Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

CHAPTER FORTY

Except for his brief visits to the hospital to see his father, Akiva spent every free minute with Leah. Not only would he drop by at night after closing, but on those mornings when it was McLane's turn to open, he would run over after breakfast to have coffee with her. Occasionally, when his hours at the store permitted, he would pick her up and drive into Boston for lunch at a kosher restaurant, he never phoned in advance but merely arrived at her house, he always assumed she would be there and would want to see him.

"Why don't you phone first?" she asked plaintively. "Suppose somebody is visiting me?"

"Like yesterday morning?"

"You were here yesterday? My mother—"

He grinned. "Sure, I was here. But I saw a car in the driveway and drove on."

"But why couldn't you—"

Akiva put his hands on hers. "Do you mind. Leah? Does it bother you? Because it does something nice for me. It makes me feel that I'm home."

"You mean here in this house?"

"No, I mean where you are, wherever you happen to be."

Rose Aptaker wondered, of course, but after her experience the last time he came home, she was careful not to question him, he might resent it as an invasion of his privacy.

She did question him, however, when she saw him reciting his prayers in the morning. "Don't you go to the minyan in the temple anymore?"

"Well, in the morning I'd rather have the extra sleep and in the evening I'm usually at the store." His real reason was that Leah's father was sure to be there, and he was embarrassed at seeing the father while he was intimate with the daughter.

Akiva did not discuss the future with Leah, what his plans were or her place in them. But after the first week, he said with disarming casualness. "I told my mother about us."

"Oh? And what did she say?"

"She wanted to know if you were a nice girl, what she would ca'l a nice girl."

"And what did you say?"

He grinned. "I told her you were a slut who had got her hooks into me and was pressing me to marry her and that I couldn't see any way out."

"M-hm. Did you tell her about Jackie?" Leah asked.

"I did, she was naturally ecstatic at this proof of your fertility—"

"Seriously," she pleaded.

Akiva sobered immediately. "All right, seriously then. My mother didn't actually throw a fit, probably because she's so involved with my father right now, but she was —er—"

"Upset? Disappointed?"

"All of that and then some," Akiva said.

"Because of Jackie?"

"And your being divorced didn't help any. You've got to understand, Leah, that—"

"Oh, I understand,” she said bitterlv. "Mv mother would react the same way if the situation were reversed."

"Well, she'll get over it," Akiva said philosophically.

"Will she?"

"Of course she will, she'll have to."

"Maybe if you had waited." Leah suggested. "It's been such a short time."

"You wait until you're sure. I'm sure now, aren't you?" "Yes, but.., are you going to tell your father?" she asked.

"My mother will probably tell him," he said, smiling faintly. "She was on her way to the hospital when I sprang it on her, maybe the old man will take it better."