Read The Other Side of Love for Free Online

week-long mourning rite the Jews have. Now that I’m older, I can see how hurt they were - he was their only child. But back then I hated them for what they did to Myron.”
    Tears lay on her cheeks.
     
    Wyatt swallowed. He had seen his mother weep only twice, after the death of each of his Rossie grandparents.
     
    “What was he like?”
     
    “You,”
    she said, wiping her eyes.
    “Exactly like you. He was such a nice boy, Wyatt. Generous. Kind. Impulsive. A sense of humour. He would lose his temper and then be sorry right away. Tall. Goodlooking. Rangy. Extremely smart, but not one of those pretentious intellectual types. A wonderful athlete.”
     
    “Me? He sounds like the next evolutionary step up.”
     
    Shaking her head, she touched his cheek.
    “Pa came to Boston to meet Myron. He hadn’t wanted me to go north in the first place. He cut off my support and made Myron feel so hangdog. Myron worked as a longshoreman on the Boston docks. He could have gotten a white-collar job, but they paid well on the docks, and we needed to save so he could go back to medical school. He’d always wanted to be a doctor.”
    She sighed convulsively. Most of the longshoremen had despised Myron for being a Jew and educated.
    “We found a cold-water flat I’d call it a tenement now. Still, we were young and hopeful, happy together.”
     
    Tears stood in Wyatt’s eyes. Swallowing hard, he gripped Rossie’s hand.
     
    She went on:
    “We were married six months, and I was three months pregnant. That day was rainy, windy. They were unloading a Canadian freighter; Star of Nova Scotia, it was called. He slipped between the boat and the wharf. I’ve always prayed he was killed instantly. When they fished him out his bones were all broken.”
     
    “God …
    “
    Wyatt blew his nose.
     
    “Having a baby, I should have gone back south. That was the sensible thing to do. But crawling home to my family seemed like a breach of faith with Myron. Instead I went to New York and looked for a job.”
     
    Wyatt picked up the watch, turning it over, his forefinger tracing the initials MHL as Rossie described being hired for secretarial work by the easygoing young Englishman who ran the small floundering American branch of a London concern. She had never worked, but
    30
     
    i
    I
    she could type and was good at arithmetic. The activity of the shop acted therapeutically.
    “Humphrey was very dear, and soon I was helping him with the books. But of course he wanted to beau me around.”
     
    “He knew that you were a widow?”
     
    “I applied for the job as Mrs Leventhal.”
    When Humphrey found out she was pregnant, he grew more insistent.
    “But you know the rest,”
    Rossie said.
    “He’s a wonderful father, isn’t he?”
     
    “The greatest. Mom, this’ll stay between us.”
     
    “Thank you, dear. I never intended telling you. But since you’re so intent on going to Berlin I had to warn you. There’s a rumour that the Nazis have spies checking every American contestant’s racial background.”
     
    “Where did you hear that?”
     
    “I pay attention to that kind of thing. Being married to Myron made me pay attention.”
    She paused.
    “The marriage licence was issued to Rossie Wyatt Leventhal, widow. Myron’s name is on it. And you were born a month later.”
     
    “How far-fetched can you get? They’d have to check the marriage licences, the death certificates.”
     
    “I heard they’re making very complete dossiers.”
     
    “Come on, Mom, this isn’t like you.”
     
    “Maybe I am over-reacting,”
    Rossie said. Getting to her feet, she rested both hands on his bare shoulders, looking down at him.
    “So you’re all right, dear?”
     
    “Just sad that you and he had such a rotten time.”
     
    She bent down and tugged his hair the way she had when he was a kid.
    “You’re positive?”
    she said. M
    “Nothing’s changed,”
    he lied.
     
    She had left the watch on the blanket cover. He had sat holding