The Two-Family House: A Novel (34 page)

Natalie smiled. “Let’s hope the thesis committee agrees with you.”

“Don’t worry about them. I’m sure they’re going to see right away what a genius you are.”

“Sure. Anyway, go on.”

“I know this sounds terrible, but sometimes your brothers would drive me crazy. Rose had three sweet little girls, and I was jealous because I knew they would all be close to her when they grew up and I would be alone. I used to worry that your brothers would all move away and get married to girls who hated me.”

“Meanwhile, Sam lives the farthest, and it’s only twenty minutes from here! And no one could ever hate you. Everyone loves you.”

“Well, I’ve been lucky. But back then I worried. Anyway, I was thirty-five when I got pregnant again. My grandmother used to say if a woman waited more than seven years between babies, her body changed and she’d have the opposite of whatever she had the last time. I thought for sure I’d have a girl.

“Rose got pregnant at the same time. Our pregnancies had overlapped before, but we never had due dates as close as that. We were so excited. Rose and I were like sisters back then. But she was worried. The whole time she was pregnant, she was scared of having a girl.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to tell me, honey. It was obvious. Uncle Mort was convinced they were having a boy. He called the baby ‘he,’ he told the girls they were having a brother, he told everyone who’d listen. He started paying more attention to Rose and the girls—and that only made her feel more pressured. I don’t think she would have been able to bear it, to disappoint him again.”

“Geez. Lucky for her she had Teddy.”

Helen’s face reddened. She looked away. There was something amiss in her silence. “Mom?”

“Natalie, Johnny isn’t your cousin.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how else to tell you. Johnny isn’t your first cousin. You love him and you’re going to marry him and have healthy babies and you
don’t
need to worry about those stories Arlene tells about her uncle’s children.”

“What are you
saying
?” Natalie stood up from her seat and started pacing across the kitchen floor. “
What are you saying to me
?”

“I’m saying, the night you were born, the night of the blizzard, Rose and I … she was so distraught, we…”

Natalie’s ears were ringing and her hands started to shake. She stopped pacing and fell back, limp, into her chair. Her eyes were blank, and when she spoke, she was incredulous.

“Rose and Mort are my parents?”

“Yes.”

“And Teddy was your son?”

“Yes.”

Natalie shook her head. Her brain was filled with a buzzing static so that every thought was muddled. “But how? How is that even
possible
? How could that
happen
?”

“You were born first and then Teddy was born a few minutes later. Rose was absolutely crushed, hopeless. She didn’t speak. And then Judith came into the room and she asked us which baby was her mother’s and which baby was mine. Rose looked at me then, and she was so … I don’t know. So
desperate
. She stared and stared at me, pleading, and I … I nodded. I agreed. And then it was done. Without a single word it was done.”

“What do you mean, it was
done
? You decided to switch your children without even discussing it? How could you have known what Rose was thinking? How could she have known that you agreed?”

“We just knew.”

“But what about the midwife? Didn’t she see what you were doing? Didn’t she
say
anything?”

“No. She was out of the room when it happened, and when she came back I was holding you and Rose was holding Teddy. The midwife filled out the forms the way we told her to. She knew, but she didn’t stop us.”

“Did Daddy know? Does Mort?”

“Only Rose and I know. And now you.”

Natalie lifted her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth in her chair. “Oh my God.
Oh my God
. Why are you telling me this now?
Why
?”

“Because I can’t let what I did control who you marry or how you live the rest of your life. I want you to be happy, even if it means you hate me and you never speak to me again. Even if it means everyone finds out the truth. Even if it means you know I’m not your mother.”

Natalie’s lungs were burning. A terrible tightness gripped her chest, and her thoughts turned suddenly to Abe. If she shut her eyes tight, she could conjure Abe’s face, she could summon his smile. She could hear his daily complaints about the diet Helen kept him on, about the tub of margarine that had been substituted for his beloved dish of butter. “Why do you make me eat this crap, Helen?” he would ask. “Because I love you,” Helen would answer. “Now eat it.”

Natalie tried to picture Abe sitting with them, listening to the true story of the night she had been born. She tried to imagine him pounding his fists on the table, screaming his outrage and walking away from Helen, the same way Natalie wanted to now. But when she tried to conjure the scene, she found that she could not. All she could see was Helen and Abe together in the funeral chapel on the day they buried Teddy. All she could picture was Abe cradling her mother in his arms after Helen had just slapped him across the face. All she could hear were the old rabbi’s words, words she had then been too young to understand—“
Love is always forgiving
.”

After several minutes, Natalie opened her eyes. She sat up straight in her chair and looked at Helen, at the woman who had given her everything and had asked for nothing in return. She could not chastise her for her choices. She would not condemn or find fault. Her mother had lost a son and a husband. She had lost a best friend. Natalie would not make her suffer the loss of a daughter as well. “Please don’t ever say you’re not my mother,” Natalie whispered. “You will always be my mother and Teddy’s mother too. No one ever loved either of us more than you.”

Helen stared at Natalie, eyes wide with disbelief. She had never expected to be forgiven. “It’s going to be all right,” Natalie said, in a voice so authoritative she did not recognize it as her own. Her energy was renewed, her mind overflowed with plans for how to proceed. “I have to tell Johnny right away,” she said. “I don’t want to keep any secrets from him.”

“Of course,” Helen agreed. “He’s going to be your husband.”

“I think we should tell Uncle Sol and Arlene too so they won’t worry about Johnny and me being together.”

Again, Helen nodded in agreement.

“But all the others … I don’t think anyone else should know. It would be too painful, too confusing for all of them.”

“Not even Mort?” Helen asked.

There was no hesitation when Natalie answered. “No. He’s at peace with his life now. I don’t want to ruin that for him.”

“I think you’re right.”

Natalie hugged her mother then, folding Helen into her arms the way her father had so many years ago. When Helen lifted her head, Natalie could see the toll that keeping the secret had taken. The invisible veil that had shrouded her mother’s face every day since her birth was finally lifted. For the first time in her life, Helen spoke her greatest regret out loud. “If I hadn’t done this … if I had kept Teddy, he might not have had the accident. He might still be alive, here now, with us.”

“No.” Natalie spoke with gentle sureness. “You can’t think that way.” She brushed her mother’s face with her open palm and held her hand against the softness of her mother’s cheek. “It wouldn’t have mattered which house Teddy lived in, he would have bent down for his comic just the same. I knew him better than anyone. I was there.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes.” Natalie’s lower lip trembled and her voice became a whisper. “You couldn’t have saved him. But you did save me.”

Chapter 71

ROSE

Helen had sent Rose a brief letter along with the clipping from the local newspaper announcing Natalie and Johnny’s engagement. She wanted Rose to know she had told Natalie the truth. When Rose finished reading, an unexpected feeling of relief washed over her. The photograph that accompanied the clipping showed a jubilant young woman with a life full of promise.

When she finished Helen’s letter, Rose sat down at Faye’s old desk to write a reply. Her writing was shaky, and a few tears stained the page. She wrote that she was sorry about Abe, that she would always remember him as kind and forgiving. She wrote that Natalie and Johnny made a lovely couple and that she wished them a long, happy life together. Before she finished the letter, Rose slid open the left-hand drawer of the desk. There, in the back, was a jewelry box containing the diamond earrings that Faye had left to Natalie in her will so many years before, the earrings that Rose had never been able to bring herself to send. Tomorrow, she would go to the post office and mail them with the letter. They would look perfect with a wedding dress, Rose wrote to Helen, and she hoped that Natalie would enjoy them.

Epilogue

(June 1970)

Whenever Johnny tried to cut a name from the guest list, his parents added two in its place. “I’ll get a bigger tent,” Sol insisted.

“They’ve known you since you were a
baby,
” Arlene gushed.

Eventually, Johnny gave up any hope of having a small wedding. Natalie was so grateful for the family’s support that she couldn’t care less who was invited. “Your mom can ask the whole neighborhood,” she told Johnny. “As long as we’re together, who cares?”

Natalie had been particularly worried about telling Mort. She knew Mort and Sol hadn’t always gotten along over the years, and she was afraid Mort would disapprove of the marriage as a result. It turned out Johnny and Mort had more in common than she knew. All those years of listening to his father talk about the odds he’d pay on horses, and the interest his late-paying customers owed, had rubbed off on Johnny. He had a combined appreciation for numbers and sports, and he knew the stats for more baseball players than Mort. The fact that he
wasn’t
going to work for Sol helped too. “I like him,” Mort admitted.

“That’s a relief,” Natalie replied. “Because I want you and my mother to walk me down the aisle together at the wedding.”

Mort was speechless. He never imagined Natalie would include him in her ceremony in such a significant way. His experience at Mimi’s wedding had left him feeling out of place and unwelcome, and Dinah had eloped. “I would be honored,” he told her.

Natalie was sitting in his office when she told him, in the extra chair she had made him leave against the wall during her first visit, all those years ago. “Your father would be very proud of you,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

“I do,” she answered, smiling. “I know my father is proud of me.” On her way out, Natalie forgot to close the door to Mort’s office.

For the first time, he decided to leave it open.

Acknowledgments

This book is for the women of my mother’s family—for my mother, Janice Cohen, whose recipe box I really do talk to; for my grandmother, Tillie Sack, whose unconditional love for every one of her grandchildren made us all believe that we really were that beautiful, that handsome, that smart, and that talented; and for my aunts, Shelley Marcus and Barbara Wisnefsky, who have been my cheering section always. Thanks to the four of them for sharing the stories that have always comforted and inspired me.

I could not have written this book without the constant help and friendship of two brilliant and special writers and women. New friendship in one’s forties is an unexpected gift, one that Elisabeth Bassin and Susan Kleinman have given me. Without them, I would have shut my laptop long ago.

Five years ago I had the good fortune of walking into Steve Schnur’s class at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute, and my life was forever changed. I must thank my classmates, past and present, for all they have taught me. And to Steve, special thanks for his encouragement and kindness.

Thanks to Leslie Powell, sister of my heart, and to all of my Westchester girlfriends for sharing motherhood and madness with me for the past sixteen years. Thanks to my father, Harris Cohen; my brother, Robert Cohen, and my husband’s parents, Carol and Barry Loigman, for all of their enthusiasm. If my brother-in-law, Mark Loigman, was still with us, I have no doubt that he would be the most excited of all.

I have always had a soft spot for fairy tales, and when my agent, Marly Rusoff, called me for the first time, I felt like I had stepped into one. A million thanks to Marly for believing in my characters, for helping me to create the best possible version of this story, and for welcoming me into her magical world. Without Marly and Michael Radelescu, this book would still be just a lonely file on my laptop.

With all the novels out there waiting to be read, I am so grateful to my editor, Jennifer Weis, for choosing mine. Thanks to Jen and Sylvan Creekmore for their enthusiasm, guidance, and hard work. Thanks also to everyone at St. Martin’s Press who helped to bring this book to life: Sally Richardson, Jen Enderlin, Brant Janeway, Lisa Senz, Jessica Preeg, Angela Craft, and Olga Grlic.

Thank you to Lynn Goldberg and Kathleen Carter Zrelak for their energy, their guidance, and their positivity.

The Two-Family House
is a story rooted deep within me, but I could never have written it without first being a mother. Thanks to my daughter, Ellie, for her love of reading and language, and for sharing so much of herself with me. Thanks to my son, Charlie, for making me laugh and for being the sweetest cure to anything that ails me. How fortunate I am to have one of each.

The very last thank you is for my husband and best friend. Love and gratitude to Bob always for listening to me read my stories at night when all he wants is to sleep, for believing in me even when I don’t, for loving me when I am at my worst, and for singing with me in the car, as promised.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR