“But you don’t know what the letter said?”
“Anna Rosenthal does not snoop in private papers. But there is something. Miriam asked me to keep it. Come.”
From a corner closet, Mrs. Rosenthal took a box down from the shelf. “Just after the men visited, your mother gives something to me. ‘Anna,’ she tells me, ‘hide this in your house. I will come later for it.’ But she never did.”
Mrs. Rosenthal opened the box and retrieved a cookie tin. “It’s right that you should have this now.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Mrs. Rosenthal,” Sam said, taking the tin. It was all he could do not to rip off the lid right there. “Gosh, would ya look at the time? Golly, I wish we could stay longer, Mrs. Rosenthal, but we’ve got to get Lamb Chop here back to the radio station for her show.”
“But we’ll send you an invitation to the wedding,” Evie said cheerily as Sam edged her toward the door.
“You’ll come for Shabbos,” Mrs. Rosenthal called after them.
“We’ll Shabbos as much as possible,” Evie said as Sam practically dragged her from the apartment.
“How was I supposed to know Shabbos is the Jewish Sabbath?” Evie said as she and Sam boarded the nearly empty El back to Manhattan. “And it couldn’t hurt to invite her to a wedding that’ll never happen. Sam, is everything jake? You look like you just got off a roller coaster.”
“Evie, I didn’t know any of that about my mother,” Sam said as he watched the Bronx roll past the train’s windows.
Evie shook the tin gently. “I’m guessing it’s not cookies.”
Evie slid closer to Sam, who pried off the lid. Inside were two items: a file and an old photograph of a woman wearing a long plaid dress and holding a little boy’s hand.
“That’s my mother,” Sam said, staring at the sweet photo. “And that’s me.”
Evie giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Sam asked.
“You in short pants. And those are some chubby cheeks!”
“That’s enough of that,” Sam said, yanking the photograph away. He lifted the file, which was just a typed sheet. “Looks like a report.”
U.S. Department of Paranormal
Office B-130
New York, New York
Date: September 8, 1908
Name: Miriam Lubovitch
Race: Jewish