He got no further than “Dearest Nick” when the tears came. His wife, Nick’s stepmother of only three years, leading with a hanky, left her seat and took over. She prefaced her reading by saying, “I didn’t know Susan. But she had lovely taste in everything. And she is a hard act to follow, which I mean in the nicest way possible. On a personal note, I’m grateful to Nicholas myself because he was the one who bugged Paul to go to our class reunion. Soon after, not too soon, he asked me out to a show.”
She began. Nick’s mother, we heard, predicted this would be read on a sunny day—probably not in a church but on a beach. She hoped his father would be there, alive and well. She knew Nick would be standing next to someone who was kind, who was smart, who felt she was the luckiest woman on earth. “Tell her that you were an easy child. You were kind and funny, even as a baby. Tell her that you invited every child in your class to your birthday parties in first, second, and third grades so no one’s feelings would be hurt. Do you remember you were class president in fourth grade? And won an art prize in seventh? I hope you’re still drawing.” The letter ended: “Your father and I had only one child, and we always knew we hit the jackpot. Lucky, lucky us. Be happy. Make her happy. Love always and forever, Mom.”
Nick left my side to hug his father and kiss Janet. And then, being Nick, said, “My mother failed to mention that I ran for reelection in fifth grade and lost to Jamie Adler.”
We needed that. The air changed. Our short, solemn event was transformed into an open-mike wedding. I joined Nick to say, “Most of you know I do this for a living. No, not the bridal part. Hardly! I mean the letter-writing part, all day long. Mr. Franconi never could have known that a letter from Nick’s mother could be such a perfect gift. Every word . . . so true. Well, not the beach. But thank you.”
In mauve lace, my mother confirmed that Nick had indeed found the wished-for bride foretold in his mother’s letter—kind, highly intelligent, a salutatorian, a daughter par excellence. My father read a Shakespearean sonnet he’d brought along, just in case the opportunity arose.
Even my brother spoke. “No one’s happier than I am. Faith used to call me every other friggin’ day because of one catastrophe or another—she was losing her job, she needed a piece of furniture moved from one side of a room to another. ‘Where do I get my tires aligned?’ Now she never calls except to check on my love life.” He grinned. “Update on that topic available from Miss Leslie Stern at the reception . . . so, Nick, I owe ya.”
Nick was last. He’d written and illustrated a timeline, interposing our personal, emotional, and professional lives with our domestic history. He’d started with the 1906 certificate of occupancy for 10 Turpentine Lane. Then, born 1926, Anna née Dunne, later Tindle, Tomaszewski, and Lavoie. Mingled with dates of the crimes and scandals were our own birthdays, our starting dates at Everton Country Day, the Friday in November when he moved in. His delivery? Deadpan. “Christmas Day, a mere six months ago,” he continued. “Faith comes down to breakfast in a negligee”—which caused the priest to cough. Nick looked up from the flowchart, and said, “Three months ago, on March 22, I propose to Faith Rachel Frankel at La Grotta, the same place, the same table, where on the previous Christmas Eve eve, I’d found the courage to convey, though possibly not in words, that I was in love. And today, this lucky thirteenth day of June, we are married.”
Then we were under the embroidered chupa that my mother had been saving for so long. From the video, I know that the judge married us, that an uncle gave a blessing in Hebrew, and the priest said a prayer. The recessional was Mendelssohn. There was lunch at the Everton Arms—salmon in parchment, fashionable cakes, too much champagne, and violets and sweet peas in mason jars.
There were presents and envelopes yet unopened; we had, on an easel for all to admire, a floating bride and groom in the manner of both Marc Chagall and Henry Frankel. The reception spilled out to the terrace, where random hotel diners joined the celebration. “Meet the new Mrs. Franconi,” Nick said, as we danced past total strangers. “Don’t you agree she’s never looked lovelier,” making me laugh each time.
I wouldn’t have guessed that plain gold bands could be so beautiful. Engraved inside mine: not our initials or the date, but Latin words that translated to Now I know what love is.
And all day, just as Nick’s mother had promised, writing to us in the future, there was nothing but uninterrupted sun.
Acknowledgments
My deep thanks to: Mameve Medwed and Stacy Schiff, trusted, steadfast first readers and dear friends; Suzanne Gluck, perfect agent personified; Lauren Wein, editor from heaven; Jonathan Greenberg of Sotheby’s New York for advice in all matters artistic; James Mulligan, Commissioner, Rockport, Massachusetts, Police Department, for his gracious consultations; Dr. Perri Klass, for providing medical answers; Matt Jacobs, whose faux Chagall, which he painted for the movie set of Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish, inspired my character’s specialty. And to Eve Annenberg, its star, for that tip.
1
Fort Necessity
SINCE EDWIN DIED, I have lived with my sister Margot in the Batavia, an Art Deco apartment building on beautiful West Tenth Street in Greenwich Village. This arrangement has made a great deal of sense for us both: I lost my husband without warning, and Margot lost her entire life’s savings to the Ponzi schemer whose name we dare not speak.
Though we call ourselves roommates, we are definitely more than that, something on the order of wartime trenchmates. She refers to me fondly as her boarder—ironic, of course, because no one confuses a boarding house with an apartment reached via an elevator button marked PH. In a sense, we live in both luxury and poverty, looking out over the Hudson while stretching the contents of tureens of stews and soups that Margot cooks expertly and cheerfully.