Abe rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His wife’s quiet calm — no tears, no accusations, no hysteria — was both a relief and a puzzle to him.

“And where, one may ask, are you going?”

“I’m not sure yet, it’s a little too early to make phone calls. Abie,” she said, the studied calm beginning to break a little, “here’s my plan. This may be one of the most important decisions of my life. Of our lives. I need the quiet to think. Not in the house, with the kids, the phone, neighbors dropping by, Artie and Mutty arguing politics, and the cleaning help asking if she should polish the silver and you and me saying the same things over and over again.” She took a sip of coffee, her hand running over eyes red with fatigue. “Abe, I want you to give the car to Mutty. He and I will drive up to the Catskills for the day, maybe overnight. I’ll catch up on my sleep in the car. I’ll clear my head. I’ll have time to take a long walk, talk to myself, talk to Hashem. Mutty can do some hiking and give some more thought to what he’s planning to do. Then we’ll talk, just the two of us. And I hope im yirtzeh Hashem that we’ll make the right decision together.”

“So you’ve got it all figured out.”

Annie stood up, placed the coffee cup into the sink, and turned back to her husband. “Yes, at least this part. Artie can drop the kids off at school. If he’s still needed at the hotel when Ruchele gets home, he can ask” — she paused — “he can ask Marjorie to grab a yellow cab and take care of Ruchele until the twins come. And if Marjorie’s not available, you can send one of the secretaries to meet Ruchele and bring her to the office. I’ll switch the cleaning lady with one of my friends, and I’m going to call Mr. Perlstein at the Manor House to see if we can stay there. If not, well,” she attempted a wan smile, “there’s always Grossinger’s.”

Abe’s answering smile was more genuine. “Sweetheart, I told Mutty his mother is a remarkable woman. And you know what? I was right.”

There. Mrs. S. was gone to do her Girl Scout good deed of the day and bring the other boarders their mail. Finally, Marjorie could open Chrissie’s letter in private.

She laughed as she scanned the stationery. Chrissie had always been something of an artist — her doodles in her sixth-grade notebook had the whole class in stitches — and on the bottom of this page she’d created a Mr. Potato Head in full psychedelic color, chomping on a carrot dressed in a dark business suit. Cool!

But what really interested Marjorie was her old school friend’s description of her life, the new life she and two friends were making for themselves. A life of guitars and dancing. Flower boxes on the windowsill, cheap rent and, most of all, freedom. From rules. From adults who were sure they knew better than you. From stuffy, choking relationships. The descriptions were tantalizing, but even more interesting was the address of their pad in a place they called The Haight.

She looked around her, at the bare walls of her small room in the hotel. They’d been white once, but over the years had drifted into a sad-looking kind of gray, with a hint of mold in one corner. Marjorie had never bothered putting anything on the walls — happy family pictures were not her thing — so there was nothing to break the dismal paint but a fading picture of a boat tied to a pier that some boarder had left behind.

Leaving the letter on the rickety desk in the corner, she plopped down on the bed, next to the graduation gown she’d dropped there.

A strange thought: Will I miss this place?

It wasn’t much, this crummy room, but it had been her home for the past few months, and in a weird way she’d been happy here. Dreary as it was, it was certainly better than the bedroom Mother was envisioning for her — could you believe pale pink with a beige finish?

There was another quiet knock, and Perele Schwartz peeked her head in again.

“May I come in?”

“Sure.”

“Marjorie, Mrs. Katzenstein told me that tomorrow is Ida Baum’s 75th birthday. Would you be able to make her a cake? Something really special, maybe decorated with cream?”

In the months Marjorie had been in the hotel, she hadn’t built too many relationships with the boarders. They were always yapping together in Yiddish, and every time she tried to talk to them someone would tell her it was time for her to settle down and find a nice boy to marry. But still, some of them were pleasant, complimenting her food, asking how she was feeling. But that Mrs. Baum — wow, was she ever crabby. She’d only spoken to Marjorie once, and that was to complain that the chicken was too dry.

“She’s not going to appreciate it, Mrs. S. She’s always in a horrible mood.”

Perele sat down on the bed and placed a gentle arm on Marjorie’s shoulders. “Marjorie, the Nazis, yemach shemam, killed Ida Baum’s entire family, including her husband and three children. She never remarried, never had another family. Marjorie, we are her family. And if a piece of cake makes her feel a little less alone, you’ve done a real mitzvah.”

Marjorie knew when she was licked. “Okay, Mrs. S. I’ll be down in a few minutes. How about the chocolate fudge cake?” she grinned. “With vanilla frosting.”

“Thank you, darling. That would be perfect.” She planted a kiss on Marjorie’s cheek and left the room, leaving Marjorie staring at the closed door.

A minute later she was pounding down the stairs. “Hey, Mrs. S.,” she said, skipping into the kitchen. “Do we have colored sprinkles? That might cheer her up.”

The sunlight edged through the leaves like a mother stroking her baby’s cheeks, and the scent of pine was so strong it was almost a palpable and loving presence. Annie felt the roiling emotions that had flooded her heart, her very being, being soothed and comforted like a child held tight and secure by a loving parent.

A phone call to Chatzkel Perlstein, a few last-minute instructions, a promise to bring back acorns for the twins’ collection and a new dress for Ruchele’s Barbie if everyone behaved, and she and Mutty — her Mutty, her good boy, the one always willing to do whatever his mother asked — were soon leaving Brooklyn behind and enjoying the Cadillac’s smooth ride on quiet highways. Annie slept for much of the way, and now, sitting in this secluded copse of pine trees, she felt rested and refreshed. Mutty had gone off on a hike to a nearby waterfall; she was alone.

Now, with her head clear, Annie realized that her decision had nothing to do with politics; nothing, even, to do with the physical and even the spiritual dangers of the army. There were only two questions she needed to answer. Why would a successful frum boy — and her boy, her Mutty, was a frum boy — who as a medical student would be deferred by the draft, want to enlist and go to… if it wasn’t a war, it sure looked like one. And what would happen if she followed every instinct in her mother’s soul and begged him not to?

If you want to answer those questions, Annie, you’ll have to figure out what’s going on in the head of a 21-year-old boy. No, not a boy; a man.

As she sat in the serenity of the forest, the scent of pine seemed to be replaced by the salty spray of the Atlantic Ocean.

In her mind she was moving back to Coney Island, to a long-ago time when Annie Freed is young, and her life is a book whose chapters are waiting to be written. She is watching her father firmly slam shut the door of their home to his only son, her brother, Moey, who has enlisted in the US Army.

Moe was also a frum boy, like Mutty. But he felt trapped. He didn’t quite know who he was or even who he wanted to be. If Papa could have done it, he would have stopped Moey, forbidden him to join up. As it was, it took years — years! — for Moe to forgive Papa, and for Papa to forgive Moe.

If I ask him not to enlist, Mutty would forgive me. But resentment? Perhaps… for life.

Another memory. She is sitting on a glider, with her newlywed husband, her Abie, who has just celebrated his college graduation. He admits to her that he’s enlisted as a paratrooper.

Not exactly the same; America was at war, and Abie would have been drafted if he hadn’t enlisted. But still… remember the look on his face when he told you he was going to the army? He wasn’t scared of dying. He was a man who believed in what he was fighting for.

Like Mutty.

Still one more memory. Not of men, who can’t resist the war bugles’ cry, who are wired to protect and defend. No, this is the remembrance of a young wife, Annie Levine. She is impatient and — dare she say it? — bored with living in her father’s hotel and helping their cook in the kitchen. Instead, she takes a job repairing Navy ships in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and she revels in the physical and mental challenges.

How I enjoyed that time! I can still sometimes smell the hot metal as I riveted those enormous screws. But I gave it up to raise Malka and Artie, two war orphans. Because — that’s what mothers sometimes have to do. They give up what they love — for the sake of their children.

She sucked in a deep breath of fresh, woodsy air and stood up. She’d made her decision. Now all she had to do was talk to Mutty.

And pray.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 870)