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

them years ago. A few were at our sons’ bar mitzvahs. With a pang of sorrow, I recall how proud Daniel and I were as we watched our boys read from the Torah, of how united we felt in our love for each other and our sons. Why are those couples together when we aren’t? Do the men still find their wives desirable? I feel like such a failure, such a fool. Mindy stands by the bar, watching us, a bodyguard in a frilly pink dress. She gives me a little wave and I nod back.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I tell Daniel. “I told my father what happened and he said get over it. But I can’t. It’s not as simple as you and he think.”

Daniel grabs a napkin off the table and crushes it. “I knew it would come to this.” He sounds resigned.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your parents. Your father was a lousy husband and your mother put up with it.”

“What’s that got to do with us?”

He half rises in his seat and leans in toward me. “I’m not your father.” He speaks slowly and deliberately. “I won’t treat you the way he treated your mother.” There’s pain and bitterness in his voice.

“Well, you’ve come damn close.”

Our eyes meet. And we’re both glaring.

He drops back in his seat and scrutinizes me. “If what your father did was so awful, why do you forgive him but not me?”

Daniel’s hit a raw nerve, raising a question I’ve been asking myself. I resented my father most of my life for cheating on my mother and swore I’d never put up with that kind of behavior. But here I am, spending time with a man whose indiscretions were far worse than Daniel’s.

“I haven’t forgiven him,” I say, struggling to work it out. “But he’s the only father I have and he’s getting old. I can’t change who he is. But I don’t have to put up with the same behavior from you.”

Somehow I feel stronger, verbalizing the reason I won’t take Daniel back. Perhaps I am doing what I wish my mother had done when my father cheated on her. I don’t know if that’s bad or good. All I know is Daniel cheated on me. And being around him is painful.

I sip the last of my champagne and stand. “Have a great time at Zach’s party.”

He rises but doesn’t follow me.

I leave the reception without a word to Aviva or Noah and pray they’re having too much fun to notice my absence. I helped Aviva plan the menu and the decorations and have been looking forward to this day. I feel terrible about leaving. But I can’t bear another minute in the same room as Daniel.

When I pull up to my home, I hesitate before I get out, then let myself in through the front door. The house feels larger and emptier than when I left that morning. My cat, Mulligan, races downstairs and takes a running slide across the hallway to greet me. I reach down and scratch behind his ears. At least I’m not alone. Although it’s not even noon and I’m joining my father at seven to see a play, I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of Chablis.

“L’chaim,” I say, raising the glass to Mulligan, who watches me from the kitchen table. “To life. And to the end of my lousy marriage.”

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20

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Tootsie and I are standing outside the Stage Door Theater in Fort Lauderdale, recovering from the schmaltzy Yiddisher vaudeville show that’s sent half the elderly audience into laughter and the rest into tears. We’ve just emerged from the darkened theater and everyone’s blinking in the glare of daylight and digging around in their pockets and purses for car keys. A gaggle of “mature” women in stiletto heels and velvet tracksuits file onto the bus for Harbour Villas. Two gray-haired gentlemen wait politely beside the door as they board.

Suddenly, my father grabs my arm.

“You see that?” He squeezes my elbow and propels me toward a poster advertising the show.

I look where he points, at the photograph that dominates the poster. The show’s cast is hamming it up, the women showing their ankles beneath sparkly evening gowns and the men posing like overstuffed kishke in black tuxedos. In the middle of the photo is an obese woman in a strapless, black, sequined dress that does nothing to flatter her ham hocks of upper arms.

Cynic though I am, I have to admit they put on a rousing show, belting out Yiddish songs and delivering a rapid-fire barrage of Jewish jokes. The audience laughed and sang along to the music. The theater grew quiet, though, when the heavy woman in the black sequins stepped into the spotlight and rendered an excruciatingly sentimental a cappella version of “My Yiddishe Mama.” The song’s a real tear jerker about the sacrifices a Jewish mother makes for her children. I was embarrassed to find myself damp-eyed.

Tootsie coughs, a short bark that brings me back to the photo.

“Yankel Fleishman,” he says, tapping a corner of the glass in which the poster is framed. He points to an image of the old man who came on stage before the performance to discuss the Jewish theater. He looked about ninety and spoke in such a heavy Yiddish accent that I had a hard time understanding him. “A big star when I was a kid. Like an angel, he sang,” my father says. “His voice brought tears to your eyes. I told you about Meyer Lansky?”

I nod.

“Even Lansky cried when he heard Fleishman’s ‘Yiddishe Mama.’ ”

“Is that what they wrote in Variety? Fleishman makes Lansky cry?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Then how do you know?” I say. “You went to a nightclub to hear ‘Yiddishe Mama’ with a sobbing gangster?”

“As a matter of fact, Miss Smarty-Pants, I did.”

I purse my lips, fold my arms.

“You don’t believe me?” He looks around to see if anyone’s listening. “Get in the car. I’ll tell you