When Joseph had thrown the loan in his face, Isaac had been flabbergasted. In the five years since the two men had entered into the agreement, Joseph had never once brought it up. Isaac fulfilled his end of the deal, paying the loan’s installments by check, which he deposited directly into an account Joseph had established at the Boardwalk National Bank for that purpose. And in return, Joseph acted as if the loan didn’t exist at all.
His father-in-law’s discretion was appreciated but didn’t help Isaac feel any less indebted to him. The loan was always there between them, the same way his own father had been permanently shackled to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Isaac hated feeling beholden to anyone, and these days, he felt beholden to everyone—even Dr. Rosenthal, who had accepted Isaac’s confession the night of Hyram’s birth and, miraculously, done nothing with the information.
An elderly couple pushed open the hospital’s heavy door, and Isaac held it for them as they moved outside. The man gripped the woman’s hand, and Isaac watched as he helped her down the steps, one at a time. While the door was still open, two young women in jewel-toned dresses skipped up the stairs and past him. One of them carried a yellow balloon that read IT’S A GIRL! in fancy script, and the other called out a quick thanks to him over her shoulder. Isaac, mesmerized by the swishing of their skirts, followed them across the lobby and up the stairs to the maternity ward, where he watched as they swooped into a room a few doors down from Fannie’s.
Isaac forced himself to slow down, to consider what he would do when he arrived at his wife’s room. He had pictured telling Fannie this secret ever since the night Esther had called him with the news. He imagined sitting beside her hospital bed, holding both of her hands in his, and saying what? That was always the part that got him—how to say it. Fannie, your sister drowned. No. Fannie, your sister drowned in early June. No, no, no. While Isaac didn’t necessarily believe that the news would send Fannie into an early labor, he had come to think that a healthy baby, already safely delivered into her arms, might make the telling easier.
On his walk over to the hospital, Isaac had tried to catalog the possible repercussions of telling Fannie the truth. All matters of health and well-being aside, what was on the line? It was possible that Joseph might demand repayment of the loan, even fire him, although both moves would be hard, if not impossible, for his father-in-law to pull off without penalizing Fannie in the process. If Isaac told Fannie that Florence was dead, Esther would never forgive him, certainly. But it was not as if she liked him now. Slightly smaller servings of brisket, delivered acerbically onto his plate at Shabbos dinners, seemed like something he could live with. The reality was that Esther and Joseph would have to be careful with him, or risk alienating their only surviving daughter, their only grandchildren. If either of them made Isaac’s life uncomfortable, he’d be tempted to give up Atlantic City altogether, to move his family somewhere where they could start fresh. He pictured Fannie setting up house in a tract home in West Palm Beach. On Saturday nights, maybe they’d go out with Jim and his new wife.
Isaac had almost convinced himself that divulging the secret was the right thing to do when he rounded the corner into Fannie’s room and nearly walked straight into the wardrobe. The room was dark.
“Fannie, you in here?” he called quietly.
“I’m here.” Her voice sounded far away, but it couldn’t be farther away than the bed where he knew she was lying.
Isaac stood still, one hand on the wardrobe, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Should I cut on the light?”
“No, no. The doctor wants it like this.”
“Pitch-black?” It wasn’t pitch-black, not really. The window shade had been pulled down but there was a generous crack of light between the bottom of the shade and the windowsill. Within a few seconds, he could make out the shape of the wardrobe, the outline of Fannie’s bed, even the magazine on her bedside table. Isaac shut the door, held his hands out in front of him, and moved carefully around the bed to the chair by the window. When he had the chairback in his grip, he moved it closer to the edge of the bed and sat down, heavily. He heard the sheets rustle, Fannie move in the bed, and eventually, when his eyes were fully adjusted, he saw her face, turned toward his.
“It’s like this all day?” Isaac asked. Joseph had told him something about a new treatment regimen but he had been so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even asked about it.
“All day.”
“Why?”
“Dr. Rosenthal thinks it will help bring my blood pressure down.”
“The dark?”
“A few things.”
“Is it really that high?”
“I don’t know. Yes?”
Had their conversations always been so circular? Fannie had been in the hospital for close to two months, and it was as if, in that time, he had forgotten how to talk to her. Had he ever been any good at it? He wasn’t sure.
Isaac’s conversational skills couldn’t have been much better when he had wandered into Adler’s Bakery eight years ago.
“Can I help you?” Fannie had asked, with curiosity, as she leaned into the counter.
Isaac ordered a loaf of challah, hoping it would keep him for a meal or two, then reached into his pocket and counted out the last of his loose change. He’d been in Atlantic City for nearly a week, and if he
