Rowing in Eden by Barbara Rogan

Author:Barbara Rogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

If I were a carpenter

And you were a lady,

Would you marry me anyway?

Would you have my baby?

Her faith in him was greater than his own; yet he resolved on that day that he would either give her a life better than the one he took her from, or die trying. Even as his heart cried out with gratitude for the unexpected gift bestowed upon him, a corner of his soul cringed in fear. For did he not know, had it not been proven to him in the most direct and incontrovertible manner, that what God giveth with one hand He taketh away with the other? “In the midst of life we are in death,” the old rabbi had intoned at the funeral, perhaps the one true thing he’d said.

Behind him a voice said, “Put it on.”

Sam turned. It was Peter, standing at his shoulder.

“Play it again, Sam,” the boy said.

“Bogart fan, huh.” Sam replaced the record in its sleeve, buried it in the box. “Don’t you have homework or something?”

“Did it.”

“She let you wear that in the house?” For a new growth had blossomed on the boy’s head, a Yankees cap worn backward, tough-guy style.

Peter’s eyes flickered toward the door.

“Guess not,” Sam said.

“No offense, Mr. Pollak, but what’s it to you?”

Sam’s eyes lanced him. If this were his boy, Sam would straighten him out in a hurry. A mouth on this kid the size of the Battery Tunnel. Some might call it spunk. He called it attitude.

Jane backed into the room, holding a tray with three mugs and a plate of coffee cake. Was the boy then to be a permanent fixture? She laid the tray on the coffee table and handed out the cups: coffee for them, cocoa for Peter. She sat on the couch with her legs tucked under her. Sam went to sit beside her but Peter got there first. Sam took a facing chair instead. The kid was starting to piss him off.

Jane waved at the room. “What do you think?”

“I think it came out fine,” Sam said. “House is yours now.”

Peter snorted. Jane shot him a look. He kept his eyes on Sam.

“So,” he said, “I guess we won’t be seeing much of you, now that your job here is done.”

“It’s a small town,” said Sam.

“Peter.” Jane waited until he faced her. “Good night,” she said.

“Good night?”

“Good night.”

They listened in silence to his footsteps slowly mounting the stairs. Sam blew out air, leaned back in his seat. “Boy’s half Doberman,” he said.

Jane laughed. “Exactly. Loyal as hell to his pack and menacing toward strangers.”

“Am I a stranger?” Carrying his cup, he took Peter’s place beside her. Not too close, not too far.

“You’re a man. Generically untrustworthy.”

“That’s your opinion or his?”

“His.”

“Why’s that? Old man beat on him?”

Jane didn’t answer.

“You planning to adopt him?” Sam asked.

“I foster kids, I don’t adopt. If I adopted one, then all the others would feel rejected, like they didn’t make the grade. And if I adopted them all, I’d have to stop taking in other kids who are just as needy.

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