"Like yesterday morning?"
"You were here yesterday? My mother—"
He grinned. "Sure, I was here. But I saw a car in the driveway and drove on."
"But why couldn't you—"
Akiva put his hands on hers. "Do you mind. Leah? Does it bother you? Because it does something nice for me. It makes me feel that I'm home."
"You mean here in this house?"
"No, I mean where you are, wherever you happen to be."
Rose Aptaker wondered, of course, but after her experience the last time he came home, she was careful not to question him, he might resent it as an invasion of his privacy.
She did question him, however, when she saw him reciting his prayers in the morning. "Don't you go to the minyan in the temple anymore?"
"Well, in the morning I'd rather have the extra sleep and in the evening I'm usually at the store." His real reason was that Leah's father was sure to be there, and he was embarrassed at seeing the father while he was intimate with the daughter.
Akiva did not discuss the future with Leah, what his plans were or her place in them. But after the first week, he said with disarming casualness. "I told my mother about us."
"Oh? And what did she say?"
"She wanted to know if you were a nice girl, what she would ca'l a nice girl."
"And what did you say?"
He grinned. "I told her you were a slut who had got her hooks into me and was pressing me to marry her and that I couldn't see any way out."
"M-hm. Did you tell her about Jackie?" Leah asked.
"I did, she was naturally ecstatic at this proof of your fertility—"
"Seriously," she pleaded.
Akiva sobered immediately. "All right, seriously then. My mother didn't actually throw a fit, probably because she's so involved with my father right now, but she was —er—"
"Upset? Disappointed?"
"All of that and then some," Akiva said.
"Because of Jackie?"
"And your being divorced didn't help any. You've got to understand, Leah, that—"
"Oh, I understand,” she said bitterlv. "Mv mother would react the same way if the situation were reversed."
"Well, she'll get over it," Akiva said philosophically.
"Will she?"
"Of course she will, she'll have to."
"Maybe if you had waited." Leah suggested. "It's been such a short time."
"You wait until you're sure. I'm sure now, aren't you?" "Yes, but.., are you going to tell your father?" she asked.
"My mother will probably tell him," he said, smiling faintly. "She was on her way to the hospital when I sprang it on her, maybe the old man will take it better."
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It was Marcus Aptaker's first day out of bed. It was demonstrable progress, and he was naturally euphoric.
"Oh, you're sitting up, Marcus," Rose greeted him. "Did the doctor say you could?"
"For meals and a little while afterward," he said with smug satisfaction. "Tomorrow for a little longer, and in a couple of days I'll be allowed to walk around the bed. I could be out of here in a week, but of course I'll be confined to the house for a while."
"That's nice, Marcus."
Her reaction seemed to lack the warmth and enthusiasm he expected. In fact, as he studied her, she appeared unusually subdued. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Wrong? Of course not."
"Tell me, Rose. What's happened? Did something happen at the store?"
"That's all you ever think of is the store." "Then there is something wrong, arnold?"
She could not contain herself any longer. "Oh Marcus, he's seeing a girl,” she announced tragically.
"So?"
"But it's serious, he wants to get married."
"Well, that's normal, he's twenty-eight. It's time he got married, maybe the responsibility will settle him."
"Oh, it will settle him all right," she said bitterly. "She has a child, a five-year-old boy."
"A widow?" he asked cautiously. "Worse, Marcus. Divorced!" "I see, an older woman maybe?"
"No," she admitted. "She must be Arnold's age, she went to high school with him."
"So she's from Barnard's Crossing. Do we know her?" he asked.
She delivered the clincher. "She's Kaplan's daughter."
"Kaplan?"
"The president of the temple who wrote you the letter."
"Then at least we know she's from a good family," he said reasonably. "I don't know him personally, but the chances are they wouldn't make a man president of a synagogue if he weren't a decent person."
"It doesn't bother you? Here you're in the hospital because of him, and it doesn't bother you that your son wants to marry his daughter?"
"You'd like me to be bothered. Rose?" he asked quizzically. "He wrote the letter because the board of directors voted it. I'm sure it was nothing personal. How could it be when he doesn't even know me?"
"And that the girl is divorced and has a son?" she persisted, he shook his head sadly. "It's not like it used to be, Rose.
Nowadays, it doesn't mean anything. Half the marriages end in divorce. Your own sister's daughter got divorced, and she has two kids."
"But she's a nice girl and her husband was impossible."
"So maybe this girl is a nice girl, and maybe her husband was impossible."
"If she were a nice girl, she wouldn't agree to marry him after just a week."
He shrugged his shoulders. "That's the way young people are these days. Once they make up their minds, they go ahead. Who knows? Maybe it's better that way. Your niece went around for over a year before she even announced her engagement, and then after the two kids, she decided he was impossible. So you can make a mistake even if you wait."
"But—"
"When Arnold comes here tonight, I'll talk to him," her husband said. "I'll ask him about the girl, about her child, what his plans are. If I like what I hear, I'll try to help him."
"What do you mean you'll help him?"
"If he's serious, if he wants to settle down. I'll work out some arrangement for him to take over the store."
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Chief Lanigan's problem of how to meet with Ross McLane was settled by a rookie patrolman, the newest recruit to the force. It was the young officer's first day in uniform, and he was burning with zeal for law and order, when he spotted McLane's car parked outside the drugstore and issued a parking ticket. McLane came rampaging into the police station later that afternoon and shook the ticket under Chief Lanigan's nose. "Now look here. Chief. I always put my car in the parking lot, but some salesman took my usual place, and when he pulled out I was busy in the store and I didn't have a chance to move it."
Lanigan took the ticket, noted the officer's name on the bottom and smiled. "Come on in, and we'll talk about it." He turned and led the way to his office. When they were seated, the chief explained, "It's a new man, and naturally he's conscientious, actually, we haven't issued a ticket in that area for months. Normally, we don't except during the summer months when traffic is heavy there and cars go scooting by at high speed."
"Well, how about this ticket?" McLane demanded.
"Oh, I guess we can arrange so you won't have to pay the two bucks. Tell me, what do you hear of Marcus? How's he getting along?"
"All right. I was up to see him the other day and he was out of bed and sitting in an armchair. Looked pretty good, too."
"That's fine. How are you managing at the store?"
"Not bad now that Arnold is here," McLane said. "I'm working the same hours I did when Marcus was there. But that first week, when I was all alone, it was murder. I'd get to the store at nine and work till ten at night. Of course, Mrs. aptaker would open, and lots of times it wasn't too busy and I'd go out and take a breather for fifteen, twenty minutes, but—"
"Marcus was lucky he had you there. Lots of men wouldn't have stood it," said Lanigan.