I’ve set off a bomb in my life. For years I felt like I was safe on an— I don’t know, like an island. I had floated away from all those troubles that poor Doyle had, I was safe on my island with my own family, my husband and my boys, and now I’ve blown it up.”
“Loss can do this,” Bernie said.
“Do what?” Suzanne asked.
Bernie opened his hands upward. “Cause these…indiscretions.”
“But when I had this crappy indiscretion, my father wasn’t dead yet.”
“But your sons have left you.” Bernie pointed a finger toward the ceiling. He added, “And six years ago your brother was sent to prison for life. And, as you put it, your mother is gone. Those are huge losses, Suzanne.”
These words rolled over Suzanne with a swiftness, as though something true had been said but she couldn’t catch it. She gazed around his office. Oh, she wanted to stay here! A sudden crack of sunlight came through the far window, making a small strip of light across Bernie’s desk, and she saw that on his desk was one small framed photograph, facing him. “Who’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the frame.
He turned it around so she could see. The couple, in black-and-white, looked like they were from the olden days; the man had a full beard and a suit with a skinny tie, and the woman had a hat tight on her head. “My parents,” he said.
“Really.” Suzanne squinted at them. “Were they, you know, Orthodox?”
Bernie held up a hand and turned it one way, then another. “Yes, no. Eventually no.”
“Eventually? I thought if you were Orthodox, you were Orthodox.”
Bernie pressed his lips together, then gave a shrug. “Well. You were wrong. They died in the camps,” Bernie said. “They pretended they were not Jews, but they were and so they died.”
“Oh Jesus. Oh God. I’m so sorry.” Suzanne’s face got very hot. “I had no idea,” she said.
“Why would you have any idea?” He looked at her with his eyelids half down.
“How did you end up in Maine, Bernie?”
Bernie seemed indifferent to the question. “My wife and I wanted to get away from New York, and there was—still is—a Jewish community in Shirley Falls, so we came up here, but then we got tired of it, the community, so we moved to Crosby.”
She wanted to ask him how he’d come to New York after his parents had died in Europe, but she did not ask. She wanted also to ask about his faith. She wondered if he had lost his faith, if that’s what he meant by being tired of the community. It would be natural—wouldn’t it?—to lose your faith if you lost your parents in such a way? For many years Suzanne had had what she thought of—privately—as a faith of sorts, but this sensation had eluded her for a few years now, and she felt very bad about that. “Oh, Bernie,” she said. Then she asked, “How are your kids? Grandchildren?”
“They’re all fine.” He looked out the window then, and after a moment he said, “Ironically, they’re all living back in New York. Which is fine,” he added.
“Okay,” Suzanne said. She did not ask about Bernie’s wife, because Suzanne had just seen his wife—they had said hello—on her way upstairs to this office. His wife looked like a melted candle, this was what had gone through Suzanne’s mind. But she may have always looked like that, Suzanne could not remember.
“I wish I could stay right here,” Suzanne said. Across the room was a sofa in the corner that matched the red velvet cushioned chair she sat on.
Bernie said, “In Crosby?”
“Oh God, no. No, I meant here. Right here in this room. I wish I could just stay here, is what I’m saying.”
“Stay here as long as you like, Suzanne. There’s no rush.”
But they spoke then about the estate. When Bernie told her the amount of money that would come to her, Suzanne sat up straight. “Stop it,” she said. “Bernie, that’s sickening.”
“Your father made very good investments,” Bernie said.
She asked, “What did he invest in? I know he was an investment banker, but what did he invest in that made all this money? My God, Bernie, that’s a lot of money.”
“South Africa,” Bernie said, glancing at some sheets of paper in front of him. “Way back. And also the pharmaceutical companies. Exxon, too.”
“South Africa?” Suzanne asked. “Are you saying back when there was apartheid he was investing over there?” Bernie nodded, and