Slow Moon Rising (11 page)

Jayme-Leigh had caused quite a stir in our typical Christian home when she married the Jewish Isaac Levy. Even more of a stir within our church. But, quite honestly, I'd never thought of Jayme-Leigh as being overly religious anyway. I had never thought of her as an
un
believer. I'd just never thought things of the church carried the same weight with her that they had always carried with Dad. With Mom. Or with Kimberly and Heather. Although, while Kimberly seemed to be more about relationship in her faith, Heather tended to be a little more traditional and set in her ways. Conservative to the highest degree. At least that's what I had always thought.

So when Jaymes brought Isaac home for the first time, there were a lot of “discussions” as to “just how far is this relationship going to go?” But whatever worries and concerns Dad and Mom had in the beginning, after really getting to know Dr. Isaac Levy, their opinions changed. Isaac was and is one of the finest sons-in-law (and, in my case, brothers-in-law) to ever be a part of a family. Mom used to say she could “wrap him up and take him home for dinner.” Her way of saying she liked someone.

What Isaac had brought to our family was more than just
goodness; he'd taught us, as he observed the holidays and holy days of his faith, the connection of Judaism to Christianity. And, for that matter, how much we had to learn about Jesus.

I had a
lot
to learn about Jesus, I figured right then. What kind of Christian was I, pushing my sister in her own front yard? Throwing a Christmas gift at her, of all things.

“Hey, Isaac, where's Jayme-Leigh?”

“She got called to the hospital. One of her patients is not doing so well.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip and inside my gum. “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

“Where you be?” he asked, switching the words to be cute.

“In my car. On my way home from Heather's.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you are just coming from Heather's and you're calling Jayme-Leigh, something must be up.”

“It is. Heather and I had a fight.”

“Wanna come over and talk? I'll make you some of my famous hot cocoa.”

I smiled as I pressed the brakes of my car, inching my way into a lane full of other cars with drivers who had probably spent the better part of the day shopping. The streets were twinkling with Christmas lights and banners, just like on Park Avenue where, not a few hours ago, I'd had a marvelous shopping adventure with my sister. “I could live with that.”

Twenty minutes later I'd made the ten-minute trip to Jayme-Leigh and Isaac's home. Heather called it “ostentatious for just two people,” but I thought it was great. Okay, yes, it cost Jayme-Leigh and Isaac nearly a million dollars
(or so I heard Mom and Dad say in a private conversation with each other), but the rooms weren't all that big and it
did
sit on Lake Down and they
did
have a pretty nice boat and two jet skis for the warm-slash-hot months, which were nearly all the months here in Florida. When Dad had gone to Maine, Jayme-Leigh and Isaac's was where I stayed because—in spite of its cost—it's warm and comfy and, best of all, no one there bugs me.

Like Heather.

Staying with Kimberly wouldn't have been so bad, but she had a baby, which is fine for her and I love my nephews to pieces but . . . the baby cries a lot at night and the oldest is bent on
not
going to bed.

Isaac met me at the front door, holding a large menorah. It practically towered over his head. “What are you doing?” I asked with a laugh. “Or is that the only flashlight in the house.”

“You laugh,” he said. “But your sister has me polishing it already. I was thinking that while I make that hot cocoa . . .”

“Oh no. I'm not polishing that monster.”

I walked past the multi-stoned mezuzah shimmering in the porch light, touched it lightly with my fingertips the way my brother-in-law had shown me, and walked into the entryway. Isaac shut the door behind us. “It'll bring you closer to God,” he said in a coaxing voice.

“I'm close enough,” I answered, but I took the menorah anyway. “Point me to the polish.” I added a dramatized sigh.

Isaac grinned in victory. “This way to the kitchen,” he said, extending his arm and making a short bow.

“Ugh . . .” I moaned, but already I felt better. “So, what do you mean ‘already.' When is Hanukkah this year?”

“The twenty-third it starts,” he said.

We entered the kitchen, where an open tub of silver polish and a white cloth waited on the marble bar. I hitched myself up on a stool and started working. Isaac busied himself at the stove, where the ingredients for his famous cocoa were waiting on the nearby countertop. “Your sister brought home a pretty nice cake from the bakery this afternoon if you want a slice.”

“Yum,” I said.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

“
Bevakasha
,” I said, using the Hebrew word for “please.” Isaac had taught me a few of the easier words and phrases he'd learned in Hebrew school, and I liked using them with him.

“Be sure to get in all the crevices with that cloth.”

The menorah was ornate and heavy and, in my way of thinking, not in need of polishing. “I'll do my best.” I looked across the kitchen and focused on his back. He wore a white dress shirt—the long sleeves rolled up to his elbows—and a pair of what I knew to be pretty expensive jeans. “Have you even bothered to change since work?”

He glanced over his shoulder at me and winked, making me smile. My brother-in-law was nothing short of gorgeous. His lashes would make a girl cry. He had a broad smile and white, perfectly even teeth. His eyes, though dark, twinkled in merriment. I'd only seen them looking anything other than gleeful once, and that was at Mom's funeral. Then they had turned from amber-brown to chocolate-brown, filled with sorrow.

“I haven't been home that long,” he said. “Got caught up in something at the lab.”

I set the menorah on its base and stretched my arms. “Hey, Isaac, can I ask you something?”

He poured milk from a gallon jug into the stainless steel pot before him. “Is it a question?” he asked, without looking up.

“Uh . . . yeah.”

“Shoot.”

I sat straight again, breathed in and out of my nose. “Do you think . . .” I wasn't so sure I could ask the question that had haunted me for so many months. Perhaps I could ask him something else. Something about spending the holiday in Cedar Key. Maybe ask if he thought he and my sister could spend Hanukkah there. With us, celebrating both holidays together.

“Do I think? Yes. Quite often.” He spooned cocoa into the milk. “Helps when it comes to being a doctor. Next question?”

“Haha.” Here goes nothing, I thought. If I couldn't ask Isaac, I couldn't ask anyone. “Do you think . . . Isaac, do you think Dad ever had an affair?”

Isaac laughed at my question before asking one of his own: “Where do you get such thoughts, Ami?” He turned from the stove, rested against the countertop's edge, and crossed his arms. “Heather?”

“No. Not really.”

He returned to his stove-top preparations. The room had filled with the scent of vanilla and cocoa, which made my tummy rumble in anticipation. “Well, one thing I know about your father is that he's a virtuous man. He loved your mother very much, you know that, right?”

“I guess so.”

“All right then. I don't know who would tell you such a thing, but whoever it was, she was obviously out of her mind.” He mumbled the rest. “Which brings us back to Heather.”

I grimaced. “I dunno.”

He looked over his shoulder again. “So it
was
Heather.”

I shook my head.

“Well, I doubt it was Kimberly, and I know Jayme-Leigh doesn't feel that way.” He picked the pot up from the stove
and, stirring with a wooden spoon, carefully poured the creamy dark liquid into two ceramic mugs.

“It was Mom.”

He placed the pot on a hot pad before turning to face me. “Joan said that? Are you sure?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“When?”

“Right before she died. That night Dad and Jayme-Leigh had to go to the hospital. Remember the three-year-old who died?”

Isaac brought the mugs of steaming cocoa to the dividing bar where I'd now slid the menorah away from me. “Yeah . . . I remember. Whipped cream?” he asked.

“Bevakasha.”

He walked to the refrigerator, opened it without saying a word, brought back the Reddi-wip, and squirted thick peaks onto the top of our drinks. We picked up the mugs, toasted the holidays, and each took tentative sips.

Isaac blinked several times before saying, “Ami, you know, don't you, that when someone is as sick as your mother—what with all the meds she was being given and the overall state of her physical condition—she may have truly believed something like that. But it could have been as simple as a song she heard or a movie she and your father saw together and the plot got mixed up in her mind.”

I rested my mug on the counter, cupped my hands around it. The warmth of it felt good, the scent of the cocoa filled me with comfort. “You think?”

“Don't you know your father better than that?”

I honestly wasn't sure if I did or I didn't. After all, he'd
married Anise before a full year had passed. Maybe he had . . .
needs
. . . that Mom, in her condition, couldn't meet.

The thought gave me shivers and took my mind to places I didn't want to go.

“I guess so. I mean, if
you
think . . .”

“Hey, I'm a doctor, aren't I? I know about these things.” He took a good swallow of his drink, leaving a whipped topping moustache along his upper lip. He swiped at it with his tongue. “The brain is so complex, Ami. We don't know nearly what we should know or possibly ever will know. Memories, every single one of them, are stored. What happens when we administer meds that tell the brain the body isn't hurting? Maybe it does its job but at the same time jumbles up those memories?” He shook his head, looked down. The dark, feathery lashes cast shadows along his cheekbones. “I'm sorry you had to witness something like that, and I wish you'd told us sooner.”

“Sorry.”

“Have you thought about discussing this with your father?” he asked just as I took a sip of my drink.

I nearly choked. “Did you put something funny in this hot chocolate or are
you
crazy? It was hard enough talking to you about it. I can't even talk to Jaymes about something like this.”

Isaac smiled. “All right. All right. Calm down.”

“I'm calm. But, no. No way.”

He stared at me for several minutes before asking, “So where do you go from here then?”

I didn't answer for a long time. I just sipped my drink until it was nearly gone. “Isaac? What do you know about the stages of grief?”

He shrugged. “That's not my area of expertise, Ami, but . . . where do you think you are in the process?”

“Somewhere between shock and denial and pain and guilt. Which means I haven't really made a lot of progress. I should be way past that by now. It's been a year already.”

Isaac laughed. “A whole year?”

I wrinkled my nose. I knew where he was going with this.

“Ami, don't expect yourself to follow some prescribed formula for grieving over your mom's death, okay? And don't let these nasty memories you have eat you up. Joan was one of the loveliest women I've ever known. So much grace and character.”

“That's true.”

“Focus on that. You're young, and that makes it easier to think about everything you have going on in your life. So think on that. Your mom's character, your own life, and her love for you, okay?”

I smiled. “Okay.”

He slid the menorah back toward me with a grin of his own. “Now, get back to work, kiddo, and quit worrying about things that are more flight of the imagination than fact.”

Kimberly refused to go to Cedar Key for Christmas, telling Dad and Anise (and me) that she just couldn't return there. Not yet.

Dad told me later that he was more worried about Kimberly now than he had been before. “Has she talked to you about any of this?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not a word. Kimberly is so gaga over
her little family, I think that gives her some . . . you know . . . grounding.”

Dad smiled at me as his arm came around me and squeezed. “Grounding? Where did you hear such a grown-up word?”

I melted into his hug. “Oh, you know, Dad. I read.”

Heather, of course, pitched such a fit I'm surprised the police weren't called. Anise and I ended up sneaking out the back door, slipping into her car, and heading for the nearest Starbucks, where my stepmother treated me to peppermint tea and ginger molasses cookies. We were surrounded by coffee aromas, swing-era Christmas music, and joyful shoppers laden with packages and coats.

The weather had turned as cold outside as the inside of our house. Finally.

Two hours later, Dad called Anise's phone, reporting it safe to return, adding that Heather and family would
not
be joining us for Christmas in Cedar Key.

“Maybe we
should
wait a year, Ross,” Anise spoke tenderly into the phone. Then: “All right. We'll come home in a little bit. How about treating Ami and me to dinner out tonight? It'll give you a chance to eat a steak.” Whatever response my father gave her made her smile, and I smiled too.

Dad took us to Ocean Prime that evening, an uptown place with white tablecloths and blue leather chairs. It's also most definitely one of his favorite places to go for his coveted steak, especially since Anise had taken the cook's role in his kitchen.

At Dad's request we sat in one of the semicircular booths so we could make our holiday plans. I couldn't help but smile at my father. His eyes danced. In spite of our whole family
not being together for Christmas, in spite of it being only a little more than a year since Mom died, he was going to his beloved Cedar Key. And he was taking his new wife.

I was beyond grateful Heather was nowhere in sight. Nowhere in earshot, for that matter. But I couldn't help but wonder if Dad would tell us anything about the conversation he'd had with my sister.

Correction. If he would tell me anything. Whether or not he told Anise was up for debate. Maybe he would. Maybe not. Knowing her, she wouldn't even ask.

But she did a fine job of asking a dozen questions about what to expect from Cedar Key—the weather, the people. The house.

“I called a friend of mine there,” Dad told her, then looking at me, said, “Paul Poynton.”

I nodded.

“Of course the tree has already been lit,” he said. “So we missed that.”

“But we'll get to see it, so . . .”

“Tell me about the tree,” Anise said, placing her elbows on the table. She cradled a cup of coffee in her hands. I watched her inhale its aroma and take a sip.

“It's a cedar tree—naturally.” I shrugged. “It's pretty simple, really. They decorate it with lights and ornaments. It's just fun being there, especially if the weather has cooled off. If we'd been there for the lighting, we would have sung carols and drunk hot cocoa.”

Anise looked genuinely excited. “Anything else?”

“There is, of course, the boat parade.” I turned my attention to my father. “Dad, will we be there for that?”

“Only if we're there on the sixteenth.”

I frowned. “Dad. I have school until the twentieth.”

My father's face registered disappointment. “Ah. Sometimes, my little Ami, I forget you are still in high school.”

“Dad!” I laughed in admonishment.

Anise touched Dad's arm. “Ross, what kind of thing is that to say?” But her face showed amusement.

“Sorry,” Dad said. He craned his neck to try to spot our server. Catching his attention, he waved him over and asked for the check. Looking back at Anise, he said, “She doesn't
act
like a typical senior in high school.”

“Well, let me get a pad and pen,” I teased. “I'll take some notes on how I should act. Uh . . . maybe you'd like to tell me some of the things
you
got into?”

“No, I would not.”

Anise straightened. “Oh, I don't know, my love. I think I might like to hear some of these things.”

Dad pointed playfully at his wife. “You stay out of this, young lady. You already know enough about me to get me in real trouble.” Dad's face pinked, as though he'd said something he hadn't meant to.

Anise cleared her throat. Placed her palms against the table. “Personally, I'm glad we're going to Cedar Key this year.” She looked at me, obviously dismissing what Dad had said. “Ami, after you get out of school on the twentieth, do you think you'd be up to heading over that evening?”

“Sure.”

Anise smiled, but it looked forced. “Do we need to take anything?” she asked the two of us. “Any Christmas decorations or did Joan have everything there?”

When Dad didn't answer, I said, “She had quite a few things there for the holidays. All of them.”

“Well, then. I'm sure whatever she had is perfect for what we need.” She lightly touched my hand with her fingertips. “Your mother had lovely taste.”

Because of the joint holidays—Christmas and Hanukkah—Jayme-Leigh and Isaac bowed out as well. Isaac explained the importance of them spending the time with his family, Jaymes reminded Dad that with him gone from the office, she really couldn't be too.

Dad said he completely understood. I honestly think he did.

I think.