Lavender Love (boyxboy)✅

Chapter 3

Three years ago, my uncle William had a stroke, forcing him to retire. My twenty-nine-year-old brother, Walter, then became a co-owner of the orchard. Walter married his high school sweetheart, Josephine, in 1946, and had two boys with another child on the way. My other brother, twenty-seven-year-old Jimmy, got married last year to a woman named Lillian and they were expecting their first child any day now. Jimmy, too, worked for the family orchard. He was the money man. Frankie and I had no interest in working in the orchard. It was back bending labor and downright boring

Ever since Frankie left, my brothers spent more time in their childhood home than in their own homes. Frankie was only three years older than I, but I looked up to Donnie the most. His death hit us hard. No one would ever fill that void. I'd never forget the day the army guy came to the door with the news. Mom fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. That was an image that would forever stay with me.

Two days after Alex's arrival, both Walter and Jimmy invited themselves to dinner. It wasn't uncommon for them to have two dinners: one at my house and another at their own home. They were curious to meet this long lost cousin.

As Mom finished making dinner, we sat around the dinner table. My brothers wanted answers as much as I did.

"If Alex is your cousin's son, what does that make him to you?" Jimmy asked Dad.

Mom answered instead, placing a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. "That makes him your father's second cousin and Alex your third cousin. Not many people can say they met their third cousins."

"How come you never told us you have family in Poland?" Walter asked.

Our grandmother died way before I was born. Dad mentioned her many times, but never in great detail. Grandpa lived to be ninety-two. Dad remained silent.

"Is the boy a Jew?" Jimmy asked.

"Damn it, Jimmy, you said you wouldn't ask that question," Walter said. "Of course Dad's not Jewish. Does the name Hadley sound Jewish to you?"

"Walter's right," Mom said. There was something different about her tone. I didn't believe her. "We're Irish Catholic."

Strangely quiet, Dad looked down at his place setting, rolling and unrolling his napkin.

"Mom and Dad kept saying they tried to get them all here," I remembered from the other day. "They couldn't because of the immigration quotas."

"Alex is a Jew, isn't he?" Walter said. "Tell us, Dad."

"My mother married an Irish Catholic," Dad finally spoke. "She immigrated to the States when she was eighteen or twenty. She left her parents and sister behind. Her sister's daughter is Alex's mother and my cousin."

"That doesn't make them Jewish," I pointed out.

"Dad?" Walter prodded.

"Yes, my mother was Jewish."

"Shit," Walter muttered. "Do you know what happened to the Jews in Europe?"

Jimmy was stationed in Okinawa, but Walter spent most of his time in Germany. He never spoke of his experience. I had heard stories of the camps and mass murders, but the stories seemed too horrific to be true. Naïve and innocent, I couldn't believe there was so much evil in the world. I didn't see the photos until much later.