“I’m an adult,” I said. “I’m not fifteen. You don’t have any legal right to make me do anything.”
“You won’t see another penny from me if you stay here,” he warned. “No clothes or makeup or frills.”
“I’m willing to bankroll her writing career,” Ada said. I looked at her in surprise. We hadn’t discussed the financial aspect of me staying. And truth be told, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was working for my room and board with her.
A triumphant look entered his eyes, and my heart sank. I knew that look. He had just won, and he knew it. I just didn’t know how yet.
“I hope you’re prepared to be both her mother and father, then. Because if she stays, we will sit shiva for both of you.”
It was the ultimate threat from a Jewish parent. A step beyond disowning. Parents could always reinstate a disowned child. Once someone sat shiva for you, you were dead to them for the rest of their life.
I looked to Ada, confident she would defuse this somehow. If anyone could, it was her. Her expression hadn’t changed, but the color drained from her cheeks. She wasn’t looking at me though—her eyes were fixed on my mother.
I followed her gaze to Mama, who looked so small and lost, like a wounded child, next to him. And looking back at Ada, I understood what she saw—the girl who had come to her in despair twenty-eight years earlier. I hadn’t been broken when I arrived—far from it. I was arrogant and far too sure of my ability to get around the chaperone my parents had selected to mend my wicked ways. But as I watched, Ada set her jaw and lifted her chin, and for a moment, I allowed myself to hope. No one had ever gotten the best of Ada Heller. She would call my father’s bluff and fix this.
Then she turned to me. “I’ll send Frannie up to help you pack,” she said. “I’m sorry it came to this.”
The world tilted upside down. “Ada—no!”
She put a firm hand on my arm. “Go on. I’ll be up soon as well.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Go on,” she repeated. “I’ll be there directly.”
I rose and ran out of the room, the tears falling before I even reached the bottom step.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
I didn’t pack. Instead, I threw myself onto my bed. They could sit shiva for me. I wasn’t going back to that house, no matter what Ada said.
I don’t know how long I wept into my pillow for what I was about to lose, but eventually the door opened, and I felt the bed shift as Ada sat on it, the familiar smell of her perfume wafting over me as she stroked my hair.
“Imagine kicking up all this fuss,” she said. “You didn’t even want to come here.”
I picked my head up. “That was before.”
“I know. But you’re no plucked flower that will wilt and die in the city. You, my girl, are a phoenix. And it may feel like the end of the world, but you will rise from the ashes into something even stronger.”
“Only if I burn the whole house down,” I said darkly.
“Then do that—metaphorically, preferably. I don’t fancy visiting you in Sing Sing. Though it would be entertaining to slip you a file in a cake.”
I smiled sadly, despite myself. I could see her doing just that. “Can’t I just stay? I don’t care if they disown me.”
“I care,” she said lightly. “Your mother cares. And you will too, someday.” She turned her head, staring off at something I couldn’t see. “My parents—well, it was the opposite, really. Papa was the supportive one. But Mother was in charge.” She took my hand in hers. “I wouldn’t do a thing differently. But I wish I’d had more time with them. And if you stayed with me, you would regret it. You don’t want to be the person who lives with that kind of regret.”
I shook my head. “If I go back, the only way out is marriage. And I don’t want that.”
“You would be happy with Dan.”
“Is that Ada the matchmaker or Ada my aunt?”
She flinched. “Touché. But it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
I sighed. “I might want to marry him someday. But I want it to be my choice.”
Ada nodded. “It’s the curse of our family, I’m afraid.”
“What is?”
“That desire for freedom. A gilded cage is still a cage. Most people don’t see the bars that hold them. You and I do.”
“And Mama?”
“Your mother—” Ada hesitated, then shook her head slightly. “She climbed into the cage of her own accord. She saw the outside world and decided against it.”
I had never seen it that way. But maybe she didn’t burn meals because she was unhappy. Maybe she burned them because she was too content to remember to check.
But that didn’t matter now. Because I still didn’t have a way out other than Ada allowing me to stay. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t make me go back there. I don’t want to leave you.”
For a moment, she said nothing, and I allowed myself to hope. Then she shook her head. “You have to go home,” she said, patting my hand. “But don’t you worry. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve yet. You really think I’m going to let Walter Kleinman get the better of me?” She rose, going to my wardrobe. “Just pack what you need for now. I’ll send the rest along later. I doubt all your things will fit in your father’s car.”
“Ada—”
“No more tears,” she said. “Don’t you know that’s the most important thing? You never let them see you cry.” She pulled out a couple of dresses and laid them across the bed. “No. You go down there with your head held high and you be an obedient daughter—as much as you know how to be, that is.” She paused, contemplating the typewriter. “And take that, of course. You’ll have plenty of time to finish your novel there. And an easier time getting it into the right hands in the city.”
“I don’t know how to finish it. This is the worst possible ending.”
She crossed to me and cupped my chin in her hand, forcing me to look at her. “This isn’t the end of anything except our summer. You hear me? You’re going to be a writer, and you don’t let your father or anyone else make you think you can’t do that.”
I swallowed thickly, then nodded. “Will I see you again?”
“You will see me again. And in the meantime, we’ll write.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “A handkerchief, darling. That”—she pointed at my hand—“is disgusting.”
I let out a hiccupping laugh through my tears. “I’m going to miss you.”
“And I you, trouble though you are.”
“You like trouble.”
“That I do. You remind me of me.” She paused for a moment. “And you do know the ending of your book.” I looked at her questioningly. “She drives off into the sunset to live exactly how she wants.”
When I went downstairs, carrying only my valise, a hatbox, and my typewriter, my parents stood. “Where did you get that?” my father asked, pointing to the typewriter in its travel case.