The Three Weissmanns of Westport

Shpuntov had changed his name to Sherwood many years ago, on October 24, 1929, to be exact, Black Thursday. He was eighteen years old on that day, and fearing the Jews would be blamed for a stock-market crash as they were blamed for every other disaster, Shpuntov looked into the future and saw himself as Sherwood.

But as Sherwood ne Shpuntov got older and began to forget more and more, one of the things he remembered perfectly was his old name. He had stopped responding to Sherwood about a year before. He disliked younger people calling him Izzy, thinking it impertinent, and as there was never anyone present who wasn't younger than his ninety-eight years, he prevailed. Shpuntov he had been, and Shpuntov he became.

Mr. Shpuntov was seated between Betty and his son-in-law, Lou. His daughter, her hair coaxed into its stiff, elaborate swoops and valleys, sat across from him.

'My father and I were just marveling at the farmers' market phenomenon here in Westport,' Rosalyn was saying to a woman sitting beside her.

'That man has a terrible comb-over,' Mr. Shpuntov said loudly to Cousin Lou, pointing his chin at his daughter. 'Comb-overs... never liked 'em myself.'

'That's Rosalyn, Mr. Shpuntov,' Cousin Lou whispered nervously.

'Dad has a theory about farmers' markets,' Rosalyn continued, in a louder, determined voice. 'Don't you, Dad?'

'He looks ridiculous,' Mr. Shpuntov said, glaring at his daughter.

Rosalyn glared back.

'I would like to make a toast,' she said suddenly. She stood up. 'To my father, who has come to live in our house. We hope to make his waning years happy and comfortable.' She bowed to Mr. Shpuntov. 'To your waning years!'

'What's he say?' Mr. Shpuntov asked.

'Hear, hear,' said Cousin Lou quickly, at top volume. 'Hear, hear!'

Hear hear's echoed down the table, drowning out Mr. Shpuntov.

Waning years, thought Betty. Oh dear. I don't like the sound of that. Poor fellow. 'Never mind,' she said to the old man. 'You're as old as you feel.'

'Why is that old woman talking to me?' Mr. Shpuntov said to Cousin Lou. 'I'm as deaf as a post.'

It was Lou who had insisted on taking his father-in-law into the house. The old man had been living with his girlfriend, a younger woman of eighty-two. But she had died suddenly of an aneurism, leaving Mr. Shpuntov and three unruly dogs in an apartment in Queens. Rosalyn suggested a home, and Lou assumed she meant their own. When she realized his mistake, it was already too late: the arrangements were much too far along and, more important, much too public to countermand. Mr. Shpuntov moved into the big house in Westport and was assigned a bedroom and an attendant. (The dogs, thank God, had been taken in by the deceased girlfriend's son — there had to be some limits, after all. Though, with regard to Lou and his hospitality, Rosalyn had yet to discover what they were.) And so a permanent place was set for the old man at Lou's long table. Rosalyn attributed opinions and bons mots to him, and he, increasingly petulant, wondered aloud why the skinny old man with the comb-over kept badgering him.

'Beautiful baby,' Lou had begun singing, winking at Miranda.

Miranda was sitting next to Kit, the beautiful baby in question. At the other end of the table was the pensive Roberts in a sprightly yellow bow tie. Lou now made some comment about September and May and romances in those lovely but different months. He seemed to amuse himself by casting Kit and Roberts against each other as rivals for Miranda's affection. Annie thought her cousin was remarkably indelicate on this matter. Still, she could understand where he got the idea — her sister was so beautiful, so lively these days. Annie's heart went out to Roberts. He caught her glance, and his mouth twitched into a slight, tentative smile.

More and more, she'd found herself engaging Roberts in conversation, as if it were her duty to compensate somehow, to provide some small diversion for the spurned lover by offering him her less glamorous attention. He was, indeed, difficult to talk to at first, shyly answering questions with monosyllables that made any continuation of conversation on that topic almost impossible. But as she spent more time with him, Annie observed that he grew more comfortable, and as he grew more comfortable, Roberts grew interesting and surprisingly amusing.

'How come people call you by your last name?' Annie asked him. 'Why does everyone just call you Roberts?'

He smiled modestly. 'It's kind of a rock-star thing.'

The weeks passed and the days began receding, becoming shorter and darker, drawing themselves in, curling in on themselves like sleeping animals. Crows dozed among the turning leaves. Fatter and fatter credit card bills arrived in the Wisemen mailbox, but still Betty and Josie had not ironed out the wrinkles in their separation, still Annie heard nothing from Frederick Barrow, and still Kit spent almost every day, and evening, with Miranda.

Kit joined Miranda on her morning walks, with Henry, sleeping or singing or whining from an olive-green backpack, coming along for the ride. They walked slowly and watched the sky expand into the silver light, and they talked.

After the initial days of questioning Miranda, Kit had begun at last, as expected, to talk about himself. Miranda dutifully prepared herself to listen, as she always listened to everyone, waiting for the confidences she knew would come.

But instead of describing sexual abuse at boarding school or stepfathers who beat him or a sordid struggle with crack cocaine, Kit talked about his happy boyhood in Maine, the walks through the woods digging up rare wildflowers with his parents and brothers and sisters; the evenings on the rocky beach splashing and digging for clams in the frigid water. The picture of this group of beautiful human beings — for surely they all looked like Kit — plunging headlong through the verdant Maine woods beneath the cheerful songs of warblers or standing windblown knee-deep in the surf made Miranda long to be in Maine herself. The smell of the pines. The breeze hurrying the bright white clouds through the infinite blue of the sky. It was true that Miranda could smell pines perfectly well right where she was, and that the breeze was hurrying just the kind of bright clouds through exactly the infinite blue sky she imagined right there on Compo Beach, which was probably what made her think of pines and clouds and infinity in the first place, but still she longed for Maine, the land of Alex Katz and E. B. White.

'I thought lobster at a bar mitzvah was totally normal...' Kit was saying.

Miranda smiled at him. She looked at Henry, asleep at the moment, his pink mouth pressed into his father's shoulder. She listened intently to Kit, not hearing him. What a luxury his stories were, like a vacation. No tortured memoir here, no Lite Victory. Just tender reminiscence. She had never seen eyes like Kit's, she thought. His best friend, Seth, he was saying. His words passed over her like a silky breeze. Bright, pale gray eyes as deep and translucent as air — look at them — the lashes thick and dark, above and below, like a horse's lashes. His eyes were as dramatic as the eyes of a silent-film star. Oh, she could go on and on about Kit's eyes. At Seth's bar mitzvah, Kit said. Bar mitzvah, Miranda thought, trying to pay attention. Seth's bar mitzvah. She was probably the same age as Seth's parents. But surely she was better preserved than Seth's parents, whom she envisioned as a weathered couple in matching track shoes and kelly green fleece jackets.Appetizers of oysters and chopped liver, said Kit.

Henry woke up, and Kit put him down on the sand. Miranda and Kit stood together and watched Henry dig a hole. It seemed to Miranda that this must be the most beautiful time of the year, the air cool, the light soft and clean.

But I'm too old, she thought, and Kit's too young.

Then Kit took her hand and put it to his lips.

Now, Kit's parents, of course, were older, she remembered, definitely older than she was, Kit very presciently being the youngest of four children, each three years apart. And how well they all got along, the three of them, she and Kit and Henry.

Miranda dropped suddenly down on one knee and patted some sand into a pile. 'Castle,' she said.

Henry nodded vigorously. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'Castle.'

Miranda wondered what life would be like with this small, busy person at her side, day in and day out, waking her in the middle of the night with a bad dream and a soggy diaper, banging a gummy spoon on the kitchen table, crying in wild, piercing simian shrieks in the grocery store while grabbing at boxes of cereal. When Henry cried, his face crumpled so immediately, so completely. He was not crying now, though she was sure he soon would be, and for some reason she could never have anticipated — an ice-cream cone dropped yesterday, suddenly recalled; a filthy cigarette butt found in the sand and confiscated; the sand itself, suddenly deemed itchy and hostile; the wind,