Her father was dead, Adam was dead. Her mother played cards and her brother was a fool. That left Levy, and the old men downstairs, because they were mish­pochah. There was Golda, too, and Sam, and Allan. She couldn’t count Willa or Tom. They were still strangers.

Rachel took a hot shower and went right to sleep. She dreamed she was back at the basement window watching Luria dance. Levy was dead and she was alone. She saw the muscles in Luria’s arms and back straining his shirt. He was handsome, big, and sexy, the dance was suggestive, and she got excited in her sleep, but his features had softened and spread. She was scared and tried to wake up but couldn’t; clay covered his face and ran into his beard. It covered his body, and as he danced, faster and faster, clay spun off the ends of his hands and feet in ribbons that smacked against the basement walls until the composition paneling and vinyl floor were covered with it. Suddenly he stopped dancing and he pointed at the window, at her. Clay dripped from his arm and finger. She was sick with terror because he was coming for her, trailing clay like a snail, only now he was huge and lumbering and the clay ran at last into his eyes so he should have been blind but he wasn’t, because he was coming right for her, and all at once the window was gone, and the wall, and there was nothing between her and Luria’s clay-­drenched hands reaching for her. . . .

It was a nightmare, not just a bad dream, and she woke up covered with sweat, and still terrified. She forced herself to sit up and turn on the light. The room was empty, the snow was still falling. She got up, picked up the afghan which she must have kicked off the bed, and rushed to Levy’s room to be sure he was all right. He was in his bed, sound asleep. Without him, she and Leah would be alone . . . except for Allan. She went downstairs, ate one of the butter cookies she and Willa had baked, and she looked at the calendar. Then she called Allan.

“Rachel . . . what’s wrong?” he asked sleepily.

She held the calendar.

“I’ll marry you on the twenty-­first of June, Allan. If you still want me to.”

“Yes,” he yelled. “Shit yes . . . oh baby . . .” She listened to his voice, but not the words, and when he paused, she hung up without saying any more. She marked the date on the calendar; June twenty-­first—the summer solstice—the longest day of the year. The million-­year-long day, she thought.

5

Chapter 5