Finding a Soul Mate (Meant to be Together Book 1)

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Finding a Soul Mate (Meant to be Together Book 1) Page 12

by Ally Richards


  Then he kind of looked me up and down and said, “He’s telling me that you’re kinder and more intelligent than you are beautiful. From what I’m looking at, that may not be possible. Tell me, little lady, is that possible?”

  It must have been the heat from the forge, because I felt my face was getting warm.

  “Manny said that I’m kind?”

  “Turn around. Ask him yourself.”

  Manny stood in the doorway. He was covered in sweat and his powerful arms glistened in the sunlight. His face shone with joy. I felt a warm feeling come over me and we hadn’t even said a word to each other yet.

  “Hello. I have a drawing for you.”

  “And I have a cedar-lined chest for storing blankets for you.”

  The way he looked at me—he made me feel good just smiling at me.

  “Kinder,” Manny’s father told us, “go in the house to look at the drawing. The cedar chest is in there as well. I have work to do out here, so you’ll be out of my way.”

  We entered their small house. Manny looked at the drawing for a long time and thanked me. He told me it was a treasure, an absolute treasure.

  He showed me the cedar-lined chest. The outside was so smooth and shiny it almost looked wet. And the lid was easy to lift with the springs he had installed with the hinge. It obviously took many hours to build. And he made it with such care. Such care for me. How could I be so lucky? I told him that it was the most carefully crafted cedar chest I had ever seen.

  “Well, you saved me,” he said.

  “No, you saved me,” I told him.

  He laughed that deep sounding laugh of his. “Okay. Okay. We saved each other,” Manny said with a huge grin.

  “I heard that you and your father will be moving in a month,” I blurted out.

  “We’ve bought a lumber mill and forge shop from a man who’s retiring. It’s far away in the Pacific Northwest.” He took my little hands in his big powerful ones, looked at me earnestly, and said, “I’ll be able to make a comfortable living for us, and I promise you our children will never be hungry.”

  And that was his marriage proposal to me. I was so thrilled because I absolutely knew he felt the same way about me as I felt about him.

  “What’s this? You two making a shidekh?” Manny’s dad said as he entered the house.

  “Yes, we are making a match,” I told him, still looking into Manny’s eyes. “In fact, I told my parents two days ago that I was going to marry him.” Except for Manny holding my hands, I don’t know where I found the strength to talk that way to an adult.

  “Then you two deserve each other, because two days ago my son told me that he was going to marry you.”

  I squeezed Manny’s hands when I heard what he said.

  “Pa, don’t embarrass me.”

  “Embarrass nothing. I went to the school teacher, Mrs. Goldenberg, to find out about this little lady. She told me that you two are the brightest kids in this town. Also she told me, more importantly, the two of you might be the nicest kids in this town. She said that if you two thought you should be together, then I shouldn’t get in the way. The way the two of you look at each other, I’d have to be crazy not to give you my blessing. I’m going to get cleaned up so I can go talk to your father. Manny, you should do the same and we’ll go together.”

  I walked home alone worrying about my parents’ reaction.

  Manny and his father came over to our house that evening. My father had a talk with Manny’s dad in the kitchen.

  “I’m just a blacksmith, but my son is much more,” I overheard Manny’s father say. “We’re not buying a business in Washington State with the money I make from horse shoes and wagon repairs—Manny’s reading and understanding about metal brings ideas into my shop that let me make tools in an hour that used to take all day. Even the Amish come to my shop to buy, because they know our tools are stronger and will last longer. Oy! He has such a head that he makes tools that make tools. Do you understand this? A steel salesman from Chicago came through here last month. He and Manny are talking about carbon and hardness in vocabulary I’ve never heard. After talking to Manny for a couple of hours about the metal Manny needed, the salesman told me, ‘He’s a natural engineer, that one.’ And the math he does. Equations, he calls them. Squiggles here, letters there, numbers over numbers—and suddenly my tools are stronger.”

  My momma came into the room at that point. “Well, what have you two decided for them?”

  “I’m not sure,” my father said.

  “Well, get sure,” my mother instructed him. “Because I’m sure now. I wasn’t before, but do you hear that laughter? That’s Shifrah and Moishe laughing at a story he’s telling them about a funny creature that lives under a bridge. As he’s telling the story to them, he’s making them characters in the story. I think Esther should be so lucky to have a man that will entertain her children. And the way Esther looks at him, the only decision you two should make is when will be the wedding!”

  “This is not an easy decision for a father to make,” my poppa said.

  My mother was quiet for a moment and then told him, “The most miserable time of my life was the weeks it took to travel here from Europe with the girls. I was nervous, anxious, and sick from the sea. But the minute I left the train and saw you smiling at me, all the pain of the trip was gone and I knew I was home and safe. That’s how she looks at him.”

  My father smiled at my mother, then as he shook the blacksmith’s hand he said, “So now we’ll see when the Rabbi can come to town.”

  A week later, as the Rabbi descended from the train, my father greeted him and said, “We are glad you arrived here so quickly.”

  He replied in a laughter filled voice, “So I get this message from a teacher, a Mrs. Goldenberg, who says that two of her best students need a rabbi down here, like yesterday. I told her that I wasn’t sure about my schedule. She gets mad and tells me that if I don’t show up and marry these two, she’ll fix it so I can never borrow another book from any library in the state for the rest of my life. I know a real threat when I hear one so I boarded the next train.”

  We had a wonderful wedding ceremony. My mother made a beautiful Chuppa for us and Manny’s dad made a lovely support for it. We stood on a little raised platform during the ceremony. At the end, when the groom breaks a glass under his foot to remind us of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem—Manny being Manny, not only smashed the glass under his foot, but also jammed his foot through one of the boards we were standing on. He was embarrassed, but we all laughed.

  We shipped all our goods out ahead of us to Washington State. We said our tearful good-byes and boarded the train to start our new life in the Northwest. As the train pulled out of the station I never knew if I would see any of my brothers and sisters again.

  * * *

  I felt quite sad to leave my family behind in Iowa. My parents were sad that I was going so far away, but understood that my future was with Manny. My sister, Shifrah, however, wasn’t ready to lose her big sister and it was difficult for her to watch me leave. I promised I would write to her regularly.

  My wedding night with Manny was difficult, to say the least. It was August in Iowa and humid—like you were dressed in a warm, damp sponge. Well, neither of us knew anything about sex. We had the general idea from watching farm animals that his thing had to go in my thing, but not much else. As far as advice from my mother, all she’d told me was sex is this awful thing you have to do with men if you want to have kids and keep the man happy.

  We were both sweating profusely, Manny was pushing, and I was in pain and wondering why it hurt so much. The moment I started to feel a little pleasure, Manny made some noises, I felt his thing moving inside me, and it was over. He rolled off me and went to sleep. Not exactly something I would be looking forward to doing again.

  We boarded the train that took us to Minneapolis as the first part of our journey. The smells, smoke, and noise from the steam engine were dreadful. By mid-day we
were covered in oily soot and smelled liked burned coal. Every now and then the train would be on a curve and the smoke poured in the windows. People tried to quickly close them, but at least some of the smoke would get in the train car. It was terrible. It was much better when we were traveling across the northern plains as the temperatures cooled off to a reasonable degree, especially at night—the seats transformed into beds then, and had curtains surrounding them for privacy.

  Manny’s father found some men his age at the back of our train and they played cards all the way to Seattle.

  On the afternoon of the first day on the train, Manny was at the rear of our car talking to his dad and a middle-aged woman sat down next to me and we talked.

  She introduced herself as Rose Mendoza. She was dressed fashionably and had a rather zaftig figure. Rose was excited to meet a fellow Jew who was moving to the Seattle area. When she realized I was a newlywed, she was excited for me. She was even more excited to learn that we were going to be living near her. We talked about many topics—she was obviously a well-read woman.

  “Your husband is a nice looking man. He looks so strong,” Rose told me. She looked around for a moment and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Honey, how was your first night with him?”

  I was shocked that she would ask me about that. To the best of my memory, I don’t remember anyone, other than my mother, talking to me about sex.

  I must have worn that shock on my face, because Rose continued, “The answer should have been that it was the most incredible thing ever. Seeing that you have that shocked look on your face, instead of a huge smile, we need to talk. First of all, he needs to go slow before he even gets inside you. And once he’s inside you, he waits until you finish first. Then he can finish. And when he’s done, he holds you. You tell him that and you’ll be surprised how much you will enjoy it. Now, when he does it right, you tell him how much of a man he is and how great he makes you feel, and he’ll do anything to keep you saying that. It won’t be long before your body starts telling you that you want him, as much as he wants you. Sometimes he’ll think he’s too tired to do something, but you just get your hands on his business down there and he’ll do anything you want him to, tired or not.”

  Well I was sure my jaw had dropped all the way to the floor of the train.

  “Look—my Harry is coming this way,” she whispered to me in an excited tone.

  Harry, a fashionably dressed but otherwise unremarkable-looking man, walked up, smiled at Rose, bent over, and kissed his wife on the cheek, then continued on his way.

  “See that,” Rose had a big grin on her face, “twenty-two years together and he still makes me feel glad that I’m a woman. You talk to your Manny. You’ll see. He’ll make you feel that way too.”

  My mind was spinning. Unlike my mother, this woman looked forward to the bedtime business. Our conversation continued about things I could expect in my new Northwest home, plus discussions on education and job training. We exchanged addresses and Rose told me to send her a note when we were settled. She’d promised me, “I’ll teach you how to make salmon gefilte fish. Plus many of the Jews up in the Northwest are Sephardi. Harry’s mother taught me lots of Sephardi recipes and we’ll get together and have fun baking and cooking for the holidays.”

  I liked this outspoken lady. I remember thinking that I hoped we would become friends, even though she was much older than I was.

  That night, I talked to Manny as Rose had suggested. It took us a couple of tries, but the last night on the train I, you know, finished. Manny tried to hold me afterward, but I kept kissing him and rubbing my body against him because he made me feel so great. I think my legs must have been brushing against his business, because I realized he was ready to do it again and, yes, I finished again too. Married life was improving by the moment for Manny and me.

  As we were leaving the train I said good-bye to Harry and Rose. “I hope to see you again,” I told them.”

  “You will, dear,” Rose told me. Then she whispered, “So, did he take you there?”

  I could feel my face turning red, but I leaned toward her, lowered my voice to a whisper and said, “Twice.”

  “I told you,” she whispered in a high-pitched voice. “He’s a good man, just like my Harry.”

  Then they turned and walked away, arm in arm—two unremarkable-looking people who shared a most remarkable love. It really inspired me to see that love really can last a lifetime.

  Well, the first day in our new home, I mostly spent cleaning and putting things away, but then, just before dinner, a messenger arrived with a box addressed to Manny and me. I opened it and found two jars of canned fruit I never heard of, a mezuzah, a spice cake, and a dinner invitation for Saturday night. It was from Rose and Harry, of course.

  The invitation said she was inviting some of her friends from ORT she wanted me to meet. I didn’t know it then, but the local ORT chapter didn’t make a move without consulting Rose. When there was a conflict, she would gather the parties in conflict over tea and spice cake at her home. A resolution would appear as quickly as her spice cake disappeared. I sent a message, accepting her invitation, back with the messenger. Rose and I became lifelong friends.

  As we were moving into our new home, the local priest stopped by. He was a fit-looking man of average height. His demeanor was one of jolly confidence.

  “Good day, Mr. and Mrs. Weiss. I’m Father O’Malley from St. Bridget’s, up the street there,” he gestured in that direction, “across from what I hear is your new business. Welcome to town. I’m glad to hear that we have more members of the Hebrew faith moving in. Won’t be long and I’ll bet we’ll all be pitching in to help build a synagogue.”

  This was followed by a thunderous laugh. He shook our hands and saw my Sabbath candleholders that I had brought from Iowa.

  “And do you light candles on the beginning of your Sabbath each Friday?” he asked.

  “Always,” I replied. “We do a little service and discuss a portion of the bible, as well.”

  “It’s been quite some time since I attended a Sabbath dinner,” he told us with a twinkle in his eye.

  “It would be an honor if you would like to join us this Friday,” I told him. “We’ll begin at seven o’clock.”

  “I’ll be here,” he replied.

  “By the way, Mr. Weiss, if you need to hire a few lads, let me know. I know of a few good fellas that have been looking for work.

  Manny thanked him. “That’s good to know, Father O’Malley.”

  And so our first Sabbath guest was a priest. As wonderful a man as you would ever want to meet. He shocked us when he arrived with a box of kosher Sabbath candles for me. What an amazingly thoughtful gift. We were happy to get to know him.

  The following afternoon Manny, Avram, and I traveled over to Rose and Harry’s home. They lived in a two-story house with a wide front porch. The house was surrounded by a short picket fence and the landscaping was neat and orderly. At the side of the front door was a sign that read Harry Mendoza, MD.

  We saw Harry seated in a rocking chair reading a newspaper. As we opened the gate to the yard, Harry saw us and yelled into the screened front door, “They’re here, Rose!” Harry opened the door for us and whispered, “She’s been cooking all day. You better be hungry.”

  “That won’t be a problem for this group,” I told him.

  “Welcome, welcome,” Rose told us as she came out of the kitchen smiling broadly and wiping her hands on her flour-covered apron. She took off the apron and had hugs for everyone—her bright and bubbly spirit made us feel at home right away.

  “Dinner is almost ready, so let’s sit down and Harry will pour us some wine.”

  The table was set with lovely dishes. I was seated next to Rose with Manny next to me and Avram seated across the table from us. Rose and I had table settings that were much more intricately patterned than the settings for the men.

  “Harry bought these for me when he was in Sheffield, England and I alwa
ys put them out for my lady friends,” she explained.

  Dinner started with chicken soup and salad with a light dressing. The main course consisted of poached salmon filet, a Sephardic-style casserole of lamb and apricots seasoned with honey, coriander and ginger, a spinach soufflé, plus lamb and vegetable-stuffed red onions.

  “I didn’t have enough dried apricots so I added some dried nectarines as well.”

  After explaining my ignorance of nectarines, Harry told me, “Nectarines are a type of peach and they grow on peach trees, but don’t have the fuzzy skin. I have some fruit trees growing behind the house that provide us peaches and nectarines every year. Rose dries some and cans the rest. The trees are blooming now, so it won’t be many more weeks until we have fresh peaches and nectarines.”

  I heard that the Northwest was famous for apples so I asked if they grew them as well.

  “Apples,” Rose exclaimed. “Esther, we get apples around here like crazy. They’re easy to grow, but they also come out of the valley east of here near a town called, Yakima. They come in various shades of green, yellow, and red. Some are as sweet as honey and others sour and firm—which are perfect for baking and cooking. You’ll be amazed at how many different types of apples will be available and the thousands of ways you can add them to dishes.”

  She also told me about the raspberries that grew wild all over the area. And cherries which, like the raspberries, I had to admit I read about, but never eaten.

  Dessert took care of that. Rose served raspberry cobbler, cherry pie, and a tort made with dried apples and walnuts seasoned with molasses, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  Manny leaned over and whispered to me, “It looks like we’ll be eating well in the Northwest.”

  Rose, naturally, wrote down all the recipes for me. I was amazed at the range of flavors in the dishes she served. We talked cooking, gardening, and housekeeping, especially those things that were different here in the Northwest as opposed to Iowa.

  After dinner, some of Rose’s friends from ORT came over and we drank tea together. They explained their charity work in the hope I would find time to join and help their group. They were raising money to send to schools, for Jews who would be coming to the United States. The students needed job skills they could put to immediate use when they arrived here.

 

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