While We're Far Apart (52 page)

Today a miracle! I found Dina Weisner, the stranger on the train who entrusted me with her son, Yankel. I had posted a notice for her on the board, and we found each other. She told me that by giving up Yankel, she unknowingly saved her own life, as well. All of the women from her train who had little children with them were sent to the left, to the gas chambers. But because Dina was young and strong and alone, she survived in a work camp. When I asked her if she knew about my mother, she nodded sadly. Mama was gone.

She is gone.

I still cannot accept the truth. I remember our last moments together on the train, and I don’t understand why I survived. I am grateful to Dina for telling me about Mama. At least I am not left to wonder. But I don’t know how I will go on if I learn that Avraham is gone, too.

I took Dina to the orphanage to find Yankel. She wept for joy when she finally held her baby in her arms again. We have seen so much sorrow and suffering, and now a moment of rejoicing and hope. The four of us returned to the Swedish house to live while we await word of our husbands. Every day I hope. Every day I despair. I know that you are praying along with me in America. I believe that it is your prayers that have sustained me so far.

With love,
Sarah Rivkah and Fredeleh’ ”

“Thank you for reading the letters to me,” Jacob said when the rebbe finished. “I could not have faced them alone. Sarah Rivkah and Fredeleh are alive. Hashem be praised.”

He stood and reached for the packet, needing to feel the letters in his hands and hold them close to his heart. He would read them again and again.

“Wait, Yaacov. There is one more . . .

“ ‘Dear Mother and Father Mendel,

I have found Avraham! He is alive!’ ”

Jacob sank to the floor and wept.

C
HAPTER 49

T
HE WAR WAS FINALLY OVER
. Every day the mail brought more good news. Penny had received a letter from Roy’s father saying that Roy had been evacuated on a hospital ship to San Diego. His burns were healing, but since he still couldn’t use his hands, the nurses had to write letters for him. Penny stopped to thank God when she read that his sight had recovered fully and he was able to see. The next letter said that Roy was being discharged from the hospital and from the Marine Corps, and was returning home to Sally. Penny hoped Roy would remember to send her an invitation to his wedding.

Hazel wrote to say that her two sons – Penny’s half-brothers – would soon be discharged, too. She wanted Penny to meet them. It seemed like a miracle to suddenly have a family. It was something she had never imagined. Penny promised Hazel that she would visit her again after Eddie came home and Esther and Peter were back in his care. But the visit might have to wait until all of the returning servicemen had returned home. The buses and trains were so jammed with men you could hardly get a ticket.

To Penny, the best news of all was that Mr. Mendel’s son had been found, emaciated but alive. The U.S. Third Army had rescued him and thirty thousand other inmates from the prison camp at Dachau, and he was recovering in a Red Cross hospital. Mr. Mendel worked night and day as he tried to process the paper work to bring his family home.

The war had turned everyone’s life upside down and now victory was turning things right side up again. Penny knew that there would be a lot of changes in her life, too, in the coming months. Her boss at work had already warned the women drivers that their jobs would be given back to the men who’d had them before the war. Penny felt sad as she returned to her old ticket booth, but she understood. At least she had learned how to drive and had discovered that she really wasn’t as dumb as a green bean after all.

On a beautiful September afternoon, two years after he enlisted, Eddie returned home. Once again, Penny put on her new gray suit and shoes and went with Esther and Peter to welcome their father home. This time they waited at a pier in Manhattan for his troop ship to dock. The ship overflowed with soldiers, hanging over the rails and waving ecstatically to the mob of loved ones on the pier. Penny thought there was enough joy aboard that huge ship to float it to the moon.

And here came Eddie, hurrying down the gangplank, running toward them. He might be dressed like all the other soldiers, but Penny could have spotted him anywhere. He looked as handsome as always, his curly blond hair finally growing back in preparation for civilian life. The children ran to him, and he swept them into his arms. Everyone was in tears, reunited at last.

“Welcome home, Daddy!” Peter said it loudly and clearly.

“It’s so good to hear your voice, Peter. It’s the best welcome home present ever. And look at you, Esther – you’re so grown-up. You were a little girl when I went away and now you’re a beautiful young lady.”

Eddie saved a hug for Penny, and it felt good to hold on to him – alive and happy again. Then they went back to the apartment to eat the welcome-home dinner she had prepared. But as everyone sat around the table, laughing and eating and enjoying each other, Penny looked at Eddie Shaffer and saw a stranger.

It was more than simply the fact that he had been away for so long. His physical appearance, his voice, his gestures were all the same. But Penny realized that she knew nothing about him – not his favorite color or his favorite foods, not his hopes or dreams or plans for the future. Nor did he know any of hers. Her love for Eddie Shaffer hadn’t been love at all, but just a foolish crush on the boy next door. For a girl who had been as sheltered and stifled and as fearful of strangers as Penny had been, the boy next door had been a safe fantasy.

They finished dessert, and Penny washed the dishes. She knew that it was time for her to leave. “You don’t have to go yet, do you?” Eddie asked. “Can’t you stay and visit with us for a while?”

“No, I really do need to go. You should spend time alone with your family. They deserve to have you all to yourself.” She remembered how she used to make a nuisance of herself, hanging around Grandma Shaffer’s house whenever Eddie and the children visited, and the memory embarrassed her. She had been a nosy, pathetic neighbor who hadn’t belonged there.

The children were sad to see her go. “Thank you for taking care of us,” Esther said.

Peter gave her a hug. “I wish you could stay.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, hugging him in return. “We’ll still see each other. I’ll be right here in Brooklyn, a phone call away, whenever you want to talk to me.”

Penny had her suitcase packed and waiting near the door. She had bought a brand-new one to carry her belongings home. Maybe she would use it to visit Hazel someday. Who knows, she might even go someplace new like Niagara Falls or Atlantic City. Penny gazed out the bus window on the way home but didn’t see a thing.

“Hi, Mother. I’m home,” she said as she came through the back door.

“To stay for good, I hope,” Mother said with a frown. “It’s high time you stopped running all around and stayed home where you belong.”

Penny chose to believe that in spite of her mother’s angry tone, her comments were said out of love, that she had missed Penny and was happy to have her home. One day soon she would have to explain to her mother that she didn’t belong here anymore, and that she was looking for an apartment of her own. But Penny couldn’t afford one yet, and finding a roommate wasn’t easy. Most of the single girls from work were expecting marriage proposals now that their boyfriends had returned home from the war.

Penny gave her mother a quick hug and carried her suitcase full of belongings into her old bedroom. She would stay, for now. Until she could decide what to do next.

Three weeks later, Penny walked out of the bus station after her shift ended and saw Roy Fuller standing on the sidewalk, just ten feet away from her. She almost didn’t recognize him. He had on a suit and tie instead of his marine uniform and wore his hat pulled low, half covering his face. He held one hand curled awkwardly against his side and the skin on his face looked shiny from scars, but to Penny he looked exactly the same – and she was overjoyed to see him.

“Roy!” She ran to him, throwing her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “What are you doing here?” she asked when they finally pulled apart.

“I went by the apartment and Esther told me you still worked at the bus station. She said you would be getting off work right about now.”

“Oh, it’s so good to see you! You look wonderful!”

“So do you.”

They stood in the parking lot with buses pulling in and out and people rushing around, but Penny was only dimly aware of the activity around her. Roy gazed at her in a way that he never had before, looking right into her eyes, and it made her heart race in a way it never had before, too. She searched for something to say.

“So . . . how’s everything with Sally? I’ll bet she’s happy to have you home again.”

“I guess so.” He paused, and she waited for him to continue. “People change, Penny. War changes everyone. I’m not the same person I was before the war – and neither is Sally. She says she still loves me, but I can tell she has a hard time looking at me, seeing past the scars.”

“Don’t talk like that, Roy. I’m sure it’s you she cares about. And you’re the same wonderful guy you always were. I can see that, plain as day.” Again, he didn’t reply. “What brings you to Brooklyn?” she finally asked.

“You do, Penny. I came to see you. Even though I was finally home with Sally, I kept thinking about you. And so I decided to come and see how you and Eddie were doing. Are you two getting together one of these days?”

Penny shook her head. “We were never together except in my imagination. All those years when I thought I loved him, I had no idea what love really was. It isn’t love when it’s one-sided. And that’s all it ever was. Eddie didn’t know I existed until I offered to take care of his kids. He’s still in love with his wife, still trying to get over her.”

“He said that?”

“No, but it’s true. He’s been very nice to me since he’s been back. We’ve even gone a few places together with the kids, and it seems like he’s finally starting to notice me after all these years. But we’re starting from scratch. We still have to get to know each other and see if we have anything in common besides loving his kids. I’m not sure if we will ever fall in love . . . or if I even want to.”

The conversation made Penny sad, and she didn’t want to ruin their time together by feeling sorry for herself. “It’s good to see you. You gave us all a scare, you know, wondering if you would recover or not.”

“You know who I kept thinking about all the time I was in the hospital? You. And you know whose letters I made the nurses read to me over and over? Yours. That’s when I realized how much I care about you, Penny.”

Her heart beat so fast she felt dizzy. She wondered if she might faint. Had she really heard him right?

“Me? . . . But what about Sally?”

“She had a schoolgirl’s crush on her teacher – me. She was thrilled when she finally got me to notice her. That’s not love. I had been awkward around girls all my life, so I was thrilled to think I had won such a beautiful girl as Sally.”

“She is beautiful, Roy. I saw her when I went to see your father – did he tell you I came? But I didn’t talk to her. I didn’t want to mess things up for you.”

“My father said that you showed more concern for me than Sally ever did, traveling all that way just to find out what happened to me. Sally and I never talked about things the way you and I used to do. I knew you better after only a few months than I ever knew her. Every time I went home on leave to see Sally, we had nothing to say to each other.”

Penny couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She must be dreaming because it was much too wonderful to be true. She pressed her hand to her chest, afraid that her heart might burst.

“But you and Sally are engaged, aren’t you? You gave her a ring.”

Roy gave a short laugh. “You know why she accepted my proposal? She told me it was because of my letters. She thought they were so romantic. I think you know who really wrote all of those romantic things.” He laughed again. “I finally realized why I always had so much trouble telling Sally how I felt. It was because what I felt wasn’t love. A man in love should have no trouble at all. Even if he’s tongue-tied, he should overflow with ways to express how he feels. I never felt any of that. I was dazzled by her beauty and by the fact that she would even look twice at a guy like me.”

“You’re a wonderful man, Roy. Who wouldn’t look twice?”

Roy didn’t seem to hear her. “Sally is still so young. She has never been out of Pennsylvania, and I’ve been to hell and back. When I finally got home we were strangers. I think we both realized that there was nothing there. But we’re both afraid to break it off and let the other person down. Especially now that I’m all scarred up this way. It’s not honorable to reject your fiancé when he comes home from the war wounded.”

“Honest, Roy, the scars aren’t even noticeable.”

“And so I decided to come and see you. You always gave me good advice where Sally was concerned. I wanted to find out if you and Eddie were making out any better than we were.” He paused, ducking his head shyly. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been hoping that maybe things haven’t been so good with Eddie.”