Until Then Read online

  She still didn’t feel it. Her best friend, still out in California told her pointedly, “You have to give it time, Anna. There’s no way you can feel adjusted to this new life of yours in a year.” Why not? She had countered her friend’s argument with the simple question and still had yet to find the answer. Why didn’t she feel settled? Why did she ache for the glamour and flash of the West Coast? This was her first time in New York and the energy of the trip rejuvenated that inner voice that said, “Get back out there! See the world! Chase your dreams!”

  Ryan liked to travel, she reasoned with herself. Perhaps they could stamp their passport with all of the hidden corners of the globe. They could learn to surf in Australia, eat tepid mystery meat in Japan and bungee jump off of a cliff in Taiwan. Once they got a little bit of money saved up, she surely could convince him. Just because they worked grown-up jobs didn’t mean they had to settle into the mundane mini-van world. It didn’t mean her dreams had to die.

  She had been tenaciously holding off on the family conversation, as in how many children he was in hopes of. He’d brought it up six times, she counted. The first when they were dating, the second when they were about to get engaged, and now four solid times during the engagement.

  He resolutely said, “I really want to know what you are thinking about starting a family. I would love to have at least two, but maybe we could have a little Terson Clan?”

  The word clan implied years of pregnancy that would no doubt destroy her figure. Not to mention, force her to give up her precious career, her chance to make a stamp on the world for greater good. She didn’t want a clan and to be honest, hadn’t really even considered being ready yet. In her mind, she was still entirely too young, immature, and selfish with her time to have children. She wanted to travel, to see the world and then, maybe in ten years or so? Maybe she would be ready? She didn’t want a clan. She wanted an Oscar.

  Anna checked her phone. Two missed calls from Ryan. It would be nice to hear his voice, but this trip had also given her a chance to miss him. Back home they were together morning, noon, and night now that school let out for the summer. With his clients, he had the flexibility of scheduling open houses and meetings on his own agenda, but with the market slow, he was free to spend every waking hour with her.

  She put her phone on vibrate, tucked it back in her bag and leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder.

  * * * *

  Before long, the taxi came to a halt in front of an old brownstone apartment on Sterling Place that jutted out onto the street with four small stairs and three beveled bay windows. Brooklyn was so much newer and cleaner than any of them had imagined. Not to mention, it was so much cheaper than Manhattan and hardly far at all. Anna peered up at the building, seeing herself step out from the front door on a brisk New York morning, a small Yorkie on a leash and a newspaper tucked under her arm. She would head down to the corner coffee shop, pick up a macchiato and walk to a local bookstore or boutique to try on a new dress.

  Ruby stood beside her, white as a ghost, staring up at the apartment.

  “You are sure this is the place?” Her voice trembled a bit when she spoke.

  “Yep!” Anna bounded up the stairs and pressed the buzzer eagerly. She waved her hands excitedly for them to join.

  Grant waited at the bottom of the steps, his hands in his pockets. A summer wind lightly ruffled his hair sending small petals up into the air from a nearby flowerbed.

  “Really? No answer again. Please tell me this James is alive.” Ruby tapped her foot anxiously.

  “Calm down, Mom. He could just be at the store or something…”

  Before Anna could finish her sentence, a soft female voice spoke out onto the street from the intercom.

  “Hello? Who is it?”

  “Oh, hello! My name is Anna and I am a longtime family friend of James Schulz. Is he home by chance?”

  “Sorry, he ran down to pick up a few groceries. He won’t be back for a while.”

  “Are you his wife?” Anna practically leaned against the intercom.

  “Luckily for him,” the voice chuckled.

  Ruby couldn’t help but laugh. He was at least alive. That was better than the last visit.

  “Would you mind if we come up? I am sure you are probably not comfortable with that, but I have my mother, Ruby Jenkins, my uncle, Grant Weinbaum, and I am Anna Jenkins. We are trying to learn about my grandfather’s life here in New York—Eli Weinbaum. He lived here many years ago and recently passed away. It is a long story, but we believe your husband knew him very well and we have a few of questions.”

  Ruby was practically shaking in anticipation. The intercom was silent. A distant bird chirped several times in a row. Anna heard the intercom come back on, but didn’t hear a word.

  “Mrs. Schulz?”

  “Yes, I am here. I knew your grandfather very well…and I’m a little shocked to hear this.”

  Ruby’s eyes widened and she jumped up to the top step and pressed the button. Grant moved closer also, trying to contain his nerves.

  “Hi Mrs. Schulz, this is Ruby Jenkins, Eli’s daughter. You would be doing us a tremendous favor by telling us anything you know. We have come a long way, from Michigan in fact.”

  “Alright honey, come on up.” The sweet release of the buzzer sounded and the brownstone entrance unlocked. Anna squealed with delight and jumped up and down. Ruby instantly started crying again. Grant stepped around her, put his hands on her shoulders and said, “Remember, Ruby. What Dad said?”

  Ruby blinked back her tears and stared up at her brother, unexpectedly a pillar of strength. “What?” she whispered.

  “Whatever we discover and whatever we learn, know that he lived his life as the luckiest man ever to walk this earth.”

  “You remember that?” Her eyes were filled with gratitude.

  “How could I forget?”

  Ruby hugged Grant, for probably the first time in over ten years and took one of her countless deep breaths.

  * * * *

  Patrice Schulz was a tall and slender woman in her mid-nineties with deep-set, translucent blue eyes and bright red hair wrapped loosely in a bun. Ruby immediately was met with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg wafting from the kitchen. She was so relieved to see a normal-looking woman with a comforting home on the other side of that door.

  “Please come in.” Patrice extended an arm. “I am Patrice Schulz. As I mentioned before, my husband should return home shortly. He has a recent habit of picking up fresh bread every day at Paul’s around the corner. We’ve got loaves coming out of our ears.”

  Ruby laughed gently and extended her hand. “I am Ruby Jenkins, Eli’s daughter and this is my brother Grant and my daughter Anna.”

  Patrice’s eyes softened. “You look like him, you know?” She reached out toward Grant and squeezed his arm.

  “I’m sorry; I can’t believe this is all happening. I can’t believe we found you. I mean, I spent countless hours on the internet trying to track your husband down. Did you know there are only three James Schulz in your age range in all of New York? And to think, you never moved or relocated? I just can’t believe it,” said Anna.

  “You did good dear, but I have to say, I am oddly curious as to why you needed to find us so terribly bad. Please, please, come sit, and I’ll get us something cool to drink and I just made homemade cinnamon bread—yes more bread.”

  The three of them moved to the living area to find yellow flowered couches with copious plastic coating for protection. Wood paneling lined the walls and small, brass-framed photos of daisies hung in a diagonal direction over the couch. The windows were open and sheer white curtains ruffled every now and then from the breeze. A white-painted piano stood upright in the corner with an array of family photos stacked on top of one another.

  The visitors each sat down in a row on the couch and waited without speaking a word. The plastic, thick with heat, caused squeaking at their every move.

  Patrice returned with a p
itcher full of iced water with lemons and four glasses. The homemade cinnamon bread was sliced evenly with thick chunks of butter melting rapidly.

  “Please help yourself. The bread is still cooling a bit.”

  Grant was the first to reach for a glass, the summer heat wearing thin on his thirst.

  “Patrice, we can’t thank you enough. It isn’t everyday someone lets a perfect stranger in off the street.”

  Patrice laughed a deep throated chuckle. “We have hardly any visitors. It’s nice. Not to mention, we loved your parents very much. This is quite the surprise.”

  Grant drained his glass and set it on a coaster. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Schulz, would you tell us how you knew our father?”

  “I would be glad to. God, it seems like only yesterday. But I’m truly interested in how you even got our name in the first place?”

  Anna smiled sweetly. “Funny story actually.”

  Ruby scoffed, “Hardly funny.”

  “Fine, odd, if you will.” She poked her mother in the side. “Better?”

  Ruby grinned at Patrice, trying to cover the awkwardness.

  “The story is, well my mother and father, Eli and Sophia Wienbaum lived in Mackinac Island, Michigan, throughout our entire lives. We were a very close family and had a great relationship with both of our parents. My mother passed away from cancer a few years ago and my father just recently from a stroke. Long story short, after he passed away, for the first time in our lives, we saw a series of numbers tattooed on his chest,” Ruby said.

  “At first we thought it might be something the hospital did? But they said he came in with it and to be honest, we realized at that moment that there might be more to it,” Grant piped in.

  “After we saw the numbers, we sort of panicked but had the funeral to deal with. However, something arrived at my door the day before the funeral,” Ruby said.

  “It was a letter—from grandpa! Here, if you want to read it?” Anna pulled the letter from her mother’s purse and handed it over to Patrice. Anna noticed that her eyes were reddening at the corners.

  “Thank you,” she replied and unfolded the letter. Solitary tears slid down each cheek as she studied the photo and read through each word carefully. When she finished, she folded the letter again and returned it to Ruby.

  “He was always so eloquent with words. But I’m still wondering how you found us?”

  Grant looked at Ruby for encouragement and she continued, “A sweet woman by the name of Marjorie Parsons remembered James as the only name my parents ever mentioned after they moved there from New York. They were dear friends of theirs.”

  “And so,” Anna interjected. “Armed with James’s name, I went to work searching the internet and white pages and found three living in the New York area around eighty to ninety years of age. The first didn’t even give us the time of day, the second had passed away, and so you were our only chance. It’s a miracle. A real and complete miracle from God that we found you. Something tells me my grandpa had everything to do with it.”

  Patrice closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her breathing was labored. She lifted her heavy, wrinkled lids and said, “We were the first people to ever meet your parents when they escaped from Germany.”

  “Did you say Germany?” Ruby choked on her freshly poured ice water.

  “Yes, Eli and Sophia moved here from Munich in 1940. I believe Eli had just turned nineteen.”

  “But, we…we only knew they lived in New York and they barely even had an accent of any kind,” Grant said.

  “I am sorry to hear that. It must be hard for you learning all of this about your parents. And harder still, not to be able to ask them any of your questions. I don’t think I would be strong enough to do what you are doing.”

  “You can say that again,” he muttered and rose from the sticky plastic to pace.

  “You were saying?” Ruby motioned to Patrice to continue.

  The front door squeaked open and Ruby perked up.

  “That must be James.” Patrice rose to her feet rather slowly to retrieve her husband.

  Grant looked at Ruby with wide eyes. “Germany?”

  Ruby shushed him.

  A moment later, Patrice returned with a gentleman nearly a foot shorter than she, hunched over with thick white hair and glasses on the tip of his nose. He wore wrinkled khaki pants and stark white tennis shoes.

  “Dear, this is Ruby, Grant, and Anna. As I told you a moment ago, they are Eli and Sophia’s children and grandchild.”

  James touched his hand to his mouth. His chin quivered slightly and he pushed his glasses further up his nose. “My, my.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir.” Grant extended his hand.

  James held his hand a moment too long, studying his face closely. “In all my wildest dreams…and you.” He took a step toward Ruby. “You have your mother’s eyes.”

  “Thank you.” Ruby blushed a fury of red. This man knew her parents. This man knew them when they were only nineteen and sixteen.

  “Sir, we are so sorry to bother you, but we would love to hear anything you could tell us about my grandparents,” said Anna.

  “Indeed, my wife just told me why you came and might I say, I think it is marvelous.”

  “We’re so glad you think so. Patrice was just telling us they moved here from Germany? Apparently there’s a great deal we didn’t know about them.”

  “Well, sit, sit…” James motioned for them to return to the couch, resting his paper bag with one loaf of bread sticking out onto the floor. “Allow me to tell you everything I know. I suppose that was Eli’s final wish, was it?”

  “How did you know?” Ruby spoke out quietly.

  “He was hell bent and determined to forget all about what happened in Germany. To be truthful, I really don’t know a whole lot about where they came from myself.”

  Ruby could’ve burst into tears. This man was their only chance. She steadied her hands and leaned in to soak up every word.

  James continued, “I met them on a clear winter afternoon, January 19, 1939. Sophia was so beautiful, isn’t that right honey?” He patted his wife’s knee.

  “Yes, beautiful as a flower.”

  Ruby grinned, remembering how sweet her mother looked in the photo.

  “They couldn’t speak a lick of English. They were walking down the street in front of my jewelry store. To be honest, I thought they were homeless, all covered in mud and ragged clothes. Their hair was wild and they were so thin, probably hadn’t slept in days. No matter what though, your mother’s eyes assured me that they were harmless. Much as you have done for me today. We will never forget those eyes.”

  Ruby glanced to her feet. That may have been the highest compliment anyone had ever given her.

  “I went out onto the street when I saw them standing there, lost and confused as the day was long. I asked them straight out if they were homeless and said that there was a place they could go down the street. The police would have something to say if they just hovered around there all day. Not to mention, it was just freezing and threatening to snow. They wore hardly anything other than a thin dress and a pair of slacks and short sleeves on him. I wanted them to find shelter quickly before the storm settled in.”

  Anna reached for her water, the ice cubes long since melted. Her stare never left James’s eyes.

  “Well, they didn’t understand a word I said. I could tell they were speaking something European, so I took a chance and poked my head into the sandwich shop next door. I asked my dear friend Arnold to come out and translate for me. Come to find out,” James drew in a deep breath, removed his glasses and dabbed his eyes. “Come to find out, they were escapees of the war in Europe.”

  Winter 1939

  “Come on out here Arnold, won’t ya? I need your help with something.”

  Arnold, a heavy-set man in his early fifties, stepped out from behind the slicer revealing his swollen belly. He ripped the strings from the back and threw his apron onto the counter
.

  “Anything for you, James. Not like I’m workin’ or anything.”

  “Ah, you’ll get over it.”

  Arnold stepped out on to the street and felt the chill in the air rush to his bones. He shivered dramatically. “And in the cold? This better be good.”

  James led Arnold from the shop a few feet down the block to his store, where Eli and Sophia stood waiting. They were huddled together, Eli feverishly rubbing Sophia’s arms to keep her warm. They looked positively out of place and terrified. The bones in their cheeks protruding, their faces hallow and pale.

  “Where’d you find these people? They look like they just came out of a hole.”

  “Language Arnold, please. They can’t speak English. I need to tell them a place to go to get out of the cold. I think they’re lost or homeless, maybe?”

  Arnold looked them up and down. The man pulled the woman to him protectively.

  “What do they speak? I only know a little Italian and German.”

  “I don’t know, say something to them and we’ll find out.” James shoved Arnold closer to them.

  “Well they certainly don’t look Italian, that’s for sure. Let’s try German.”

  Arnold drew in a puff of frozen air and said, “Wo kommst du her, von wo stammst du, wo wurdest du geboren?”

  The man stepped forward, suddenly aware he was able to speak to someone, ask for help.

  “Deutschland, Staat in Mitteleuropa,” he said. He smoothed his hair from his eyes and reached out to shake Arnold’s hand.

  “What are you saying?” James smacked Arnold on the arm.

  “Hold on,” he put his hand up.

  “Sind Sie verloren?”

  The man nodded.

  “Hungrig?” Arnold motioned toward his deli. The man nodded again, Arnold waved him into his sandwich shop.

  “Wait,” yelled out James. “Where are you going?

  “They’re hungry. I better feed them then, don’t you think?”

  James trailed behind them into the shop and watched with interest as they sat timidly at a table in the corner. Arnold whipped together a tray filled with a sandwich James had never seen before.