While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “Yes, doll?” He answered absently, gazing out at the tiny yard, not at her. He took her hand in his and gently caressed it with his thumb, but she knew he wasn’t really listening to her. It was as if he were already on board a ship with Uncle Joe or Uncle Steve, sailing miles and miles away.

  Esther hesitated to speak her mind, afraid that if she said what she really wanted to say, Daddy would get mad and let go of her hand. And she didn’t want to do anything to make him let go.

  “Never mind,” she mumbled.

  Because that was the mistake she had made with Mama. Esther had let go of her hand, thinking she was much too grown-up to hold hands. And now she would never hold Mama’s hand again.

  CHAPTER 2

  PENNY GOODRICH KNEW she had just been given a second chance. Eddie Shaffer’s wife had died more than a year ago, and that was a terrible tragedy. But now he needed another wife and a mother for his two children, and Penny wanted the job. Eddie would fall in love with her this time. She would make sure of it.

  Penny couldn’t remember a time in her life when she hadn’t been in love with the tall, golden-haired boy next door. Even as a little girl, she had watched him playing baseball in the street with his brothers, and she had loved him. She had wished she could join in those games and hit home runs for him so he would love her in return, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. “You’re too clumsy, Penny. You can’t play with those big kids. You’ll get hurt. Besides, they don’t want someone like you on their team.”

  On warm summer evenings, Eddie and the other kids would play hide-and-seek or kick the can, and Penny would watch from her front stoop. His blond hair would look yellowish-green beneath the streetlight and he would shout, “Here I come, ready or not,” before dashing off to search for the others. She longed to hide in the bushes like the other kids and squeal with excitement when Eddie finally found her. But Mother said it was too dangerous for someone like her to run around after dark. “You never know who could be hiding in the bushes, waiting to grab you. The world is filled with bad people, whether you have sense enough to realize it or not.”

  When she was finally old enough to go to school, Penny wanted to tag along behind Eddie and his brothers as they shuffled through the autumn leaves or tromped through the mounds of snow that the plows left behind, but Penny’s mother always walked to school with her instead. “You wouldn’t know enough to pay attention to the traffic. You have no sense at all. You would get run over by a car the first time you tried to cross the street.”

  Penny wasn’t allowed to go to Eddie’s ball games in high school and watch him play, because she wasn’t like the other girls. Penny’s parents were older than everyone else’s parents, and her sister, Hazel, who was seventeen years older, had left home before Penny was old enough to remember her. Penny would sometimes watch Eddie from a distance, and if he dropped a piece of paper or a gum wrapper she would pick it up and put it in the shoebox she kept in her closet. She used to write his name in her notebook while daydreaming in class, filling page after page with I love Eddie and Eddie and Penny with little hearts drawn around their names.

  Penny remembered crying her eyes out when Mrs. Shaffer told her that Eddie was getting married. She and her parents had been invited to his wedding luncheon in the backyard, but Penny had been too heartsick to eat any cake. Instead, she had tucked her piece of cake beneath her pillow that night because it was supposed to make you dream of the man you would marry. And she had dreamed of Eddie, just as she had on so many other nights. But she had thrown the smashed cake into the garbage the next morning, convinced that her dream could never come true.

  And now it might.

  Eddie needed her help. Penny would be the new Mrs. Edward Shaffer. Of course, she would have to wait until the war ended and he came home again. But she would write long letters to him every single day while he was away, telling him news from home, and by the time the war was over, his apartment would be her home and she already would be like a mother to his two children.

  Excitement made her cheeks feel warm as she sat beside him on the back porch, watching him consider her plan. If he agreed, she just might run around the yard for joy the way Woofer did when she chased her ball.

  “It’s very nice of you to offer,” Eddie said. “I’ll go inside and talk to Ma about it.”

  Penny’s hand slid off his as he rose to his feet. “Tell your mother that it’s really okay if she can’t take the kids. Tell her I’ll be happy to watch them.”

  He nodded and disappeared inside where his mother had gone after storming off. To be honest, Penny didn’t know how those two kids would ever fit into Mrs. Shaffer’s house unless she got rid of the stuff piled everywhere. Penny had never looked inside the two bedrooms, but if they were anything like the front rooms, there wouldn’t even be a place for those two kids to sit down, much less go to sleep. Every square inch of space in the living room and kitchen and eating area was jam-packed with towering stacks of newspapers and old magazines and cardboard boxes full of worn-out clothing, leaving only a narrow pathway to walk between. Penny worried sometimes that Mrs. –Shaffer’s half of the duplex would catch on fire and she and her parents would burn to death, too, living on the other side the way they did. Good thing her parents didn’t know what Mrs. Shaffer’s half looked like. They worried enough as it was.

  The screen door slapped shut as Eddie went inside, leaving Penny alone with the two kids. They were a lot quieter than most kids were, and she wasn’t very good at conversation.

  “Hey, do you guys like ice cream?” she finally said. “Sometimes the truck comes around on Sunday afternoon. If your father says it’s okay, I’ll buy you some. Or maybe we could walk to the corner store and get some. I’ll treat. Would you like that?”

  The girl shook her head and said, “No, thank you.” She had hair just like Eddie’s, all thick and blond and curly. The boy didn’t seem to hear Penny as he continued to stare at the back door, where his grandmother and now his father had disappeared. The kid stood so still that he could have been sleeping with his eyes open.

  “What’s your very favorite kind of treat?” Penny asked. “I’ll bet it’s chocolate ice cream, right? Most people say that’s their favorite, but I just love a grape Popsicle, don’t you? But I’ll let you get whatever kind you want – ”

  “No, thank you,” Esther said again.

  Penny could have kicked herself for getting off on the wrong foot with Eddie’s kids. Sometimes she tried too hard and ended up ruining things for herself. Her mother always said she didn’t have the good sense that God gave a green bean. Thankfully, the back door opened again and Eddie came out, his face creased in a frown.

  “Can we go home now, Daddy?” Esther asked. She was twelve. The boy was named Aaron Peter but they called him Peter. He was nine. Penny knew everything about them because Mrs. Shaffer had told her every single detail of their lives since the day they’d been born.

  “We’ll go home in a minute, doll,” Eddie replied. “Listen, Penny . . . I think Ma is going to need some more time to get used to the idea. How about if we come over on Friday night so we can talk some more?”

  “Sure! I could make dinner for you and – ”

  “That’s not necessary. We’ll come by after supper. And if Ma hasn’t changed her mind by then . . . well, I may have to take you up on your offer.”

  “That’s okay, Eddie, honest it is. I really meant it when I said I’d take care of them for you.”

  “It’s just that I was so sure Ma would help me out, and so I went ahead and signed up for the army, and now . . .”

  “It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

  Penny walked with them to the corner and waited with them until the bus came. Then she hurried home to her half of the duplex to tell her parents the news. They were sitting in their usual chairs in the gloomy front room, listening to a radio program with the curtains drawn. They always kept the curtains closed even in the daytime to make sure that strangers couldn’t
look inside – not that there was much to see. Penny waited to speak until an advertisement for Lux soap came on. Her father hated it when she interrupted his programs.

  “Hey, guess what? I was over next door, talking to Eddie Shaffer, and – ”

  “You shouldn’t hang around over there so much,” Mother said. “You’ll make a nuisance of yourself. Why can’t you stay home where you belong?”

  “Mrs. Shaffer doesn’t mind. Anyway, Eddie just signed up for the army like his brothers did, and he asked his mother to watch his two kids for him. His mother doesn’t think she can take care of them, so I told Eddie that I’d be glad to baby-sit for them while he’s away.”

  “You did what?” Mother stared at Penny as if she had just told her she’d robbed a bank. Penny had seen other mothers gaze at their children with love brimming in their eyes, and she wished, just once, that her mother would look at her that way. Her parents had been old when she was born, and she wondered if they had resented being burdened with a baby at such a late age, especially after they’d already raised a daughter.

  “I told Eddie that I would watch his kids – ”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t know the first thing about raising children. Besides, I’m sure he can get a hardship exemption since his children don’t have a mother.”

  “Eddie didn’t get drafted; he volunteered to go.” Penny understood exactly how he felt. She longed to start a new life in a new place, too, but what could she do? She didn’t make enough money at the bus company to afford an apartment of her own. And she didn’t have any friends who would share a place with her. If she had become a nurse after high school like she’d wanted to, she could have afforded her own place, but Mother had said she wasn’t smart enough to go to nursing school. “You need good grades to be a nurse and your grades are only average.”

  Penny knew she was ordinary and average. Eddie’s first wife, Rachel, had been pretty and smart and full of life. She had beautiful chestnut-colored hair and the tiniest waist that Penny had ever seen. Eddie could probably wrap his big, strong hands right around her waist with his fingers touching. No wonder he had loved her.

  “You should have seen how grateful Eddie was when I said I would help him out.”

  “In the first place,” her father said, joining the conversation, “I think it’s a terrible idea for him to leave his children. If anything happens to him, they’ll have nobody.”

  “They’ll have me. I’ll love them and take care of them.”

  “And in the second place, what business is it of yours to stick your nose into this? Huh?”

  “You don’t know the first thing about running your own home or taking care of children,” Mother added. “What if something happened to one of them and they got sick? You wouldn’t have any idea what to do.”

  “And what about your job?” Father said. “You can’t walk to work from where he lives, you know.”

  “Eddie’s going to show me which bus to take.”

  “A bus?” Mother repeated the word as if Penny had told her she would be riding to work on an elephant. “All that way? All by yourself? This city isn’t safe for a girl like you to be running around on your own. You’ve never been out in the world, Penny. You can’t even take care of yourself, let alone two motherless children.”

  They were doing it to her again – making her feel stupid. Every time Penny would start to think that maybe she really wasn’t so dumb, her parents would convince her that she was.

  “And another thing,” Father said. “You’ve never handled money before. How are you going to pay the rent and take care of all the household bills? You’ll make a mess of it. You had a panic attack when the grocer gave you the wrong change that time, remember?”

  “That was a long time ago, Dad. I was twelve. And I handle money and make change all the time at work.” But despite her words, Penny felt her courage dripping away like ice cream on an August afternoon. If she didn’t stand up for herself, then her chances of marrying Eddie Shaffer would melt away, too. She couldn’t bear to lose him a second time.

  “You know that he lives over there in the Jewish part of Brooklyn, don’t you?” Father said. “His mother told me there’s a synagogue right across the street from his apartment.”

  “Your father’s right. And they’re the kind of Jews that have beards and wear those funny black hats. One of them lives in the apartment right downstairs from Ed’s family.”

  Penny felt another trickle of fear. Her parents hated Jewish people and had always talked about them the way other parents talked about the boogey man. Sometimes a Jewish man would come into the bus station to buy a ticket, and just the sight of his black hat and beard and dangling white strings would make Penny shiver. Her heart would race in near panic if she saw a Jew wearing one of those big furry hats that looked like a wild animal had curled up on his head.

  “Maybe Ed Shaffer doesn’t mind living in that neighborhood,” Father said, “but why in the world would you want to live there? Those aren’t our kind of people, Penny. You don’t belong in that neighborhood. Stay on your own side of Brooklyn.”

  Penny knew that if she listened to her parents much longer, all would be lost. She rarely stood up to them, but this was one of those times when she needed to. “I-I already told Eddie I would do it. He’s counting on me.” She wished her voice sounded a little more certain, a little less shaky.

  Father smacked the arm of his chair with his palm. “You can’t do it. I won’t allow it.”

  Penny cleared the lump from her throat. “Well . . . well, I’m twenty-four years old, Dad. I think I can do whatever I want.” She turned and fled to her bedroom, quietly closing the door, but she could hear her mother shouting behind her.

  “Penny! . . . Penny Sue Goodrich, you come back here right now!”

  She stayed in her room, leaning against the door. She had to admit that she hadn’t really considered how hard it might be to take care of two children and run a household. Not to mention living on her own for the first time in her life. In a strange neighborhood. With Jewish people. But as frightening as all of those things were, it would be much, much worse to let Eddie down, much worse to miss this opportunity to win his love. Because that meant she would have to live here for the rest of her life. Alone and unloved.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE MUSIC OF Beethoven’s Third Symphony drifted from the radio as Jacob Mendel tried to compose yet another letter. Maybe this time he would get a response. Or maybe it would lead to another dead end. He had written to all of them: his city councilman, his congressmen, state senators, U.S. senators. He had even written to President Roosevelt. Nobody would help him. Dead ends, every one of them. But he would bury those government officials in a mountain of letters if he had to, until one of them finally helped him find his son, Avraham, his daughter-in-law, Sarah Rivkah, and his little granddaughter, Fredeleh.

  Other family members were missing as well – Jacob’s brothers Yehuda and Baruch and their families, aunts and uncles and cousins – all of them over in Hungary and not a word from them since America declared war in 1941. His family members should have come to America like he and Miriam had. They should have come when they had the chance. Who knew what had become of them now, with that madman marching across Europe? That was what Jacob was trying to find out: what had become of them. But every avenue he explored had led to a dead end.

  Jacob and Miriam had raised their son here in America, in Brooklyn. But five years ago, Avraham had decided that it was the will of Hashem that he travel to Hungary to study Torah in the yeshiva with a world-famous rebbe. While he was studying over there, Avraham had met Sarah Rivkah. They had married and had a daughter. Now all three of them had vanished.

  Jacob had been cutting out newspaper articles about the war ever since Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, saving maps and news items that told him what was happening. The photographs and clippings now covered the top of his dining room table so he could no longer eat a meal on it. But the table w
as no longer needed, so what did it matter?

  The meager scraps of news from Hungary were always very bad. The Hungarians had formed an alliance with Germany. And the pictures of what Hitler had already done in Germany were horrifying: skeletal remains of synagogues; the devastation of Kristallnacht ; Jews forced to leave their homes and business, forced to wear yellow stars.

  The music ended and a news program came on the radio. The news was certain to be bad. It always was – all of it bad. More U-boats terrorizing the Atlantic. More ships sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Another island in the Pacific lost to the Japanese. What would it be this time? But just as the newscaster began to speak, Jacob’s upstairs tenants chose that moment to slam the apartment door and thunder down the stairs – more than one person, from the sound of it – drowning out the announcer’s words. Jacob rose from his chair and shuffled across the room to turn up the volume before they slammed the front door on their way out like they always did. But the footsteps halted outside his apartment and a moment later someone knocked on his door. Miriam had been too friendly with their tenants, always inviting those two kids to come inside as if they were her own grandchildren.

  Jacob opened the door just a crack and saw that it was the father, Edward Shaffer. The girl stood beside him holding his hand, and the boy clung to his waist like gum on a shoe.

  “Hi, Mr. Mendel. Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to give you this month’s rent money.”

  “It is not the end of the month, yet. Only the twenty-fourth.” Jacob had just written the date on his letter, so he knew.

  “I know, Mr. Mendel, I know. But I’ll be going away tomorrow, and – ”

  “Heh? Going away? For how long?”

  Shaffer smiled faintly. “Well . . . until the war ends, I guess, and the Nazis and Japs are licked for good. I’ve enlisted in the army.”