Miri nodded. Rusty blew her nose again.
“Mrs. Strasser,” the rabbi said, “thank you for bringing these two families together.”
Frekki nodded.
“Mr. Monsky,” the rabbi continued, “your wife is Jewish?”
“She’s a convert, Rabbi. The boys are being raised Jewish. It’s a way of life for us.”
The rabbi said, “Good, very good.”
Henry stood and shook hands with the rabbi. So did the others. Then Henry shook hands with Mike Monsky. When Mike extended his hand to Rusty, she didn’t want to take it, Miri could tell, but finally, with Henry’s urging, she held out her hand. Mike Monsky took it and said, “You’re even more beautiful now than you were then.”
Rusty gave him a kind of ha, without smiling. “You haven’t changed,” she said. “You’ve still got a line a mile long.”
“It was always the truth,” Mike Monsky told her, “whether you believed it or not.”
Rusty turned, took Henry’s arm and walked out the door.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Frekki said to Miri.
“I guess that depends on who you ask,” Miri told her.
Mike Monsky put his hand on Miri’s shoulder. “I hope you’ll decide to give me a chance. I hope you’ll come for a visit this summer, like the rabbi suggested.”
“Maybe,” Miri said.
“I’ll write,” Mike Monsky said.
Miri nodded.
“Can I have a hug?” he asked.
“Not here. Not now.” And she hurried to catch up to Rusty and Henry.
—
LEAH HAD INVITED them to stop at Aunt Alma’s house for brunch after the meeting. Before she got out of the car, Rusty changed from her new pumps into her comfy weekend flats. Leah came outside to greet them. Henry said something to her in private, probably telling her how it went at Rabbi Beiderman’s, probably warning her not to bring up the subject.
Alma’s house was small, and neat like her, barely big enough for two. Once Leah and Henry were married, she’d have it back to herself again. Miri wondered if she’d be sorry or glad to see Leah go. Inside, it was decorated in old-world style, with crocheted doilies on the arms of the sofas and chairs.
Rusty took one look at the whitefish salad, the lox and bagels, and said, “This looks like an after-funeral lunch.”
Leah looked hurt. Henry put his arm around her. “Come on, Rusty—nobody’s died.”
Rusty was quick to apologize. “I’m sorry, Leah. I didn’t mean…it’s very sweet of you and Alma to have us over.”
“I hear Irene is in Miami Beach,” Alma said. “With that nice Mr. Sapphire.”
“Yes,” Rusty said. “And she seems to be enjoying it.”
“Mr. Sapphire’s apartment has two bedrooms,” Miri said, feeling she had to defend Irene’s honor.
“Maybe he could invite me down to stay in the second bedroom,” Alma said. “I wouldn’t mind getting away from this crazy weather. Spring or winter. Winter or spring. You never know from day to day. Pneumonia weather.”
“Well,” Henry said, “I’m famished. Let’s eat.”
“Me, too,” Miri said.
Even Rusty helped herself to a bagel piled with lox, cream cheese and tomato.
They’d made it through. They’d survived the stormy seas of Frekki and Mike Monsky, at least for today.
“Are we going to tell Nana about this?” Miri asked.
“When the time is right,” Rusty said.
“What do you think she’ll say?”
Henry answered. “I think she’ll say it’s a good thing for a girl to know her father so she can make up her own mind about him.”
Mike Monsky
He wasn’t sure he should have let his sister talk him into this. She was a bossy big sister when he was a kid and she was still a bossy big sister, a bossy wife, too, he was betting. He was sure the good doctor who’d married her didn’t know what he was in for. And now, J. J. Strasser wasn’t thrilled about complicating his life with Frekki’s long-lost brother or some recently found niece. That was pretty clear. But Frekki had some nutty idea this daughter of his had to be rescued, from what he didn’t know.
He’d made the right decision staying on the West Coast after the war, marrying Adela. So he’d told a little white lie to the rabbi this morning about how she’d converted and how they were raising their boys in the Jewish faith. As if his in-laws would have gone for that. It was bad enough when their only daughter was marrying a Jew. And the Jew was going to be working in the family business.