The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter (A Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Book 1) by Joan Cochran (popular books of all time .txt) 📗

I rise and open the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. “I’m going for a walk. If you ever gave a damn about me, you’ll be gone when I return.” I slam the door behind me and leave the garage open for his departure.

As I roam the deserted streets of our neighborhood, my sobs fade. I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. If I should have stayed and talked it out. But my grief and anger are too raw. All I’ll do if I go back is lash out at him. Memories of my parents’ fights flash across my mind. My mother screaming at my father, then running to their room to cry. She invariably took Dad back. I hated her for it and refuse to turn into the doormat she became.

When I return home a half hour later, Daniel’s car is gone. I race upstairs. Trousers and shirts are missing from his side of the closet. I stare at the gap in the shelf that held his suitcase. It mirrors the hollowness in my chest.

I’m not much of a drinker. But I can’t think of anything else that will ease the pain. I go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine. Then another. And one more. In an hour, I’m so woozy I have to hold on to the walls as I stumble down the hall to the family room. I’m planning to watch television, hoping it’ll distract me, but the photo album from our family vacation in Yellowstone draws my attention. I pull it off the cocktail table onto my lap and flip through photos.

The first picture is of Daniel and me on horseback. We’re smiling and waving. Daniel looks silly in a floppy, wide-brimmed hat. In the next, Daniel and the boys smile over their shoulders as they walk toward a bison at the edge of the road. In the third photo, taken by a waiter at the Old Faithful Lodge, Daniel drapes an arm over my shoulders as the boys lean into the picture. We look like such a happy, normal family.

What went wrong? When did he decide it was okay to break the rules of our life together? Everything was going so well. Josh and Gabriel were away at college. My father and I had resolved our differences. And Daniel and I were planning a week’s vacation in Montreal. The photos make my loss feel worse. At six o’clock, I return the album to the cocktail table, then go upstairs and change into pajamas. Our king-sized bed looms large and empty. I pull the covers up to my neck and realize it’s the first time in almost thirty years that I’ve slept alone.

I hate it.

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3

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A week later, as I drive south on I-95 to pick up my father for dinner, I consider lying about Daniel’s and my separation. But it’s pointless. This will be the first time in months I’ve come without my husband and Tootsie will know something’s wrong. Better to get it over with.

“So where’s the doc?” my father says as he opens the car door. “Get called away for an emergency?”

“Daniel and I aren’t talking.”

My father slides into the seat next to me and cocks his head. “What happened? The two of you never fight.”

The old man’s not far off base. We rarely argued. I always assumed it was because we got along so well. But maybe we communicated so poorly we never had a reason to fight?

“I threw Daniel out. He was cheating.”

My father, who’s been fiddling with his seat belt, jerks his head up. “What?”

“Daniel’s screwing his nurse.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” My father shakes his head, then laughs. “I’m sorry, Doll. I can’t see Daniel . . . How’d you find out?”

“A phone call from his office manager. And he admitted it.”

“Jeeze. Is it still going on?”

“He says no.”

“And this is the first time he’s cheated?”

“As far as I know.”

“If it’s just this once . . .” He’s silent a moment. “Maybe you should let it go. It’s not such a big deal.”

I pull away from his building and drive through the Schmuel Bernstein’s gate a bit faster than usual. My face grows hot and blood throbs through a vein in my neck. It creates an irritating tic near my Adam’s apple. So much for sympathy from my father.

“He cheated on me. What am I supposed to do? Say okay. Let’s get on with it?”

“You’re married, what, thirty years and this is the first time he’s cheated? There’s nothing wrong with forgiving and forgetting.”

“That might’ve worked for you and Mom.” I glare across the seat at him. “But not me.”

“Honey—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know but—”

“I said forget it. Let’s go to Wolfie’s. And talk about something else.”

Driving back from dinner, the thermometer on a bank marquee along Biscayne Boulevard flashes ninety degrees but my father insists we hang out on the front porch of his apartment building. The evening air is thick and steamy. But Tootsie’s always cold so I’m out here with the alter cockers, the old folks, and my hair is plastered to my scalp with sweat. I glance at the porch’s dozen or so elderly occupants, who sit in two symmetrically-spaced rows of wheelchairs and lawn furniture facing onto the black-topped parking lot. When we first sat down, my father pointed out a man who owned the Italian bistro near our house. It’s hard to envision the old guy with purple-bruised arms and loose-skinned neck as the dark-haired, handsome restaurateur who greeted us at Angelo’s. Most of the residents chat quietly or read magazines. No one else seems bothered by the heat. In fact, a few wear cardigans and lap robes.

We’re fully engaged in digesting our pastramis on rye when an elderly woman comes trundling toward us with her walker. Her cheeks are cavernous hollows in a long narrow face, and her wispy