The Dressmaker's Son by Abbi Sherman Schaefer Read Free Book Online Page B

sob.
                Jacob watched from the
doorway as they held each other crying.  Joshua and the girls had heard Rachael
come in and were standing with Jacob as he tried to hold all three of them as
they wept together.  He had not seen Rachael cry since.
    Every Friday night
Jacob, Rachael and Solomon went to the shul to say Kaddish for
Levi.  Ruth would cook Sabbath dinner; Rachael would help do the dishes; and
David, Jacob, Rachael and Solomon would go to the shul . Solomon cried
every time he rose to say Kaddish for Levi.  At first Jacob had tried to
tell him that because he was not yet Bar Mitzvah’d, he didn’t have to say it,
but Solomon would not hear of it.  Maybe it was because of the age difference,
but the bond between him and Levi had almost been like father and son.  He had
taken care of him from the day he was born.  Now he felt a sorrow and pain he
believed would never go away.
    Rachael hardly
spoke.  She got up each morning to fix breakfast for Jacob and the children and
spent the rest of the day in her room.  At night she would mutely help Ruth
prepare dinner.  The children were all in school.  Solomon already had a job
after at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factor sweeping the floors of the room where
the patterns were cut.
    Jacob spent his
days with his pushcart.  He had found additional suppliers for his fabrics and
had added some sewing notions to his display.  Every cent he made he saved for
the day he would be able to get a place for his family.  Although Ruth and
David were wonderful to them, he knew Rachael had to have a home of her own,
and soon.
    His spirit was
still not daunted.  This Thursday afternoon as he looked around he saw others
with their pushcarts half full, the proprietors leaning lazily against them
chatting with each other and waiting to go home.  “I need to offer more
things,” he thought to himself.  “Buttons, scissors, ribbon, pins, patterns.  I
need to have a sign to catch people’s attention.”  His thoughts were
interrupted by a woman coming toward him.
    “Jacob,” she was
shouting. “Is that you?”
    As she approached
he recognized her from Russia as the wife of a neighbor who had come to America
two years earlier.  “Yes, Esther,” he said smiling. “It’s me. It’s good to see
you.  How is Morris?”
    “Oh,” she sighed.
“He finally got work with a department store doing alterations.  But what about
you, Jacob? A pushcart?  In Yelizavetgrad you were such a prominent man.”
    “I know, Esther,
but this is only temporary. I’m doing this until I can get my own store.  It
won’t be long.”
    They chatted for a
few minutes and Esther left. “She’s right,” Jacob thought.  Quickly he covered
the merchandise on the cart.  “I’ll send Sollie to get this later,” he muttered
to himself, and started walking down the street to create his future.
                 Four hours later, Jacob
bounded up the stairs to David’s house.  He could hardly wait to tell Rachael
his new plan.  Stopping in the hall to put his coat up, he heard Joshua and
Sarah arguing.
    “We do have a
house back home in Russia,” Joshua was saying, “and it’s bigger than your house
and any house you ever lived in.”
    Joshua turned as
he heard Jacob come into the room. “Tell her we have a big house back home in
Russia, Papa.”
                Jacob walked over to
where Joshua, Sarah and one of her friends were sitting on the floor.  Kneeling
down he looked into Joshua’s pleading eyes.
    “Joshua,” he
started slowly.  “We had a house in Russia, yes, and it was very big.  But
there is no ‘back home,’ Joshua. The home we knew in Russia will never exist as
we knew it again.  It is gone for us except in our memories.  But the heart is
a big place.  It can make room for a new home, an American home.  When we refer
to home now, Joshua, it will be in America.  Soon we will have a new home
here.  I promise you.”
    “Yes,