Always and Forever Read Free

between Sophie and Alex became the focal point of both their lives. Alex was so handsome, so sweet and gentle. And one day he would be a doctor. That would impress Mama and Papa. But before she could marry, she forced herself to explain to Alex, they would have to wait—in the Jewish tradition—until her older sisters had acquired husbands. When Alex protested, Sophie pointed out that he had much schooling ahead. They were young and had time. They could wait.
    Sophie cried in Alex’s arms with happiness when he presented her with an exquisite brooch—precious stones in a gold setting designed as a bow—that had belonged to his mother. He told her how his mother had given it to him when he’d had to flee from St. Petersburg because Alexander III had begun to persecute Jews and students, which put him at double risk.
    “The pin was created by the jeweler who designed for the Czarina. Mama said I was to give it to my wife,” he said tenderly. “Keep it close to your heart until the day we can be married.”
    “Oh Alex, I love you so much,” she said with an abandon that would have shocked her the year before. “I live for the day I can be your wife.”
    But then Sophie’s world was shattered. At the supper table in the early summer of 1883 her father told his three daughters that the family was to leave within a week for America.
    “Papa, why?” Sophie whispered, pale and shaken.
    “For a better life,” he said. “My cousin Isaac writes from New York City that work is to be had there. Not just for me, but for Dora and Hannah, too. And in America,” he said reverently, “we will find doctors who can help Mama become well again.”
    “Do we have the money?” Hannah asked doubtfully.
    “Isaac has sent us the tickets. We will work hard in America and pay him back.”
    All at once Hannah and Dora were plying their father with questions. The kitchen was charged with excitement. Sophie saw the glint of hope in her mother’s eyes. Would the doctors in America help her?
    The next morning Sophie waited until Hannah and Dora had left for their jobs to talk to her father.
    “We have little time for talk, Sophie,” he warned in high spirits. “We must prepare for our journey.”
    “Papa, I would like to stay here. I—” She hoped she could make him understand about Alex. But her father would hear none of it.
    “You’ll go to America with the family,” he barked at her. “Always, you have crazy ideas.”
    “But Papa, I have to tell you—”
    “I will tell you!” he thundered. “You will go with the family to America. Who else speaks the language there? You will lead us. Where Mama and I go, our children go.”
    “Papa, there is a young man,” she said desperately. “He wishes to marry me.”
    “You have been carrying on behind our backs?” he demanded, all at once ashen.
    “Papa, no!”
    “Who is this man who talked to a child about marriage?”
    “I’m fifteen. Mama was fifteen when she married you. We—”
    “Enough of this. It would break your mother’s heart to leave you behind. You have an obligation to take care of the flat and of Mama,” he blustered. “You will go with us to America.”
    Later she sat with Alex at their favorite sidewalk cafe and told him her father’s ultimatum. She fought against tears. How could her whole world have fallen about her shoulders this way? Yet she knew she could not refuse to go with her family. Mama needed her. In a strange new world they would all need her.
    “Sophie, this is insane.” Alex reached across the table for her hand. “You will marry me and stay in Berlin,” he said determinedly. “We have a right to our own lives.”
    “I have to go with them, Alex.” Gently she withdrew her hand. “Our time will come later.” She tried to smile. “I’ll come back to you.” She reached within the neckline of her dress to unpin the jeweled brooch she always wore hidden from all eyes. “I will come back, Alex, and you will give me my pin