“I did. What’s next?”
I nodded to the stack of new chapters next to me. She returned the others and took the new pages. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.
I turned toward her. “Mama?” She looked back. “Is it any good?”
“This is what you were meant to do,” she said, crossing to caress my hair. “I’m so proud of you.”
I couldn’t quite reply around the lump in my throat. And as much as I wanted to be back with Ada, I understood that she had been right. I would care if I walked away from my family with no avenue back.
I couldn’t focus after lunch. Instead, I sat watching the clock on my nightstand tick closer and closer to Dan’s arrival.
Finally, exactly at the stroke of two, there was a knock at the door. Showtime, I thought, leaving the sanctuary of my room. I came down the stairs, just as Grace asked Dan to come inside. He winked at me, and I offered a tight smile in return.
My father came out of his study, then looked from Dan to me, and I could see the wheels turning in his head at our combined absence from synagogue the previous day. “What’s this about?” he asked as my mother came in from the kitchen.
“Don’t be rude, Daddy. Invite him in for heaven’s sake.”
He started to sputter, but Mama put a hand on his arm. “Won’t you come in, Daniel?” She gestured toward the living room. The two of us sat on the sofa, my parents in the chairs opposite us.
“Dr. Kleinman,” Dan began. “I’m here today to ask for your blessing.”
He looked at Dan warily from the corner of his eye. “I gave it to you in June, but Marilyn refused you.”
Dan nodded. “I asked her again yesterday, and she said yes.”
My parents’ mouths dropped open in unison and for a split second, they sat there like gaping fish. I could practically hear Ada saying they’d catch flies like that. Then they were on their feet, hugging each other, the two of us, Daddy clapping Dan on the back and calling him son.
“The season is all wrong,” Mama said. “It’ll be a long engagement, I’m afraid, until the spring—early spring, of course, so it won’t start too late at night . . .” She trailed off, an idea hitting her. “Or I suppose a fall wedding would work. October maybe, before it’s too cold.”
“No,” I said as Dan shook his head.
“I’ve decided to go to rabbinical school after all. So we would have to put the wedding off a few years. I can’t marry her until I can support her.”
“Of course you can,” my father said. “You’ll live here until you finish.”
We hadn’t seen that one coming.
Dan started to come up with an answer but was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. “Grace will answer it,” my mother said.
“October it is, then,” my father said.
I shook my head. “Spring. You can’t have your only daughter not have a spring wedding.”
My mother nodded. “She’s right.”
My father threw up his hands. “Women,” he said conspiratorially to Dan. “We’d best leave those details to them.”
Grace came into the room. “Champagne,” my father said. “We’re celebrating.”
“Right away,” she said. “But there’s a phone call for Marilyn.”
“For me?”
“She’s occupied,” Daddy said. “Take a message.”
“I said that, but she said it’s urgent.”
Ada. “Excuse me,” I said, rising. “I’ll be right back.”
I hurried out of the room to the phone in the kitchen. “Ada?” I asked as soon as I picked up the receiver.
“It’s Lillian,” the voice said thickly. “Oh, Marilyn. I’m so sorry. Ada—Ada died. This morning.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
I sank to the kitchen floor, the phone dropping with a clatter next to me. My mother came running in, but I couldn’t speak to her. Not yet. Instead, I reached for the receiver, bringing it back to my ear and asking Lillian what had happened.
“It was sudden. She didn’t suffer. She asked me to go pick up bagels—Frannie was off—and I did. When I got back, I found her. They said it was her heart.”
She was alone. She was alone because I wasn’t there. While yes, I would have been the one sent for bagels, Lillian would have been there. She would have called an ambulance. And maybe she wouldn’t be gone now. But I wasn’t there.
“What happened?” my mother asked, kneeling beside me, but I waved for her to shush. Lillian was still talking.
“—funeral. She wants to be cremated, but she left instructions about a service.” There was a pause. “She left instructions about everything.”
“I’ll take the train down tonight,” I said weakly. “Ask Thomas if he’s willing to pick me up, but if not, I’ll take a cab from the station.”
“I’m sure Thomas won’t mind,” Lillian said. “Ada would throw a fit at you taking a cab alone at night.” She sounded bereft.
“Oh, Lillian. I shouldn’t have left. I should have been there—I—”
“She told you to go,” she sniffed. “No one won against her. Except time, I suppose.”
“I told her she was too mean to die.”
“She knew that was a joke,” Lillian said. “She loved you. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m going to pack. I’ll call from the station when I know what time I’ll arrive.”
My mother was ashen by the time I hung up. “Ada?” she asked faintly. I nodded and she closed her eyes. My breathing was ragged, but no tears had fallen yet.
“I have to go. Lillian needs help planning the—the funeral.”
I stood and my mother followed. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. I’ll call once we set the funeral. You’ll come for that with Daddy.”
“I—”
I cut her off. “I need to do this. Myself.”
She looked at me for a long moment before nodding, then pulled me close in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I couldn’t reply.
Dan wanted to drive me, but I said no. I would take the train. The three of them would come down in a couple of days.
“Call me, please,” Dan said. I told him I would and kissed his cheek.
My father didn’t argue about me going, but I didn’t say a word to him, even when he insisted on driving me to the station and seeing me on the train. “I’m sorry,” he said as they called for me to board.
I finally looked at him. “Are you?”
He seemed taken aback. “Of course.”
“You’re the one who said she only wanted me there for someone to find her when she died. She was alone when it happened. Do you know that?”
He flinched, turning pale. “Marilyn—”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to fight. But I should have been there. And I wasn’t because of you.”
I turned, picked up my valise and typewriter, and stepped onto the train.
As it rumbled down the tracks toward Philadelphia, I tried to rest. But every time I closed my eyes, I heard Lillian saying, “Ada—Ada died,” over and over again until I thought I was going to scream.