly sandwich for him and a glass of milk. He washed his face and hands and took him upstairs to the master bedroom and held him in his arms until exhaustion got the better of him.
A full moon shone in through the window. Abe stared up at a settling crack in the ceiling. He thanked God for Alex’s sleep, and he prayed that the boy would have pleasant dreams, not nightmares, even though he realized that, after all his sins, God owed him no favors. He tried to blot out the image of Ida burning, her hair shriveling in the flames, her arms beating against the fire on her legs. His thoughts drifted to Irene, and how she’d suffered in her last days. It was a life full of suffering, that’s what it was.
He stroked his son’s hair. As much as he resented Ida, and all that Christian Holy Roller hogwash she’d pumped into the boy’s head, she’d done the both of them a tremendous favor by taking him five days a week. What now? What was he going to do with Alex?
He tried to think about something else, to focus on his last time with Delia, a month ago, and tried to envision her lying on her bed, wearing her stockings and a string of black beads and nothing else, but the image wouldn’t hold, and as he drifted off, what he saw was his mother-in-law reaching her arms out toward him, moaning his name, her limbs engulfed in flames.
Abe kept Arthur and Benjamin home from school the next morning to take care of Alex. He promised his sons they could visit their grandmother as soon as he learned more about her condition. Alex clung to his leg as he tried to leave, but Benjamin convinced him that they needed to stay home and make get-well cards for Grandma.
Abe stopped by his shop to explain why he needed the day off, so it was almost noon by the time he reached St. Margaret’s and found his way along the dimly lit marble hallways to the ward where Ida was being treated. The air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and the moans of the sick. Occasionally he saw patients in wheel chairs, or with tubes coming out of various orifices, and his thighs tingled with sympathy pains.
Several of Ida’s friends from the neighborhood, including Margaret Conroy, were conducting a vigil at the entrance to Ida’s ward. Abe moved through them, intent on seeing Ida, no matter how grisly she might be, until a nurse emerged from behind the curtains and informed him that Ida could not have visitors, not even family.
Abe returned to the cluster of neighbors. Bess Foster held a cluster of limp daisies. “Are you a relative, sir?”
“I’m her son-in-law.”
She looked him up and down. “Oh, my Lord, you’re Alex’s father.”
“Little Alex’s father is here!” cried another woman. She ran up to Abe. “But how is Alex? It’s a miracle he’s even alive, praise God.”
“God looks out for your son, Mr. Miller,” another voice cried. “Praise Alex. Praise him.”
The fervent sanctification of his son, however flattering, made Abe wary—why were these women singing his praises as if he were God come to Earth? What kind of religious voodoo had been going on in Ida’s house? But they seemed so genuinely concerned about Alex, maybe this wasn’t the time to ask. Instead, he said, “What do you know about Ida? What are they telling you?”
“It’s touch and go,” Bess said. “Burns over sixty percent of her body.”
Sixty percent. Abe’s skin crawled. “Well at least she’s alive.”
She wasn’t.
Unbeknownst to her son-in-law and the host of well-wishers, Ida’s lungs had given out minutes before Abe arrived at the hospital. Father Kiernan, the priest she detested for years, had been at her bedside during her final moments, offering Last Rites, which she refused, stating just before her last breath that Kiernan wasn’t half the man of God Reverend Billy Sunday was, and she didn’t regret it in the least telling him so. However, when Father Kiernan came out and told everyone that Ida had died, he added that she’d made final confession and passed in peace. He closed his eyes. Sometimes it took a little lie to keep the faithful faithful.
*
By early spring of 1914, Delia Novak’s windfall had dwindled to a pittance. If she wanted to continue to live alone in her apartment and wear decent clothes, she needed to find full-time employment to supplement the money she picked up waitressing at The Wheel. So with reluctance she took a full-time job as a maid in a recently completed mansion around the corner from the Mellon Estate, a mammoth 65-room spread resting on 11 acres. As she told Abe, The Mellon Estate was a damn long way from Mellon Street. She continued to put in two evenings a week and Saturdays at The Squeaky Wheel, hoping to get her mother’s diamond ring out of hock with her tip money. With all the work, there was hardly time to see Abe or anyone else.
So it was close to two weeks after Ida died that Delia finally saw Abe on a slow Thursday night. She sat down at his table opposite Abe and Davy O’Brien. She sipped Abe’s beer. “I heard about your mother-in-law. Sorry.”
“At least Alex was safe.”
Alex. He seemed more upset than when his mother died, but maybe back then he was too young to understand death—as if anyone ever did. He’d perked up a bit lately, thanks to being with his brothers every night, but Abe couldn’t keep relying on Mrs. Traficante from across the street to watch him during the day until the boys got home from school. She was too old and her English was broken at best, and Alex had too much energy for her to keep up with him fo
r long. “I got to figure out what to do with the boy.”
“He’s a cute little bugger. I could take him every once in a while, maybe a Sunday.”
“Really?” Abe sipped on his beer. It used to be just the sight of Delia was enough to make him happy and horny, but tonight she looked thin and drained and, he hated to admit it to himself, kind of ordinary. Knowing she worked so much and so hard depressed him. “I appreciate it, but it’s the weekdays that are the problem.”
She looked up at the bar, where John had set a plate of chicken legs. “Can’t you send him to school?”
“Now? He’s still too young.”
From behind the bar, John called, “Delia. Order’s up.”
She kissed Abe on the side of the head. She let her hand trail along his shoulder. “You know what? I got another idea. Don’t you Jews have religious schools or something?”
Her suggestion awakened uncomfortable memories of his Hebraic past. He recalled the teachers and the rabbis he’d suffered as a boy, always pushing his face down into the siddur, smacking the back of his head and shouting, you must look in book, Miller, you must look in book if you want to learn. He hated it so much he skipped it as often as he could, preferring his Uncle Morris’s yells and smacks to the rabbi’s. However, as much as he’d hated it, he thought maybe Delia had something there. He ought to go down to the local synagogue, the Beth Shalom on Negley Avenue, maybe it was different than the one he had to go to, maybe they had something for a little boy like Alex, like a nursery school or kindergarten during the summer, where he could place Alex. It wasn’t as if he knew anyone there, or ever set foot in it, but still, a Jew was a Jew, they couldn’t turn him away, they must have something to help out families like his, even if he wasn’t a dues-paying member of the tribe, so to speak. It was worth a shot, and even though Alex wasn’t one hundred percent Jewish and his head was full of Ida’s Christian bunk, still, the rabbis would straighten him out, and besides, what alternative did he have?
Chapter 16
Fifteen minutes after the Sabbath service, most of the worshippers at Beth Shalom Synagogue were downstairs in the function room for the Oneg Shabbat ceremony, enjoying cups of sweet wine and fresh challah and talking of food prices and politics and social justice. As they sang traditional songs in lively, hopeful voices, comfortable in their kinship, a young woman sat by herself in the front row of the sanctuary.
Her prayer book lay open on her lap. She read silently from the Yom Kippur service even though the Jewish New Year was nearly five months away. Over and over, she read a passage that admonished sinners who’d tarnished the beauty of the spirit by committing gross misdeeds. She closed her eyes and prayed that repentance would lead to forgiveness. In her right hand, she clutched an illustration torn from a magazine of a baby in a cradle.
Abe and Alex stood in the entrance to the sanctuary. Abe felt as if he didn’t deserve to be there, that despite his origins he was an outsider, that he was trespassing in a holy place. At least he wore a clean white shirt and had on a hat. He listened to the singing floating up from the floor below. He didn’t understand the words, but the melody was dimly familiar and somehow encouraging.
Alex tugged on his hand. “Daddy, where is the cross?”
Abe knelt down. “Like I told you on the way here, this is a different kind of church than your grandma’s. It’s called a shul. It’s for the Jewish people.”
“Am I a Jewish?”
You are today, son, you sure are. “Yeah, you’re Jewish enough.”
Alex pointed to a stained-glass window. “What’s that, Daddy?”
“That’s the Star of David.”
“Who’s David?”
Before he could answer, Abe noticed a pretty young woman with a white shawl walking up the aisle from the sanctuary. Her eyes were slightly closed, and her lips moved rapidly, as if she were reciting something or something was speaking through her. She came so close to Abe that she almost walked into him.
Abe said, “Miss?”
She stopped a foot short of him. She shrank back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“No, I should have said something when I seen you—I mean, saw you walking this way.”
“That’s all right.”
“Well, I guess I’m blocking the way. Come on, Alex.”
The woman caught Alex’s eye the same time he caught hers. Her eyes widened, and her lips began to move again. Dear God, do not be deaf unto my plea.
Abe said, “You say something?”
She smiled and extended her hand. “Wait. My name is Hannah Gerson.”
“Abraham Miller.” He put the emphasis on Abraham. He looked at her hand. Her fingernails were gone and the skin around the cuticles was ripped and raw.
“Well it’s so nice to meet you. Are you a new member of the congregation?”
“Well, not exactly. We just come by today for the first time.”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to be a member to come here. God and this synagogue welcome everyone.” She knelt down in front of Alex. “And what’s your name, my pretty little boy?”
“Alex Miller. I’m a Jewish.”
“You are?” She clapped her hands. “Me, too. That’s so wonderful. And how old are you, Alex?”
“Six, and one and a half, too.”
“What?”
Abe smiled. “He says that because he was born on leap year day.”
“Isn’t he clever? Such a clever little boy.” She moved within inches of Abe’s face. “I bet I can guess how old you are.” She tapped his chest.
“Pardon me?”
“You’re thirty-three. Am I right?” As Abe nodded his head, she said, “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I can just look at a person and tell things about them. I do it all the time, ask my aunts. It’s a talent I have.”
Abe put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Yeah, well, sure is something. But we really shouldn’t be keeping you.”
“Don’t be silly, you’re not keeping me. I love talking to you.” She winked. “And to Alex.”
Abe looked around the empty sanctuary. “Well anyway, I guess we come by too late. I had wanted to speak to the rabbi or someone else in charge.”
“Oh my goodness, this sounds serious.”
“Well, it’s about my boy here.”
Hannah’s fingernails went to her mouth. “Oh my God, is something wrong with him?”
“No, it’s just that, I mean, if the rabbi isn’t here, I could come back another time.”
She shook her head. “Oh, but there’s no need for that.” She took Abe’s arm. She glanced around the empty sanctuary and said in a hushed voice, “Whatever you need to tell Rabbi Kaplan, no matter what, I can tell him for you—in strictest confidence, of course. We’re very close, the rabbi and me. You might say I’m his closest assistant. He relies on me quite a bit. In fact, not a day goes by we don’t speak about things. Important things.” She motioned to the last row of seats. “Come, sit down and tell me all about it.”
He wondered if he should tell this woman his story, but she seemed so genuinely concerned, and he was already there, and she said she was close to the rabbi. “Well, if you got a minute.”
As his father gave her the abridged version of the Alex Miller story, with special emphasis on the death of his mother and grandmother, Alex kept his eyes on Hannah. He watched how her hands fluttered from her chest to Abe’s forearm, the way she wiped away a sudden tear with the back of her hand, how she alternately gasped and giggled when Abe told her about the time Alex’s brothers had put him on display for money. He watched her feet bounce and twist around her ankles, and how she nodded and finished his father’s sentences, and how, every few seconds it seemed, she glanced back at Alex, as if she were worried he might suddenly disappear.
Although he was accustomed to having people stare at him, her look was different than the usual gawker, more intense, and not all pleasant.
After Abe finished, Hannah said, “Dear lord, you’ve b
een through so much. I hate to say it, but the synagogue doesn’t have anything for Alex right now. But don’t leave yet. I have an idea. Maybe I could help you out.”
“You could?”
As Hannah outlined her plan, Alex grew restless. He wandered toward the front of the sanctuary. The carpet was smooth and thick, and the wood smelled of fresh polish. He looked up at the oil lamp, the Everlasting Light that burned above the ark. Panic shot through him. He screamed, “Daddy! Fire, fire!”
Abe rushed forward, with Hannah on his heels. He scooped Alex up. “It’s all right, son, it’s all right.”
Tears rand down Hannah’s cheeks. She gasped, “Is he all right, Abe, is he O.K.?”
“He’s fine, just scared a little is all.”
She sniffed. “Maybe I should hold him. Do you want me to hold him?”
“No, I have him.”
He mouth turned down. “Oh, all right then. Anyway, I want you and Alex to come by tomorrow night for dinner and to meet my aunts. Once I tell them all about you and Alex and our plans for him, they’ll be dying to meet you. Promise me, all right? Please?” She grasped Abe’s hands in hers. “Six o’clock. All right?”
Abe looked at her hands squeezing his. This pretty woman, maybe she was a touch on the excitable side, but she seemed very sincere about wanting to help him out. She’d taken to Alex right off, that was for sure. He looked down at his son, who was looking at her. He hated to put him through so many changes, but he had to find something for him, at least until he was ready for school, and Hannah’s offer seemed perfect. What was the old expression? Never look a gift horse in the mouth? Sure, it all seemed to good to be true, but even so, he heard himself saying, “Yeah, all right, six o’clock. Thank you.”
She kissed Alex on the forehead. “Goodbye, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be so wonderful. See you tomorrow.”