Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(88)

“No. I don’t want to be a rabbi’s wife any more than you want to be a rabbi.”

He reached over and took my hand in his. “I don’t have to finish. It just gives us time.”

I took my hand back. “What if I’m never ready to get married?”

The look in his eyes broke what was left of my heart.

But he pressed on anyway. “Then we break up when you decide. And I’ll take the blame with both families.”

“No.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I took his hand, silencing him. “If it comes to that, I’ll take the blame.”

His eyes widened. “Do you mean—?”

I nodded, defeated. I couldn’t see a scenario in which he changed so much that he asked me to forfeit my writing. And the idea of a long engagement, while difficult to manage with our families, allowed us the freedom to figure out what our lives would look like if we did follow through.

But the corners of Dan’s mouth turned down. “No. Not if you look like that saying yes.”

I moved over until I was sitting on his lap. “Daniel Schwartz, there is no one else on this earth whom I would consider marrying. Now propose to me properly so we can actually see each other and decide what we want to do.”

He pulled my face in and kissed me. “It’s hard to do it properly when you’re sitting on my knee.”

I laughed for the first time since my parents arrived in Avalon. “I suppose we should make a show of it, for my parents. And yours.”

“I don’t care about them. I care about you.” He nudged me and I stood, while he slid off the sofa and knelt in front of me. “Marilyn Kleinman, will you pretend to consent to marry me to appease our parents?”

My eyes narrowed. “Not even engaged yet and the romance is gone.”

He rose, wrapping me in his arms. “Believe me, we’re just getting started.” His face moved closer to mine.

“Yes,” I said. “I can’t promise more than that, but yes.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE


I slept fitfully that night. I wasn’t sure I was up for years of pretending. But the engagement, however real or unreal it was, would allow us to see each other. And after losing Ada, the idea of also losing Dan was too much to bear.

Dan was to come the following afternoon. We debated whether he should ask my father first but agreed that he had already secured his approval once and a surprise was better for our purposes. I asked if he was going to tell his parents before he came, but he said no. They would insist on coming with him if he did.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, my father buried in his newspaper, my mother trying to make conversation and receiving one-word answers from both of us until I retreated upstairs to write. I had been admonished the previous afternoon for the sound of typing coming from my room and wound up writing late into the night after my parents went to bed, tiptoeing past their room with my typewriter to the kitchen downstairs, where they wouldn’t hear me. There were maybe two or three chapters left to go, but my characters weren’t quite behaving and didn’t seem to want to leave the world of their novel behind.

Just before lunch, my mother knocked on my door. “I hate to interrupt, but I want more,” she said.

“You finished already?”

“I did. What’s next?”

I nodded to the stack of new chapters next to me. She returned the others and took the new pages. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.

I turned toward her. “Mama?” She looked back. “Is it any good?”

“This is what you were meant to do,” she said, crossing to caress my hair. “I’m so proud of you.”

I couldn’t quite reply around the lump in my throat. And as much as I wanted to be back with Ada, I understood that she had been right. I would care if I walked away from my family with no avenue back.





I couldn’t focus after lunch. Instead, I sat watching the clock on my nightstand tick closer and closer to Dan’s arrival.

Finally, exactly at the stroke of two, there was a knock at the door. Showtime, I thought, leaving the sanctuary of my room. I came down the stairs, just as Grace asked Dan to come inside. He winked at me, and I offered a tight smile in return.

My father came out of his study, then looked from Dan to me, and I could see the wheels turning in his head at our combined absence from synagogue the previous day. “What’s this about?” he asked as my mother came in from the kitchen.

“Don’t be rude, Daddy. Invite him in for heaven’s sake.”

He started to sputter, but Mama put a hand on his arm. “Won’t you come in, Daniel?” She gestured toward the living room. The two of us sat on the sofa, my parents in the chairs opposite us.

“Dr. Kleinman,” Dan began. “I’m here today to ask for your blessing.”

He looked at Dan warily from the corner of his eye. “I gave it to you in June, but Marilyn refused you.”

Dan nodded. “I asked her again yesterday, and she said yes.”

My parents’ mouths dropped open in unison and for a split second, they sat there like gaping fish. I could practically hear Ada saying they’d catch flies like that. Then they were on their feet, hugging each other, the two of us, Daddy clapping Dan on the back and calling him son.