Chapter Twelve
Saturday morning, I waited outside for Alex and Mack’s giant SUV per a text I received the night before.
I’d expected Corey to send instructions, but instead it was Mack who communicated he’d be coming to get me on our way to a nursing home in Queens.
As I slid into the car, I ignored his masculine forearms peeking out from where he had his white dress shirt rolled up and the earthy cologne rolling off him. Noting he was in slacks, I took in my jeans and lightweight sweater. “Is this okay?”
“Of course,” he said as if I was being ridiculous. “I need to atone for rotten men in my family generations before I was born. I need to look the part of a good guy.”
“Oh come on, you don’t really believe that?”
He took my hand in his and spoke. “I do. Now, let it be.”
I didn’t push. Instead, we rode in comfortable silence until Mack took a call.
“My aunt,” he explained to me after. “My dad’s sister.”
“Oh! Maybe she knows something…”
“No.” His tone was short and gruff. “Susie only knows what she needs to know. What fits with her agenda. Involving her would only make our mission a mess. She’d push to know why and how it might affect her, and ultimately how it can benefit her son-in-law, Tom.”
I couldn’t help the laugh escaping me. “I take it you’re not close with Tom.”
“No. Not in the slightest.”
The car slowed and we were parked in front of a large building in Astoria. Alex came and opened my door while Mack exited the SUV on his own.
“Here we go,” I said, and Mack wrapped his arm around me, bundling me in tight under his shoulder. I wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it. From the outside it looked like he was comforting me, but I knew differently. Mack was seeking security from his own rambling emotions.
We approached the information desk, now walking shoulder to shoulder-ish, signed into the facility, and the receptionist told us Miss Connie was waiting for us in the atrium. Armed with directions, we made our way there.
“Oh, my heavens, you look just like them!” Connie greeted us with an enormous grin from a wheelchair covered in glitter with balloons tied to the handles.
“Miss Connie,” I said, “So nice to meet you. I’m Frances…” I bent down to embrace the woman I could already tell was a genuinely caring person.
“Jimmy Burns’s granddaughter. I’d spot you in a crowd anywhere!” She put her palms on my cheeks and stared into my eyes. “Same green as your grandpa. Rose was wild for those eyes—a sea of grass, she’d say.”
As I sat down in the love seat across from her, a birdcage in my peripheral vision, I wondered about Connie’s family and if this was a good place. Typical me, I was already attached to a person I met moments ago.
“And Mackenzie Miller,” she said, turning her gaze on Mack, who was sitting next to me. “Rose would occasionally write and include a photo of you. She was so proud of the young man you were becoming. Occasionally she would tell me about your college football games. She was so proud. She’d say ‘a nice Jewish boy out there.’” Connie laughed. “That was so Milly, calling everything like it was.”
Mack cleared his throat. “She wrote? To you? She never said a word to me. Or us.” He seemed stuck on the notion his grandmother communicated with another person he’d never heard of.
“She did write. Sometimes more than others, but I always looked forward to it.” Connie beamed another smile on us. “Look at you two! And you found one another. I can’t believe it. It’s like one of those holiday movies they play at Christmastime.” Connie’s gray eyes, shielded by thick glasses, passed between us. She smoothed her palm over her brown hair, likely professionally blown dry into a bob.
This was a woman with enormous pride, and I felt myself vibing with it.
“Frances here wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Mack said while cocking his head toward me. “The little rascal followed me all over the city, wanting to know about her Paps and Milly, until I gave in. I didn’t have a clue what she was going on about until I saw the letters…”
“Oh God, I forgot—you all called Rose by that nickname, Milly. She was ahead of her time, ditching her God-given name. As a girl, she wanted to believe she could love anyone. As a young woman, she wanted to be involved in the business, and she tried. As a grown woman, she stuck it to your dad and that wife of his, raising you how she saw fit.”
Leaning forward, Mack asked, “How is it you know so much about me and I’d never heard a lick of you until Frances came along with the letters my grandmother wrote to Jimmy? A million years ago, if I might add.”
“Hopefully not a million. That would make me awfully old,” Connie joked back.
Mack smiled, letting go some of the tension he’d so visibly been holding in his brow.
Connie clasped her hands in her lap. “Pardon the chair,” she said first. “Broke my hip a while back, and my ankle before that, so they have me shoved in this contraption. Thank heavens for my great-grandkids who decorated it. Cuties come every Friday afternoon.”
“It’s stunning,” I said, feeling Connie shine her warmth on me.
“My mind, it’s all here, I want you to know. And I’m not telling any stories or lies.” She pointed to her head, and Mack nodded.
Sensing he wanted an answer, Connie went on.
“Your grandma and I grew up in Brooklyn together. For some reason, Rose was one of the few kids in her neighborhood to attend public school, not yeshiva like the others. Other Jewish girls, I mean. Rose was always smart, and as a teen she helped with the books for your great-grandfather’s apothecary. He owned a drugstore where they would mix elixirs and creams. That was before he got into the makeup business with your grandpa, Harold, as you know. Anyway, she and I went to grade school together and became fast friends. We stayed friends all through school. I’d go to Rose’s and eat chicken soup and salami sandwiches, and she’d come to mine and sneak food that wasn’t kosher. We developed recipes together. Always at my house.”
“The soup!” I couldn’t help myself.
“Yes, the soup. Jimmy loved our soup…”
A tear sprung out of my eye, and I blinked it back.
“We were the best of friends until everything went south with Jimmy. Max, your great-grandpa, blamed me. He said my friendship was bad for Rose, yelled at your mom over the public-school decision, and was convinced it was me influencing Ruth to meet a shegetz. I’d never use that word, ever. I knew it meant a non-Jew, and wasn’t nice to use, but he did anyway, repeatedly, at the top of his lungs. Those words cut me. And worse, he forbid Rose to see me. Obviously, Jimmy was ousted, and one hundred percent not allowed anywhere near Rose. To insure he was out of your grandma’s life, they sent her away.”
Mack sucked in a breath. “I never knew any of this. How is this possible? This all happened after they were spotted on some park bench? I never knew, and Milly…she carried this around all her life?”
Connie nodded. “It was a terrible time. At first, Rose thought she could let sleeping dogs lie and her dad would forget she’d been seen with Jimmy. But only a few days after it happened, she was gone. Poor thing was only eighteen when they exiled her.”
“Do you need a break?” I felt compelled to ask Mack without looking at him. From his profile, I could see his brow go back to being furrowed and his eyes scrunching.
“No. Please go on, Connie.”
“They sent Rose to Philadelphia to live with an aunt and married her off to Harold before bringing both back and working poor Harold to the bone. Harold was a smart one and had connections to build the business. It was all arranged through a matchmaker.”
I saw Mack shaking his head. “I’m sorry.” He uttered the same sentiment he’d said to me several times. “You lost a good friend, and my family acted in a way…not a very nice way, let’s say. I can’t believe this happened. I’m not insinuating you’re making it up, but Milly never spoke of it. My dad never mentioned it. I don’t even know if he knew…”
“It was the way the world was then. Part of me empathized with your great-grandparents after I had my own children. They’d seen the Holocaust and were so worried their culture and customs would be annihilated. But here’s the thing about Jimmy, he would have agreed to anything for Rose.”
“I get that it was a different time, but it’s so far from how Milly was. Despite all this happening to her, she believed in romance. My dad made a mess of his own life and Milly still hoped for me to love whoever I was meant to do that with…”
“You see, Rose had just turned seventeen when she met Jimmy. It was a chance meeting and the two of them made it a point to sneak off as much as they could. When they were spotted, Max was so swift in his ending it all and shipping Rose off. But Jimmy, he hoped she’d come back and they could run off. They always believed in everlasting love, but then she returned with Harold. Poor Jimmy watched the couple from afar, and then your dad was born. That’s when Jimmy left. He met a nice girl from right where we are in Astoria. Your grandmother,” Connie said, nodding at me.
“They moved to Long Island after they were married,” I filled in.
“Of course. I know, sweetie. I kept in touch with Jimmy and Sally a little. Every so often they would come back to Brooklyn to see Jimmy’s parents and I would run into them. Sally had been a secretary at one of the businesses Jimmy called on. Together, they opened a furniture supply store on Long Island. She kept the books, and Jimmy called on the accounts.”
“It’s still in the family. My dad ran it, and now a cousin on my mom’s side is in charge. My sister and I didn’t want to work there.” I felt a tug in my heart. Maybe I should have taken on the family business and not gotten caught up with Jeremy and his grand promises.
Connie filled in the silence. “My husband, Tony, may he rest in peace, never knew Rose or Harold or about Jimmy. I kept it to myself. Tony was an accountant, a good man and dedicated father, but he wasn’t one for gossip or stories. We had five kids, and my daughter, Iris, lives here in Queens. That’s how I came to be here.”
I noticed Connie’s nails were painted and thought her family must take good care of her. Manicures, wheelchair decorations, and balloons—this woman was loved and adored.
“Your grandma would write me letters. That’s how I knew a lot, Mackenzie. She started to write in secret after she and Harold were married, and continued until around the time she passed. She’d send mail, but we never saw one another in person. I think she lived with the fear of losing me again.”
“I-I…” Mack stuttered, and I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. The staunchest of men had been rendered speechless. “These letters…she seemed to write everyone but me. Only one, when she died.”
“She loved to write. She practiced her handwriting nonstop in middle school—”
“She insisted I learn cursive,” Mack interrupted.
“She told me,” Connie said with a smile. “In one of her letters. In the beginning, she didn’t write too many details. Your dad was a fussy baby, and she was devastated to be pushed to the fringes of Silky as it expanded. But as your dad grew up and settled, and then Susie was born, she wrote more in-depth. It was her outlet. She never said as much, but I could tell. I was the link to a part of her life she’d never have. Keeping me on the fringes, yet still involved, was her sliver of love and freedom. ‘My Dearest Constance, my lifelong friend’ is how she would start every letter.”
“Do you have them?” I couldn’t help but blurt out.
Connie shook her head. “She said at the end of every letter to rip it up and toss it. She always worried Tony would see the letters and alert someone. She didn’t even know Tony but feared anyone knowing where her heart really belonged. With Jimmy. To my knowledge, Harold never knew about Jimmy. It was part of the agreement with the matchmaker. Find a boy from somewhere else who doesn’t know about the shame Rose brought to the family.” Connie tsked. “She lived with such a burden.”
“I’m so glad she had you for all those years. It sounds like it was really meaningful to Rose, and was an outlet she needed.” I tried to comfort Connie as my heart ached for a woman I never met. “How could she love a man as long as she had and never get to hold his hand ever again?”
Connie looked at me with softened eyes. “Rose never was the same when they tore her away from Jimmy. Losing me was hard too, but she found a way to know me and my family through the letters. Her dad always had an eye on Rose after Jimmy. Calling, checking. And when he passed, Rose was so used to living her life in fear of someone knowing her sin. Sadly, she never really loved Harold, but she believed divulging the truth would bring a bad omen on her family.”
“I’m not sure we didn’t have one anyway…a bad omen.” Mack tried to crack a laugh.
“Psssh.” Connie waved her pudgy hand at him. “I know all about your dad and his mistakes. Rose said it was her fault because she didn’t love Jake enough in the beginning. From what I gather, she had a hard time attaching, especially with his fussiness and heart being so messed up. But that wasn’t it. She took care of Jake and later was very supportive and close to him. Harold was a firm one. Work, work, and prayer were his lifelines. He didn’t help Jake in the ‘learning how to form a relationship’ department, and Samantha was Jewish, which was all he cared about. He’d promised Max. Rose poured this all out in a letter around the time your dad proposed to Samantha. When your mom left, Rose wasn’t surprised.”
“My grandmother told me to find my person and hold on to them. In a letter, of course.”
“Well, that’s what you should do, honey. Maybe here with this sweet little Frances.” Connie’s gaze ping-ponged between the two of us.
“Not us,” I said first, and Connie raised an eyebrow over her glasses.
Mack didn’t interject.
I filled the pregnant pause. “My Paps talked about his Rosie, especially as he got older. He never forgot her.”
“That was Jimmy, the most caring man you ever met. He loved your grandma too. That’s how big his heart was. I guess not as much as Rose, but his feelings were genuine.”
A nurse came in and interrupted. “Connie, I’m sorry but you have PT.”
I was grateful for the respite. My heart was aching in a way I didn’t know possible.
“Listen, come back,” Connie said, reaching forward and taking my hand.
“Can we?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have the recipe for mishy-mashy soup?” My mind was working overtime. I’d found a connection to my Paps.
“I sure do! Come back and we’ll make it. That man, the one who called me?” Connie looked at Mack.
“Corey,” Mack offered.
“Have him call again, and I can give him the ingredients for you to bring.”
“Will do. Thank you.” Mack leaned over and gave Connie a hug, his cheek lingering next to hers. I sensed he was having an emotional moment, and I let him have it.
Some strange concoction of sadness, despair, and confusion swept over me. I’d found a connection to my Paps—wasn’t that what I wished for? Yes, but did that mean my time with Mack was coming to an end?
Wasn’t that also what I wanted?
I gave Connie an equally long hug as Mack’s and whispered “Thank you” in her ear.
She squeezed my side.
“I can’t believe it,” I said to Mack after Connie was wheeled away. “They loved one another all their lives and never got to be together.” Wistfulness blanketed my words.
“And my family never knew…”
“She was protecting you, in her mind. It seems like she felt nothing good ever came out of people knowing. She lost Jimmy. And Connie, for a while. And lost the ability to love.”
Mack frowned as we made our way out of the building. “I come from a loveless place. Now everything makes sense. My inability to love…”
While I was thrilled to get some information, I started to see how this visit wasn’t positive for Mack. He wasn’t himself in the car either, not mentioning the celebratory dinner he’d spoken about the day before.
Pulling up in front of my building, he looked up. “No way Corey isn’t inviting himself to make soup with us,” he said laughing, clearly trying to break the moment.
“No way! He will be there,” I agreed, wondering if I should get out or wait for Alex.
“Get you at four? I want to go see something before dinner.”
“Oh,” was all I could say.
“Great!”
Walking into my apartment, I had no idea what he’d planned or what I should wear, and I didn’t care. That was Mack to me. My I don’t care as long as I am with him…
And I was in trouble.