Her voice grew sharper, even as the tantalizing smell of fresh-perked coffee filled the room. “Oh, but Abe, please, not Grossinger’s”

May/June 1964

Abe rushed into the kitchen clutching an ivory-colored, embossed envelope. His face radiated excitement. “Look, Hon, can you believe it? Twenty years! The guys are planning a reunion to mark it.”

Mutty looked up from the New York Times, where he’d been working furiously on the crossword puzzle. “Twenty years since what?”

“D-Day, Mutt,” Abe answered, “when your dad and tens of thousands of other soldiers like me landed on Normandy Beach. June 6, ’44, I’ll never forget that date, that day, that night.” For a moment his eyes clouded, and it seemed that he’d moved very far away from this peaceful Boro Park kitchen, to a land of shrieking missiles, flashing tracers, a place of bombs and blood and hundreds of parachuting figures swaying gracefully into Gehinnom.

A handwritten note fluttered out of the invitation. “And look at this, Annie! Charly Wagner writes to tell me that though the actual date, June 6, comes out on Shabbos, the men in the company knew I couldn’t make it and so they scheduled it for Sunday instead. And in a kosher hotel!”

“Can I come too, Dad?” Mutty asked, his puzzle forgotten. “I’d love to meet some of your buddies you’ve told me about.”

Abe scanned the invitation. “Sure, it says family members are welcome.” The clouds in his eyes vanished, replaced by their characteristic sparkle. “And here’s a great idea. The reunion is in Grossinger’s, up in the Catskills. What do you say we go up a few days early, make it a family vacation. It’s been a tough winter,” he added, glancing at Annie, who was baking breakfast muffins, “and we can all use a little country air.” He paced the floor, grabbed a blueberry muffin from the plate where Annie was stacking them, and continued planning. “I can get Frank Stephano to sub for me — it’s a quiet time of year. Mutty will be done with his studies, Artie will get Moe to give him a few days off, and we’ll just take the kids out of school.”

Annie, too, had her memories of that day, D-Day, two decades before. Not of battles and bloodshed; hers were recollections of heart-crushing fear, of the waking nightmare that her baby, little Mutty, would grow up fatherless, and of the prayers that somehow got her through that dark time.

And Hashem had been good to her, so good: He’d answered her tefillos, had sent Abe back to his family and healed his wounds.