“How many?”

“I lost count.”

“Are you saying he’s a drunk?”

“I didn’t say that, but it could be why he has those headaches.”

“Gordo, you’re becoming a med student—diagnosing everybody. My father has a drink once in a while. He’s no alkie.”

“No, he isn’t.” I kissed her on the forehead and dropped the subject.

“My dad’s a great guy. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

“Yep.”

“What did you talk about?”

Glenna was giving me a chance to mention her brother. I wasn’t so uptight now that she hadn’t told me about him, mostly curious, and I didn’t want to sound as if I were accusing her of being a liar. Gently, casually I replied, “He said your brother’s a genius.”

Sitting up, Glenna reached over to the varnished apple crate and turned on the lamp. “Half brother. I never told you about him because—”

Glenna was shivering, and she tugged the quilt up around her shoulders.

I said, “Because?”

“Because he screwed up my life, my mother’s life, and even if my father doesn’t know it, his life as well. That’s why I put off introducing you to my parents. My family’s a mess.”

“How’d you wind up with a half brother?”

“When my father was a freshman at CCNY, he and his friends met these girls at a dance in the city. The girls were visiting from Cleveland, and they snuck the boys into their hotel. The one my father spent the night with was Felice Dudek. Six weeks later, he got a long-distance call from her. She was pregnant.”

“Your dad told you all this?”

“My mother. And according to her, my dad told Felice he’d heard of an abortionist in Pennsylvania. He offered to pay for everything and go with her. But Felice was raised a serious Catholic and she wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Did your mom know about it when your parents got married?”

“Some of it. Not that my father had volunteered to marry Felice. My father told my mother that years later—in the middle of a fight. But Felice said no. Her parents were not especially fond of Jews, and they wouldn’t let her marry one. Felice just wanted financial support. She never did marry or get a job, and my father’s been supporting her and her son for thirty-five years.”

I took her hand, lacing my fingers through hers.

“Twice a year,” she said, “when Richard got older, my father would fly to Cleveland to see him. My parents fought like tigers before he went. They fought constantly about Richard. My mother always wrote the checks for the bills, and one night every month when we’d sit down for dinner, she’d drop the checkbook on the table and say, ‘You write the one for your girlfriend and your son.’ When Richard used to come East to visit, my mother would go see her sister in Maine, and I’d stay home with the maid while my father and Richard went into the city.”