All I Love and Know (10 page)

But he didn't even know what the address was here, to find his way back. He pondered that, his own severe infantilization.

The living room had emptied out, at least for now. He went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets, trying to find a liquor stash. He finally found a bottle of scotch among the vinegar and soy sauce bottles, and poured himself an enormous shot into a coffee mug. He downed it, shuddering. Then he slipped out the front door and stumbled out into the street, squinting from the low, cutting western sun. He walked down the street, stray cats scattering before him. To his left was a narrow flight of stone stairs, leading up; he began to climb them, walking past little gardens, profusions of flowers falling over stone walls, and shadowed doorways into apartment buildings, some with old, creaky iron gates. At the top, a bus roared by on a wide and busy street. He ran across and turned up another flight of stairs, where again he felt sheltered from the warm and busy city. He could smell some type of wild plant. The loveliness of the neighborhood made him want to cry, and the alcohol hit him then and made him stagger. He found a small raggedy playground where a lone grandma, a scarf on her head, sat near a stroller as a toddler played in the sand. He sat down on a bench and closed his eyes, feeling his head spiral. He would sit there till it got dark. If Daniel needed him, he wouldn't be there.

The conversations he'd had at the shiva bubbled in his mind. What were the names of that couple he'd been stuck in a corner with? The guy was the son of Yaakov and Malka's best friends. Natan Fink, that was his name. And his haughty, elegant wife, whose name Matt couldn't dredge up. Natan had apparently played with Ilana as a kid. When the conversation with Matt faltered, he'd gestured toward the baby gate that normally blocked off the kitchen and now leaned unused against a cabinet, as if to say that he'd just noticed it. “When we were young, they didn't have childproofing, and shmildproofing; they didn't believe that a kid would die if he ate a peanut. Do you understand? These people had survived the biggest catastrophe that could happen, they were trying to begin a new life, they didn't waste their time with nonsense. So we kids ran wild; we played on construction sites, in wadis, we rode bikes—without helmets!” He made a shocked face. “All over Jerusalem, into the Arab parts, where the Arabs all knew us and liked us and gave us rolls with
zatar
.” He stopped and laughed. “Not that we weren't a little messed up! If you ever hurt yourself, or felt bad, you looked into your parents' eyes and felt ashamed to think of that as suffering.” He looked at his wife and said complacently, “But I turned out okay, right?”

His wife patted his arm. “Sure, sweetie,” she said.

Natan's eyes moved over the living room and then rested fondly on Yaakov. “They all helped each other. If one lost a job, the others pitched in. If one had, God forbid, to be hospitalized, or had a nervous breakdown, the others were there to help. And Malka and Yaakov! Well. To this day, my parents say that they wouldn't have made it without them. They got on the same boat to Palestine as Malka. None of them were married yet, of course. They'd all lost their parents, brothers, sisters. So they had to be a family to each other.”

They were silent for a while, then Natan heaved a mighty sigh. “He's a hero, Yaakov. A true hero. And now—
ach
.”

Sitting on the park bench, Matt wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed. The sun had lowered behind a building and it was suddenly cold. He thought about how he'd tell Daniel this story, about this obnoxious man who worshipped Yaakov. He was sure that by now he knew more about some of these people than Daniel did. Anger rose sullenly in him again. He knew Daniel was grieving, but didn't he, Matt, deserve a little recognition, deserve to be seen as part of the family? As a participant in this drama?

IN THE BEDROOM, THE
four parents perched uncomfortably at the edges of Joel and Ilana's bed. Malka, whose feet didn't quite reach the floor, smoothed down the bedspread on either side of her; Lydia had picked up a small framed picture of Joel and Ilana hiking up north before they got married, and was rubbing the dust off the glass with the hem of her blouse. Daniel was crouching at the side of the bed, his pulse racing, ready to get this over with. His mother and Malka kept insisting that he come on up and sit down. “I'm fine,” he said, and “There's no room!” till his mother pressed closer to his father, bumping the line of bodies, which moved in a small series of sighs and grunts. Daniel sat, the mattress drooping under half his butt, his mother folding his hand in hers and rubbing it. He pulled it away. “I'm falling off!” he said, and stood.

Assaf stood awkwardly in front of them with a manila envelope in his hand. He twisted and looked behind him at the floor, as though contemplating sitting there, then turned back toward them and cleared his throat. “Is everybody . . . ?” he murmured. He read the opening language of the will, and explained to Daniel's parents that it was just the everyday legal stuff about Joel and Ilana being the parents to Gal and Noam, and being of sound mind. Then Assaf peeked at them over the paper and cleared his throat again. “ ‘It is our wish,' ” he read, “ ‘that our children's uncle, Daniel Rosen, be designated the guardian of Gal and Noam, to live with them wherever he wishes.' ” He read it once in Hebrew, and then translated it into English.

There was silence. Anxiety gaped in Daniel's chest as he waited for the information to take. Yaakov's face was reddening. Malka looked at him, bewildered, for an explanation. Then she looked at Daniel. “But you'll live with them here, in this house.”

Daniel tried to look at her, but it was too hard to meet her stupefied gaze, her sagging mouth. “No, Malka,” he said, “I'm going to have to take them to my home, in the States.”

“
Lama?
” she asked. Why?

He began to speak, but his parents were staring at him, pulling his attention back. “Have you known this all along?” his mother asked, eyes blazing.

“For a while,” Daniel hedged.

“How could you not tell me?” she cried. “I feel like such a fool! I never anticipated this.” Her hand was gripping Sam's sleeve hard, and he was murmuring, “Honey.”

“I must tell you something important,” the lawyer said, raising his voice over the clamor of distress and incomprehension. “In Israeli wills, the disposition of property is always upheld. But not necessarily the disposition of children.” He spoke in Hebrew.

Daniel saw understanding slowly dawn over Yaakov's face, and a flash of hope. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“The government considers what is the good of the children, in family court.”

“What?” Daniel cried. “Their own
parents
wanted this for them. The court would go against the parents' wishes?”

“I'm afraid so,” Assaf said gently. He stood with the papers dangling in his hand, and Daniel suddenly hated him, this hypocritical pose of gentle advocacy, his big sorrowful eyes blinking out of those ridiculous glasses. “If they thought it was for the good of the children.”

His mother had Daniel by the sleeve; there was the clamor for translation, and he shook it off, he was trying to think. “You can't be serious,” he said to Assaf, and then whirled at his parents and spat out an irritated translation. “And I'm sure,” he said, his lips curled, “that living with two queers is exactly what the Israeli state thinks of as for the good of the children.”

“Daniel,” his father said.

“What are my chances?” Daniel demanded in Hebrew, ignoring his father, fixing Assaf with a cold look. He remembered something. “They're American citizens; doesn't that count for something?”

“Not necessarily, Daniel,” Assaf said. “You'll still need a court order to take them out of the country.” He reached forward and clasped Daniel's shoulder. “But don't assume anything, either good or bad. There are many factors.”

His father gripped his elbow. “Don't worry, son,” he said softly. “We'll fight this.”

Daniel shook his arm free. “I don't understand this,” he said. “The
parents
decided what was for the good of the children.” He felt he was about to cry and, mortified, covered his face with his hands. “Poor Joel and Ilana,” he moaned. “It's what they
wanted
.”

“This is crazy,” Lydia was saying, looking to Sam for corroboration.

The lawyer crouched and tried to take them all in with his gaze. “Everybody, please be calm,” he said, first in English, then in Hebrew. “Look. We are shocked by these terrible deaths. When we recover a little bit, I know that we'll all do our best to make sure that Gal and Noam have lives that are as safe and normal as possible.”

Normal?
Daniel burst into tears.

Malka was clutching at Yaakov and asking him how Ilana could do this to them, and he was urging her, with increasing impatience, to calm down, to try to understand that the court would surely be on their side.

H
E COULDN'T FIND
Matt anywhere. Their bedroom was empty, the sofa bed made up, with the bed pillows, in worn pillowcases, stacked upon it. The window was open and the curtain billowing. He checked the bathroom and the balcony, and went back into their room and sat down on the sofa. He unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt and stared at the desk till his vision blurred. There was a knock on the door frame; Yaakov stood there with his jacket on. “Malka doesn't feel well,” he said. “I must take her home.”

Daniel nodded numbly.

Yaakov turned away, and Daniel's parents came to the door of his room. His mother's face was tight; she was demanding, “How long have you known about this?”

His father leaned heavily on the desk.

Where the hell was Matt? The thought of not bringing the children home made Daniel sick; the prospect of caring for them was the only thing that had kept him from going off the deep end. He buried his head in his hands.

“Daniel, I want to know how long you've known about this,” Lydia said.

“Not long, Mom,” he lied, his voice muffled through his fingers, “just for about a month.”

“It was Ilana's idea, wasn't it.” She had a difficult relationship with Ilana, whom she perceived as constantly policing the boundaries between them; she'd been furious when Ilana had asked her to wait a month before visiting, after Gal was born. They all spent a lot of energy denying that this was true, but Daniel knew that it was. Still, leaving him the kids hadn't been Ilana's idea, not hers alone.

“No,” Daniel said firmly, looking up. “It was both of them. We had a conversation about it.”

There was silence. Finally, Lydia said, “I have trouble believing that.”

“Why?” he demanded. “I find that offensive. You think Joel wouldn't trust me to raise his children?”

“Daniel,” his father said. “Please don't escalate this any more than necessary.”

Lydia began to cry. “I feel so betrayed,” she said. “It's as though Joel were killed all over again.”

“Oh, please!” Daniel said. “His having a desire of his own means he was killed all over again?”

“Daniel,” his father barked.

“I can't help the way I feel,” his mother said. “Do not tell me how I can and cannot feel.”

Daniel's hands were sweating on the knees of his pants. This new legal hitch made him feel desperately undermined, as though his bid to be an adult had failed right in front of them. He knew that, to his father, he'd always been the perplexing twin, given every opportunity but lacking in the kind of ambition Sam understood. He'd always suspected that Sam thought of his homosexuality itself as a form of sloth, something that put him in the disappointing category of people without a work ethic. And now—any cachet he'd had, any way he'd been ennobled by the prospect of rescuing the children, had vanished.

His father closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he said, “At least in Massachusetts the kids would be closer to us.”

Lydia looked at him sharply, and he shrugged. “Look,” he said, “we might have to be realistic about this.” He looked steadily at her as her eyes widened with incredulity and outrage, her mascara thickened with tears. “Honey, we're in third place,” he said. “For whatever reason, Joel and Ilana clearly wanted Daniel to take the kids, and the state is going to lean toward keeping them here, with their other grandparents.”

“That's out of the question,” Lydia said. “Malka is mentally disturbed, she can't even keep her house clean. And how old are they? They must be in their seventies!”

Sam shrugged again and gestured toward Daniel, as if to suggest that he was a better option, and Lydia's face, rigid with shock and rage, crumpled. “It's as though he were killed all over again,” she cried.

“Mother, would you stop saying that?”

“How are you going to raise these children!” she demanded. “And with whom? With
Matt
?” She gave an ugly laugh.

And then, when Daniel couldn't stand it for one more moment, Matt walked into the room, red-cheeked, bringing in with him the bracing chill of the night wind. “How's it going?” he asked.

Daniel looked up. Matt looked like a miracle, handsome and tousled. Daniel wanted to fling himself into his arms. But instead, he found himself saying accusingly, “We're not going to get the kids.”

“What?”

His parents' eyes swiveled heavily toward Matt, and Daniel saw for the first time just how much Lydia disliked him. Sam explained what had happened, with Daniel interrupting to gloss the situation in the bleakest light. “The good of the child,” he snapped. “Since when has a religious state considered it the good of the child to be placed in the care of queers?”