—
LATER, at the twice-postponed pizza supper, once because of Miri, once because Dr. O couldn’t make it, Dr. O said, “I can promise you this, Mirabelle. I’ll love your mother and take care of her, and you, as long as I live. And I’ll never give either one of you a bum steer.”
“What about Natalie? Would you give her a bum steer?”
“Miri,” Rusty warned.
“It’s okay,” Dr. O said to Rusty. “Mirabelle doesn’t trust me yet. But I’m hoping, in time, I’ll earn it.”
“Stop calling me that,” she said to Dr. O.
He looked hurt. “What would you like me to call you?”
“Miri.”
“Okay,” Dr. O said. “From now on it’s Miri.”
—
RUSTY CAME to her room and knocked on the door before she opened it. “I wish it could have been different,” she said. “I know people are saying I stole him away from Corinne but I didn’t. You have to believe that, honey. Please.”
“Did you fall in love in an instant, like a flash of lightning?”
“I wouldn’t describe it that way. I was volunteering with the Red Cross. I’d bring him coffee and Danish at the morgue,” Rusty said, “sometimes late at night. He needed to talk, to unwind. It was gruesome work, identifying burned and broken bodies.”
“I don’t want to hear about that.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t want to hear about the other stuff, either.”
“I understand. But you should know that when Natalie got sick we decided to end it before it had even begun.”
“So then, what…you changed your minds?”
“Staying apart didn’t work out.”
Miri could have laughed but she didn’t.
Rusty tried to give her a hug. Miri stood stiffly at first, then relented. She knew she had the power to refuse but she was losing her will.
“It’s going to be a great adventure,” Rusty whispered.
Miri never thought about her mother being adventurous. If she was so adventurous how come she never went anywhere or did anything except get up and go to work every day, five days a week, and on weekends clean the house and do the laundry? When Miri put that to her, Rusty said, “Because I took my responsibilities seriously. I still do.”
“Would you marry him if he were staying in Elizabeth? Would that be enough of an adventure for you?”
“I love him, Miri. Our lives together will be all the adventure I need. I’d stand by his side no matter what.”
That was a powerful message for Miri. She loved Mason. But she wasn’t standing by his side no matter what. And neither would Rusty, she bet, if the no-matter-what was Polina, or someone like Polina. If the no-matter-what was a pack of lies.
“Would you have gone without me?” Miri asked. That was really all she wanted to know.
“I could never leave you, Miri. How could you doubt my love?”
Even if she could doubt it, why would she? Why make life harder than it had to be? She was so tired from all of it. Too tired to fight it anymore. Too tired to run every time someone she loved disappointed her.
So, that was that. She was going. Mason wasn’t.
Elizabeth Daily Post
JUNE WEDDING
JUNE 22—Miss Leah Rose Cohen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Cohen, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Mr. Henry Joel Ammerman, son of Mrs. Irene Ammerman and the late Max Ammerman, of Elizabeth, were married this afternoon by Rabbi Gershon B. Chertoff at the Hotel La Reine in Bradley Beach. The bride graduated from Ohio State University. The groom served in WWII with the Army in Europe. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and is a reporter for the Daily Post.
The bride wore a tea-length dress of white dotted swiss with a pink sash and carried a bouquet of New Dawn roses and peonies. The groom’s sister, Mrs. Rusty Ammerman, of Elizabeth, was Matron of Honor. She wore a pale pink sheath. The two bridesmaids, Pamela Cohen, of Cleveland, sister of the bride, and Miri Ammerman, of Elizabeth, niece of the groom, wore matching dresses in deep pink cotton sateen.
The couple will honeymoon in Atlantic City, before moving to their new home in Washington, D.C.
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