33 #2
Eddie’s smile turned much more genuine, and I realized I was still holding his hand—something I hadn’t done with a man since Harry passed.
I dropped it quickly. “I should get the rest of the food out there before it all gets cold. You keep that butter on until it melts, you hear?” I busied myself, grabbing the offending potatoes with a potholder.
“Is that okay? Don’t you keep a kosher house?”
I looked at him over my shoulder. “Not that kosher. Just don’t smear it on the brisket and you’re fine.”
Eddie mimed crossing his heart, and I carried the potatoes, calling to the family and Mr. Greene that dinner was served.
I wanted Ruth and Mr. Greene to sit next to each other, so I sat Eddie in Harry’s place, at the head of the table.
Putting Sam Goldberg there had felt criminal, but Eddie was like family, and his presence in the spot of honor didn’t offend.
Ruth and Mr. Greene sat to his left, the children to his right, and me at the other end of the table, closest to the kitchen so I could get anything we might need.
“Shall we say the motzi ?” Mr. Greene asked, referring to the traditional prayer before eating. Even when we held Shabbat dinners, Harry and I typically skipped that step, opting for blessings over the candles and challah as our cultural touchstones.
“Do you say it for every meal?” Ruth asked.
“No,” he admitted. “But I know you went to shul every week back when ... Back then.”
A slight cloud crossed Ruth’s face, but she shook her head to dispel it.
I remembered Harry saying that she brought him to say the mourner’s Kaddish every Saturday for the first year after his father died.
He had hated it and wanted to be outside with the other children instead of being forced to remember that his life would never again be like theirs.
The thought had crossed my mind to do the same with Susie and Bobby, but Harry’s childhood disdain talked me out of it.
Instead, we focused on lighting the yahrtzeit candle at home on the anniversary of his death, talking about the significance of the candle and our memories of Harry.
“Why not?” Ruth said. “It’s good for the children.”
“Do we join hands?” Susie asked.
“Join hands?”
“Like they do on TV? When they say grace?”
I smiled at her. “No, sweetheart. Our people don’t.”
As Mr. Greene recited the prayer, I looked at Susie’s sweet face, so pleased that she felt confident enough to ask that question.
That there was no one in her world to chastise her for asking a question instead of knowing the answer.
My brave little girl had been knocked down two years ago, but she was okay.
We all were, I thought, looking around the table.
Eddie caught my eye and smiled, and I returned it, thinking how natural he and his father felt at my table.
I could see weekly dinners once he and Ruth were married.
We could add the leaves to the table and have Janet and her family there as well.
She and I would finally be the sisters we had wished to be since that first year of living together in college.
Marrying two best friends was the closest we had come before.
And, well, we wouldn’t exactly be related, but closer.
Then I realized everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to serve the brisket. The prayer had ended as I lost myself in my little fantasy of entwining our two families.
“Sorry,” I said, gesturing for Mr. Greene to pass me his plate. “Head in the clouds today.”
Ruth and Mr. Greene reminisced about the O Street Market, Eddie chiming in from time to time with what he remembered from being a child and helping his father when he didn’t have school.
Mr. Greene watched Ruth with rapt fascination each time she spoke.
She snuck peeks at him but would flush when she caught him staring at her and turn her attention back to her plate or the children.
As the plates emptied, the children asked to be excused, but I had them sit a couple more minutes.
“This was a wonderful dinner,” Mr. Greene said. “Thank you, Barbara.”
“Yes,” Ruth said. “The brisket wasn’t nearly as dry this time.”
My brisket was never dry. But I refrained from saying that, shooting a pointed look at Eddie and managing a thank you.
“And the company,” Mr. Greene said, turning to Ruth and taking her hand. “This is the happiest I’ve been in years.”
Ruth looked uncomfortable. “Joseph,” she said. “I—”
“Joe,” he replied, gazing at her adoringly.
“Joe,” she repeated. “I—”
“Or Joey.” He placed his other hand on top of hers, stroking it with his thumb.
“ Joseph !” she exclaimed, extracting her hand.
A snort erupted, which I realized, as I glanced around the table to see everyone staring at me, was mine as I tried to hold in a laugh.
“Mommy!” Bobby said. “What was that ?”
And then I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. Eddie joined me, and then the children.
Mr. Greene (I would never be able to look at him without thinking Joey again) was still looking at Ruth as if she was dessert.
But it was Ruth’s face that sobered me. I had never seen her look so flustered as she did right then.
Even when we lost Harry, she had been devastated but never so adrift as this.
He tried to take her hand again, but Ruth stood from the table so suddenly that she knocked over a water glass. She righted it, and I sprang into action, applying a napkin to the tablecloth.
“Pepper needs a walk,” she said, her voice shrill. “I’ll take her.”
“The kids can take her in the backyard,” I said.
“No, no, no. I’ll take her,” Ruth said, practically running toward the small table where we kept the leash, Pepper hot on her heels.
“I’ll come with you,” Mr. Greene said, pushing his chair back.
“No!” Ruth said, her eyes wild. “I—you—eat dessert. I need some air.” She clipped the leash onto Pepper’s collar and the door was shut behind her before any of us even realized she was gone.
“I—I should go after her,” I said, dropping the wet napkin onto the table.
“I’ll go,” Mr. Greene said, clearly not understanding that he was the source of her distress.
“No, I need to make sure she’s okay.” Then I looked at Bobby and Susie, who were staring at me with eyes as wide as saucers.
I couldn’t leave them to go chase after Ruth.
But she had looked so pale. Visions of Harry’s last moments flashed through my mind, and I gripped the back of my chair so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
“Go,” Eddie said. “I’ll clear up and get dessert out.”
I swallowed. “Are you sure?”
“Go.”
“It’s—it’s an apple crumble,” I said. “Heat it at—”
“Barbara!”
“I’m going, I’m going!” And I took off after Ruth.
The days were growing longer, and while the streetlights had come on, I could still see enough in the fading light to catch her form walking briskly up the street toward the school.
I chased after her as fast as my heels would allow, until I was close enough for her to hear me. “Ruth!” I called out.
She didn’t turn around, but she slowed and then stopped. I finally reached her, my breath fast from exertion, her chest rising and falling rapidly though she was no longer walking.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She didn’t respond, and my mouth went dry.
“Ruth. Talk to me. If you need to go to the hospital—”
She shook her head. “I’m not sick,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Then what?”
“I—I don’t want this.”
“Don’t want what?”
She closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. “Don’t invite him over again,” she said. “Please.”
“I thought—”
“Please.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I won’t.”
She took another deep breath and then opened her eyes. “Thank you.”
I wanted to ask why—I had seen sparks in Janet’s kitchen. I knew I had. And her touching her hair when she talked about him. What changed? But her demeanor told me I was better off waiting than demanding answers.
“Do you want me to get rid of them before you come home?”
“No,” Ruth said. “I don’t want you to be rude. But I may say I have a headache if that’s all right with you.”
“I’ll tell them you do. You can go straight upstairs.”
She smiled thinly and thanked me again. I took her arm, and we walked home together in companionable silence.