Myron smiled.
“So I was never big on advice. But I have learned one thing for sure. One thing. So listen to me because this is important.”
“Okay.”
“The most important decision you’ll ever make is who you marry,” Dad said. “You can take every other decision you’ll ever make, add them together, and it still won’t be as important as that one. Suppose you choose the wrong job, for example. With the right wife, that’s not a problem. She’ll encourage you to make a change, cheer you on no matter what. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Remember that, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You have to love her more than anything in the world. But she has to love you just as much. Your priority should be her happiness, and her priority should be yours. That’s a funny thing—caring about someone more than yourself. It’s not easy. So don’t look at her as just a sexual object or as just a friend to talk to. Picture every day with the person. Picture paying bills with that person, raising children with that person, being stuck in a hot room with no air-conditioning and a screaming baby with that person. Am I making sense?”
“Yes.” Myron smiled and folded his hands on the table. “Is that how it is with you and Mom? Is she all those things to you?”
“All those things,” Dad agreed, “plus a pain in the tuchus.”
Myron laughed.
“If you promise not to tell your mother, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“What?”
He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “When your mother walks in the room—even now, even after all these years, if she were to, say, stroll by us right now—my heart still does a little two-step. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so, yeah. That used to happen with Jess.”
Dad spread his hands. “Enough then.”
“Are you saying Jessica is that person?”
“Not my place to say one way or the other.”
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?”
Dad shrugged. “You’ll figure that out, Myron. I have tremendous confidence in you. Maybe that’s why I never gave you much advice. Maybe I always thought you were smart enough without me.”
“Bull.”
“Or maybe it was easier parenting, I don’t know.”
“Or maybe you led by example,” Myron said. “Maybe you led gently. Maybe you showed rather than told.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
They fell into silence. The women around them chatted up their white noise.
Dad said, “I turn sixty-eight this year.”
“I know.”
“Not a young man anymore.”
Myron shook his head. “Not old either.”
“True enough.”
More silence.
“I’m selling the business,” Dad said.
Myron froze. He saw the warehouse in Newark, the place Dad had worked for as long as Myron could remember. The schmata business—in Dad’s case, undergarments. He could picture Dad with his ink-black hair in his glass-walled warehouse office, barking out orders, sleeves rolled up, Eloise, his long-time secretary, fetching him whatever he needed before he knew he needed it.
“I’m too old for it now,” Dad went on. “So I’m getting out. I spoke to Artie Bernstein. You remember Artie?”
Myron managed a nod.
“The man’s a rat bastard, but he’s been dying to buy me out for years. Right now his offer is garbage, but I still might take it.”
Myron blinked. “You’re selling?”
“Yes. And your mother is going to cut back at the law firm.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dad put a hand on Myron’s arm. “We’re tired, Myron.”
Myron felt two giant hands press down on his chest.
“We’re also buying a place in Florida.”
“Florida?”
“Yes.”
“You’re moving to Florida?” Myron’s Theory on East Coast Jewish Life: You grow up, you get married, you have kids, you go to Florida, you die.
“No, maybe part of the year, I don’t know. Your mother and I are going to start traveling a little more.” Dad paused. “So we’ll probably sell the house.”
They’d owned that house Myron’s entire life. Myron looked down at the table. He grabbed a wrapped Saltine cracker from the bread basket and tore open the cellophane.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. But he wasn’t fine. And he couldn’t articulate why, even to himself.
The waitress served them. Dad was having a salad with cottage cheese. Dad hated cottage cheese. They ate in silence. Myron kept feeling tears sting his eyes. Silly.
“There’s one other thing,” Dad said.
Myron looked up. “What?”
“It’s not a big deal really. I didn’t even want to tell you, but your mother thought I should. And you know how it is with your mother. When she has something in her mind, God himself—”
“What is it, Dad?”
Dad fixed his eyes on Myron’s. “I want you to know this has nothing to do with you or your going to the Caribbean.”
“Dad, what?”
“While you were gone”—Dad shrugged and started blinking; he put down his fork, and there was the faintest quiver in his lower lip—“I had some chest pains.”
Myron felt his own heart sputter. He saw Dad with the ink-black hair at Yankee Stadium. He saw Dad’s face turning red when he told him about the bearded man. He saw Dad rise and storm off to avenge his sons.
When Myron spoke, his voice sounded tinny and far away. “Chest pains?”
“Don’t make a thing of it.”
“You had a heart attack?”
“Let’s not blow it out of proportion. The doctors weren’t sure what it was. It was just some chest pains, that’s all. I was out of the hospital in two days.”
“The hospital?” More images: Dad waking up with the pains, Mom starting to cry, calling an ambulance, rushing to the hospital, the oxygen mask on his face, Mom holding his hand, both their faces devoid of any color.…
And then something broke open. Myron couldn’t stop himself. He got up and half sprinted to the bathroom. Someone said hello to him, called out his name, but he kept moving. He pushed open the bathroom door, opened a stall, locked himself in, and nearly collapsed.