Max felt the humid breeze through the open doors leading to his narrow balcony. He had already walked the dog and eaten the breakfast he had prepared himself: two scrambled eggs, plain rye toast, and a mug of black coffee which he carried to the table with care lest the tremor in his right hand cause him to stain the wall-to-wall beige carpet. He had read the Miami Herald, except for the sports section—good only for Americans who care about such narishkeit. He liked to read the paper before Marisha got her hands on it, after which it was rumpled, creased and covered with food stains. The day felt full before him. He hadn’t yet uttered a word. It was his habit not to speak, especially not to his wife.
He met his daughter’s gaze in a color photograph framed in silver on the dinette credenza—his untouched, lucky, goldene medina child, her American birth like a saint’s halo around her head. It pleased him to think that Helen was married with two children in Cincinnati. Her husband Mark, a dentist, was a likable fellow and, like Max, not a big talker.
He heard his wife stirring in the other room.
Again she’s walking and sniffing for mildew, he thought. If she’s so afraid of mildew, she should have retired to Arizona and, better yet, without me.
He could hear her walk into the bathroom. Every morning, after his shower, she wiped the shower walls with a towel, soaking up the drops that had beaded on the slate-blue tile. After she had made up her face and put on a red, silk robe, she walked out of the apartment, down the carpeted hallway to the common laundry room where she tossed the towel into the dryer, an act of preemptive defense in her war of...
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