“So where is this other stop, the one you really want to make, using this shivah business as a pretext?”

July 1964

“Good morning, Mrs. Levine. Got a surprise for you today.”

As she did now almost every morning, Annie was sitting on the stoop, drinking her coffee and waiting... waiting....

And now here he was at last: Bert, the neighborhood’s grizzled and friendly mailman, holding his stack of bills, letters, and circulars in one hand, and in the other a white envelope, postmarked Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia.

A letter from Mutty!

Mentally deciding to double the yearly tip the family gave to their postman, she took the letter, trying not to snatch it out of his hand.

Such a good boy, her son, sending the family a weekly letter, finding the time in his brutal schedule to describe his days and nights in basic training. The mail generally came midmorning, furnishing Annie with the precious opportunity to read it first by herself, savoring every word as if they were Barton’s chocolate pralines. Later, when the family came home and was sitting around the dinner table, she would bring the letter out with a flourish, with the twins vying for the honor of reading it out loud. (Sometimes, partially to keep peace between them, and partially because she loved the sound of Mutty’s voice even on paper, she would let each of them read it out loud.) If Abe had one of his late days and missed the celebratory reading, she would sit with him later in the bedroom, swaying in her rocking chair and reveling in the sound of Mutty’s words coming out from Abe’s deep voice.