Good Graces by Lesley Kagen Page B

heart.
    “ Ja. Mr. Goldman and I are taking of a trip,” she says. “To Rheinland.”
    “Rhinelander?” I say, completely astounded. That’s the home of Camp Towering Pines. “Troo and me just got back from there!”
    For a person who doesn’t like surprises, my old friend is in for one of the worst of her life. I’m about to warn her when she says, “I think perhaps you misunderstand me, Liebchen. Otto and I are returning to the Motherland. To Germany.”
    “Oooh.” Otto has been the man of her dreams for over forty years. I’ve heard him speaking from behind the curtains lots of times, but I have never actually laid eyes on him. Troo thinks he doesn’t come out of the house much because he’s a hunchback, but I think it’s because he’s shy about his English not being so good.
    “My brother . . . he is ill and vee are going back to run Hans’s clock shop for him until he is feeling better.”
    She’s got a bellowing grandfather clock and some silly cuckoos and there’s another that chimes like the bells at church. I could really count on those clocks to get me through the night when we lived upstairs. Now I know where they came from.
    “I’m so sorry your brother’s sick,” I say. It is my responsibility as a Catholic to try to make her feel better even if I can’t count it as a charitable work. Doing a good deed for a Jew is frowned upon. I don’t think it’s an actual sin to do something nice for them, but it could be. “Is there anything I can do to help you? I’m really good at packing. I watched Mother get ready for the hospital. She put tissue paper between the layers so her clothes didn’t get wrinkled and sprinkled perfume on them so she’d smell good and not like shots when she came home.”
    “ Nein , thank you for the kindness offer, but the packing it is finished. But there is something that occurred to me the moment you appeared on this porch, Liebchen .” She raises her finger straight above her head. “Vere you familiar vith the Peterson family that vas renting of the upstairs?”
    “Not really.” We heard they didn’t have any kids so nobody really bothered with them.
    “The husband lost his job at the cookie factory. It is empty now.”
    Lots of times it felt that way when we were living there so I don’t look up at the second-story windows.
    “I entrusted this job to Officer Rasmussen, but he is very busy with being a detective and his new family.” Mrs. Goldman winks at me and it is so adorable because she is not very good at it. “I know what good attention you pay. Do you think you could assist your father? Keep your eye on the house while vee are gone?”
    She’s right. This is fate. And such a great way to make everything up to her. “Sure I could help watch the house. Don’t worry about a thing. What about the garden?”
    When I still lived here, me and Mrs. Goldman planted tiny seeds together in the backyard and soon juicy red tomatoes rounded on the vines and carrot tops pushed up so determined, which has always made me wonder how something so delicate could at the same time be so strong. We also put in purple pansies and yellow daisies. Daddy only grew crops but Mrs. Goldman thinks that while having good things to eat is important, something lovely to look at fills you up in a different kind of way. She also taught me on those early mornings that people are a lot like a garden. Not everybody is beautiful or scrumptious. There are some weeds that you’ve gotta watch out for that would be happy to choke the life out of you and she was right.
    “Do you want me to pull out the dandelions?” I ask her. “What about the caterpillars? Should I pick them off the vines?”
    “ Ach . I’m afraid there is no garden this summer.” She shows me her knobby knuckles. They’ve gotten worse than they were.
    “Sally!” Troo shouts the way she does when she wants me to be at her beck and call.
    Mrs. Goldman says, “Before you go . . . the key to the house.”