“Don’t worry about the numbers? That’s a good one, coming from you!” Abe gave Mort a friendly punch to the shoulder.
Mort rubbed his shoulder and frowned. “You really don’t need me for this. You’ll be fine on your own.” He bent his head back down over his book.
“Come on, Mort. You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you. The sign on the building says, ‘Box Brothers,’ and this guy wants to meet us both.” There was only one chair in Mort’s office and Mort was sitting in it, so Abe sat down on the corner of Mort’s desk. After a few moments Abe put one hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Nine-thirty tomorrow. Please?” Mort nodded silently, never looking up. Abe left the office and closed the door behind him.
Abe hadn’t asked him to go to a client meeting in years, so Mort knew it was important. It might actually be the watershed deal his brother always seemed to be looking for. It wasn’t that the company was doing badly—their numbers were in good shape. But Abe was always looking for the next big thing.
Their father had been the same way. People always needed boxes, he told them. When people are rich they bring home whatever they buy in them, and when people are poor, they use them to carry out whatever they have left. Before the war, boxes had been everywhere, hollow reminders of disposability and eviction. Some people even wound up sleeping in them. And once the war started, well, Mort wouldn’t admit it to Abe, but he suspected the business had saved both of them from conscription. Sure, Abe had his heart murmur, and they were both on the older side, but running a company that employed a dozen guys, all sole earners for their families, had to have helped.
Their father always told them that the people getting rich weren’t the guys making boxes. They were the guys making the stuff to put in them. But Mort thought maybe his father had underestimated their product. A box could be hopeful, couldn’t it? A box filled with something useful, even tasteless flakes, could be important and maybe even make the box makers rich. Mort sighed. It would be a lot of work. And of course, it could only happen if someone paid close attention to the numbers.
Chapter 7
ROSE
Rose felt strangely off balance for the next few weeks. Mort was paying a good deal of attention to her, and she wasn’t used to it. His interest unsettled her, and she couldn’t concentrate on her daily tasks.
Before Mort, the only man in Rose’s life had been her father—a man who never wasted time on frivolous praise or affection. That was the only kind of man Rose knew. Rose’s father didn’t tell her she was pretty or intelligent because he knew she was both, and he found it unnecessary to make it a topic of conversation.
When Rose met Mort, she saw in him a younger version of her father. Familiarity bred a certain fondness. But there was something else, something that drew her to Mort in spite of his overwhelming need for self-control and efficiency, and that was the effect she seemed to have on him.
True, he did not shower her with flowery compliments or romantic gestures, but when she walked into a room, he could not hide his admiration. He was the first man to tell her she was beautiful, and though his voice reminded her ever so slightly of the tone her pediatrician used whenever he made a diagnosis, the compliment was praise in its most sincere form. If Mort took the time to say it, she knew that he believed it.
And then there was the way the color rose in his cheeks every time she came near him. His emotional restraint, so visible in all other areas of his life, seemed to crumble before her. When he held her hand, she could feel it. When he kissed her, she knew. His desire for her was palpable, as real as any number in his ledger books. The fact that he could not control it endeared him to her immeasurably. When he told her he loved her, she knew she loved him too. Their wedding, though modest, was the happiest day of her life.
Things began to change only after they had children. As soon as Rose became pregnant, Mort was clear about his preferences. Abe already had a boy, and Mort wanted one too. Did she think that’s what they were having? Wouldn’t the doctor have some idea? Mort became increasingly frustrated with Rose’s lack of certainty and her inability to decipher the contents of her own womb. When Judith was born, he was clearly disappointed. When Mimi came along, he was despondent. And when he first saw Dinah, swaddled in a pink hospital blanket, he told Rose she was their last. With every daughter she bore, he seemed to desire her less, and he was a little less kind. Over the years, she had grown used to the lack of interest he showed in both her and the girls.
But the past few weeks had been different. Mort called every afternoon to ask how she was feeling. When he took her hand, she felt the same warm tingle she used to feel when they were dating. One night he took the girls for an unprecedented after-dinner walk to the corner candy store. His attention confused her, and she could not get used to it.
Mort’s reaction to the news of her pregnancy had surprised her. She had been prepared for hostility, confusion, and silence most of all. Her conversation with Helen had subdued her anxiety, but she still wished there was some way she could avoid the subject for a few more weeks. She knew, however, that once she revealed her secret to Helen, she was obligated to tell her husband. She told him that very evening, as soon as he returned home from work, almost before he was fully through the doorway. With both eyes and hands absorbed in dinner preparations, she mumbled the news in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. Silence followed, and she was afraid to turn around. Her fears were confirmed when she heard Mort leave the room. She took the roast out of the oven and placed the pan on the stove.
When she finally did turn around, Mort was walking back into the kitchen with all three girls. He was speaking in a loud, cheerful voice and smiling. “Girls,” he said, “your mother has some news for you.” Rose cleared her throat and told them about the baby. Cheers came first, followed by the predictable bickering over who was going to hold the baby first and who was going to be best at feeding and diapering. “You will all have a turn to help with him,” Mort had told them.
This morning had brought the biggest surprise of all. Rose had walked to the front door with Mort’s suit jacket to help him on with it—something she had done every morning of their marriage. Usually he kept his back to her, buttoned the jacket up and left. But this morning, he had turned toward her after slipping his left arm into his sleeve. He turned so gracefully that Rose had actually imagined him for a moment as a dancer on a stage, moving toward her with effortless purpose. And at the end of his turn, this nimble stranger had slipped his left arm around her waist, taken her unsuspecting cheek sweetly in his other hand and kissed her lips goodbye.
So unexpected was the combination of embrace and kiss, so tender the touch on her cheek, that when he was safely down the street and the girls off to the park, Rose sat down at her kitchen table, put her head down on the worn wooden top and cried. It started with a few tears—she had a lot to do that morning and she was determined not to think too much about Mort’s behavior. But as she sat, she found she could not stop. Tears streamed out of her as if she were a confused child, with no warning, and seemingly no end to their torrent. What had just happened? As she sat there wondering and rubbing her apron over her eyes, a quick knock came at the door. It was Helen.