Family Secrets Read Free Page B

hand on her hand. He was glad that she didn’t recoil. Her hand was very cool.
    “If you want coffee, of course you shall have it,” Lucy said matter-of-factly. He saw how quick and neat she was, without a wasted motion. She was shy, but she was not uncomfortable with him; she was, after all, his first cousin as well as his sister-in-law. She respected him and was fond of him, but Adam sensed that she was not afraid of him, and he liked that too. A shy, quiet woman was good; a frightened, silly one was a trial for life.
    “So, nu?” he said pleasantly. “What are you going to do with your life?”
    “Do?” She looked at him in open amazement. What else was there for a woman to do but hope to have a good husband and healthy children? Her look searched him to see if he was teasing her, and then she seemed satisfied that he was not. “I don’t know how to talk philosophy,” she said.
    “I wouldn’t want you to.”
    “Good.” She smiled almost mischievously. “See, the coffee is boiling already. Would you like a piece of cake with it? There is some which is fresh today and I put it aside for you.”
    “Did you make it?”
    “No.”
    “But is it good then?”
    “Yes.”
    “Tomorrow is the last day we all sit shiva,” Adam said. “It will be lonely here.”
    “I know,” she said softly. He liked the way her moods shifted along with his, as if she were his own shadow; instantly, instinctively sympathetic, following the lights and darks of his spirit. “Please will you come spend Shabbas with us?” she said. “Both Friday night and Saturday.”
    “That is not what I want,” he said. “I will not live in other people’s houses.”
    “We’re not ‘other people’—we’re family.”
    “No.”
    “Then no,” she said.
    “Will you marry me?” Adam said.
    She looked at him for a long moment and he noticed that her eyes were green. “Yes,” she said. “But on one condition.”
    “A condition you’re giving me?”
    “Yes. I know that in time, please God, we’ll have children, and I want them all to be equal. I want Leah Vania to be my child. She’s so young, soon she won’t remember her mother. I want all our children to be true brothers and sisters. I don’t want anyone to tell them.”
    Adam felt a great wave of contentment wash over him. He had chosen well. “I promise,” he said.
    Lucy held out her arms. “Now give me my daughter,” she said, “It’s time I put her back in her bed.”
    When Adam married Lucy in six weeks, everyone felt it was a good move; it was the old, respected way for a man or a woman who was widowed to marry quickly, and preferably marry the next of kin, for it held the family together even more tightly, and the family was safety. In the meantime, Adam had begun to buy land in Mudville, using Yussel’s money, and there were very few in the coffee house who were loyal enough friends to come forward and tell them what fools they were. This pleased Adam, for he knew people were talking about him and Yussel behind their backs, laughing at them, and the more they laughed the easier the land in Mudville became to buy. Soon they owned enough to start a small community. Then he went to the bank, where the people told him it was a risky venture but seemed impressed by his confidence in himself. He knew which men were the best builders; they had to be fast and cheap, but their houses had to be safe. He would not build houses that fell down or burned down and killed people. A man did not have to be a killer to make money.
    In August, when the land was dry and hard from the summer sun, the builders began to build on what had once been a sea of mud and now was nothing worse than a barren and ugly foundation which could be quite serviceable. The fact that there was nothing around it did not bother Adam. He would also build some suitable stores and perhaps even plant some trees. He would take out a few ads in the Yiddish language newspapers, and between that and word of