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.
“The season is all wrong,” Mama said. “It’ll be a long engagement, I’m afraid, until the spring—early spring, of course, so it won’t start too late at night . . .” She trailed off, an idea hitting her. “Or I suppose a fall wedding would work. October maybe, before it’s too cold.”
“No,” I said as Dan shook his head.
“I’ve decided to go to rabbinical school after all. So we would have to put the wedding off a few years. I can’t marry her until I can support her.”
“Of course you can,” my father said. “You’ll live here until you finish.”
We hadn’t seen that one coming.
Dan started to come up with an answer but was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. “Grace will answer it,” my mother said.
“October it is, then,” my father said.
I shook my head. “Spring. You can’t have your only daughter not have a spring wedding.”
My mother nodded. “She’s right.”
My father threw up his hands. “Women,” he said conspiratorially to Dan. “We’d best leave those details to them.”
Grace came into the room. “Champagne,” my father said. “We’re celebrating.”
“Right away,” she said. “But there’s a phone call for Marilyn.”
“For me?”
“She’s occupied,” Daddy said. “Take a message.”
“I said that, but she said it’s urgent.”
Ada. “Excuse me,” I said, rising. “I’ll be right back.”
I hurried out of the room to the phone in the kitchen. “Ada?” I asked as soon as I picked up the receiver.
“It’s Lillian,” the voice said thickly. “Oh, Marilyn. I’m so sorry. Ada—Ada died. This morning.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
I sank to the kitchen floor, the phone dropping with a clatter next to me. My mother came running in, but I couldn’t speak to her. Not yet. Instead, I reached for the receiver, bringing it back to my ear and asking Lillian what had happened.
“It was sudden. She didn’t suffer. She asked me to go pick up bagels—Frannie was off—and I did. When I got back, I found her. They said it was her heart.”
She was alone. She was alone because I wasn’t there. While yes, I would have been the one sent for bagels, Lillian would have been there. She would have called an ambulance. And maybe she wouldn’t be gone now. But I wasn’t there.
“What happened?” my mother asked, kneeling beside me, but I waved for her to shush. Lillian was still talking.
“—funeral. She wants to be cremated, but she left instructions about a service.” There was a pause. “She left instructions about everything.”
“I’ll take the train down tonight,” I said weakly. “Ask Thomas if he’s willing to pick me up, but if not, I’ll take a cab from the station.”