Evelyn had never slapped anyone, but she considered it then. “Fun?” she spat. “You think it’s been fun having to hide the person I love from my family? Especially when I’m in school and can’t even see him without lying when I come home?”
“You know what I mean.”
“And if you can’t tell that that isn’t what this is, then you don’t know me.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No, you fathead!”
“I had to ask.” Bernie softened. “Ev—you’re a good kid. And I suppose I love you best out of all the girls. Which is why I’m going to tell you the truth right now. You can’t marry him. You were never going to be able to marry him.”
Evelyn scowled. “You just watch me.” She stormed back into the cottage and went straight to the phone. Six-year-old Connie raised the alarm, calling for her siblings to make “the phone noise” with her, but Evelyn ignored them and dialed Tony’s number.
The children screamed, making it impossible for her to hear if anyone had even answered the phone.
“It’s Evelyn,” she yelled into the receiver. “You tell Tony they won’t let me out, but I’ll find a way yet.” And with no chance of hearing a reply, she replaced the receiver, swatting at the child nearest her before climbing the stairs.
She tried to sneak out in the night, determined to hitch a ride or, failing that, walk the five miles to town in the dark. She leaned out the window, looking for any purchase that would prevent her from hitting the gravel below too hard, but found none. Had she been in a room at the front of the house, she could have climbed down onto the porch, but she wasn’t. And a broken ankle would rob her of any chance of getting to Tony for months.
She’d have to go out the front door.
Walking along the side of the hallway, avoiding the creaky middle floorboards, she tiptoed to the stairs. As long as she went slowly, she could be silent. She took a step down. Then another. Skipped over the fifth step entirely because it groaned at any weight. Another step. One more. Almost there now. Just three more.
“Go back to bed, Evelyn,” Miriam said from the darkness of the living room.
Evelyn froze.
“Now.”
Instead, Evelyn walked down the remaining steps. In the moonlight that came through the living room window, she saw her mother on the sofa, which she had made up into a makeshift bed, knowing what Evelyn was going to do before she did.
And Evelyn understood that the battle she needed to win was in front of her, not snoring loudly in the downstairs bedroom.
Steeling herself, she went in and knelt on the floor at her mother’s side. “Mama, you have to listen to me.”
Miriam said nothing, so Evelyn continued.
“I didn’t fall in love with him on purpose. But it’s done now. And he’s good, Mama. He’s a good man. So much better than me. The first time I saw him, he was dragging his brother, who had stolen something, into Papa’s store to make him return it and to pay. That’s who he is. He does the right thing every time. You can’t hate someone who does the right thing. And he makes me do the right thing. He makes me want to be good like him. Isn’t that what you always want me to be?”
Miriam still didn’t reply.
“Mama, I know it’s not what you wanted, and I know it’s not how you were raised, but it’s different now. The old ways—they don’t matter as much anymore.” Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and, seeing Miriam’s posture stiffen, she changed tactics. “Besides, our children would be Jewish because I am. Isn’t that the most important thing, anyway? Who cares if he doesn’t come to temple a couple of times a year?”
Evelyn took her mother’s hand. “Mama, please.”
Something in Miriam’s face changed. For a moment, she wasn’t Evelyn’s fifty-seven-year-old mother. Her eyes were fixed on a spot behind her daughter as her face softened at a memory before contorting in an unspoken grief. Miriam rose and walked to the window; Evelyn felt her hopes rise. She was considering it!
But when she turned back to face her daughter, she was shaking her head. “No. And if you leave this house to go to him, you’d better be sure he’ll have you. Because you will be dead to this family.” She took her pillow and blanket from the sofa and went to the bedroom at the back of the house.
Evelyn slumped to the floor and wept.
CHAPTER FORTY
Joe and I got pizza from the café next to the Inn and ate it at a table outside, shaded by a red-and-white-striped umbrella. I put a hand giddily to my cheek. “I still can’t believe I did that.”