The Two-Family House

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.”

“But the girls never come to the office. They don’t even know the picture is here.”

“I know, but still. Maybe you should put up a family photo. I’ll bring you one from home.”

And that was that—the slow transformation of his office had begun. After the third week, Natalie suggested he leave the extra chair against the wall. “That way, you won’t have to keep lugging it back and forth,” she told him. On the fifth Thursday she brought in a framed photo of Mort’s family that had been taken at a relative’s wedding the year before Teddy died.

“Where did you find that?” he asked.

“My mom had it in one of her albums. She said I could bring it to you. Do you like it?” Natalie looked up at him expectantly and smiled. What could he say? The photograph found a permanent spot on his desk.

After that, there had been no stopping her. She brought a tin of hard candies one week and a dark green pencil holder several weeks later. Natalie understood that he needed time to acclimate to each new item before another one was introduced. She developed a slow-paced yet relentless momentum, and Mort found himself incapable of rejecting her offerings.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he found himself enjoying the small changes she made. He put his feet up on the extra chair sometimes when he had his coffee, and he liked how the pencil cup looked when it was filled. There was something satisfying about seeing so many neatly sharpened pencils all in one place.

Every Thursday, Natalie brought some work to do with Mort. Some days she brought equations to solve and some days she brought sketches of shapes she was trying to find the area of. One day she even brought in a story she had written. Mort smiled when he read the geometry-themed fairy tale she wrote about Princess Polygon and the evil dragon Decagon.

“What made you think of this?” he asked.

“Last week you taught me about tangents, and then the next day at school the same word was in our book, but it meant something else. The main character ‘went off on a tangent.’ It made me think about all of the geometry words I know, so I wrote a story.”

“May I keep this?”

She was pleased. “Sure! Do you really like it?”

“It’s very clever.”

The next morning he pulled the story out from his desk drawer to look at it again. He had just put it down when Abe knocked on his door.

Abe whistled when he found his brother drinking his coffee with his feet up on the extra chair. “Making yourself comfortable there, Morty?”

Mort sprung up from his seat and pushed the extra chair against the wall.

“Don’t get up on my account. It’s good to see you relax a little. Nice change of pace.”

“Hmmph.” Mort didn’t respond further, so Abe took the chair and sat down. “You know, Morty,” he went on, “I don’t think I ever sat down in your office before.” He stretched his arms out, leaned back and looked at his brother’s desk. “Got some new pictures too, I see. Good for you.” Abe chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ah, nothing. Glad you finally got an extra chair in here, that’s all. Who knows, maybe I’ll come around and visit more, now that it’s so comfortable in here.” Mort gave Abe a look. “Don’t worry, little brother,” Abe reassured him, “I’m only kidding.”





Chapter 46





HELEN


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