I felt both curious and excited. In the last few years, I hadn’t thought about her, and her sudden call one morning had taken me aback. The actual sight of her was a shock. This white-haired matron6 at the restaurant table was the Rachel of my dreams and desires, the supple mermaid of that snapshot?
Yet time had given us amon reference and respect. We talked as old friends, and quickly discovered we were both grandparents.
“Do you remember this?” She handed me a slip of worn paper. It was a poem I’d written her while still in school. I ex***ned the crude meter and pallid rhymes. Watching my face, she snatched the poem from me and returned it to her purse, as though fearful I was going to destroy it.
I told her about the snapshot, how I’d carried it all through the war.
“It wouldn’t have worked out, you know.” she said.
“How can you be sure?” I countered. “Ah, colleen, it might have been grand indeed—my Irish conscience and your Jewish gui