Page 34 of My Dearest Mackenzie

He took my hand in his and spoke. “I do. Now, let it be.”

I didn’t push. Instead, we rode in comfortable silence until Mack took a call.

“My aunt,” he explained to me after. “My dad’s sister.”

“Oh! Maybe she knows something…”

“No.” His tone was short and gruff. “Susie only knows what she needs to know. What fits with her agenda. Involving her would only make our mission a mess. She’d push to know why and how it might affect her, and ultimately how it can benefit her son-in-law, Tom.”

I couldn’t help the laugh escaping me. “I take it you’re not close with Tom.”

“No. Not in the slightest.”

The car slowed and we were parked in front of a large building in Astoria. Alex came and opened my door while Mack exited the SUV on his own.

“Here we go,” I said, and Mack wrapped his arm around me, bundling me in tight under his shoulder. I wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it. From the outside it looked like he was comforting me, but I knew differently. Mack was seeking security from his own rambling emotions.

We approached the information desk, now walking shoulder to shoulder-ish, signed into the facility, and the receptionist told us Miss Connie was waiting for us in the atrium. Armed with directions, we made our way there.

“Oh, my heavens, you look just like them!” Connie greeted us with an enormous grin from a wheelchair covered in glitter with balloons tied to the handles.

“Miss Connie,” I said, “So nice to meet you. I’m Frances…” I bent down to embrace the woman I could already tell was a genuinely caring person.

“Jimmy Burns’s granddaughter. I’d spot you in a crowd anywhere!” She put her palms on my cheeks and stared into my eyes. “Same green as your grandpa. Rose was wild for those eyes—a sea of grass, she’d say.”

As I sat down in the love seat across from her, a birdcage in my peripheral vision, I wondered about Connie’s family and if this was a good place. Typical me, I was already attached to a person I met moments ago.

“And Mackenzie Miller,” she said, turning her gaze on Mack, who was sitting next to me. “Rose would occasionally write and include a photo of you. She was so proud of the young man you were becoming. Occasionally she would tell me about your college football games. She was so proud. She’d say ‘a nice Jewish boy out there.’” Connie laughed. “That was so Milly, calling everything like it was.”

Mack cleared his throat. “She wrote? To you? She never said a word to me. Or us.” He seemed stuck on the notion his grandmother communicated with another person he’d never heard of.

“She did write. Sometimes more than others, but I always looked forward to it.” Connie beamed another smile on us. “Look at you two! And you found one another. I can’t believe it. It’s like one of those holiday movies they play at Christmastime.” Connie’s gray eyes, shielded by thick glasses, passed between us. She smoothed her palm over her brown hair, likely professionally blown dry into a bob.

This was a woman with enormous pride, and I felt myself vibing with it.

“Frances here wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Mack said while cocking his head toward me. “The little rascal followed me all over the city, wanting to know about her Paps and Milly, until I gave in. I didn’t have a clue what she was going on about until I saw the letters…”

“Oh God, I forgot—you all called Rose by that nickname, Milly. She was ahead of her time, ditching her God-given name. As a girl, she wanted to believe she could love anyone. As a young woman, she wanted to be involved in the business, and she tried. As a grown woman, she stuck it to your dad and that wife of his, raising you how she saw fit.”

Leaning forward, Mack asked, “How is it you know so much about me and I’d never heard a lick of you until Frances came along with the letters my grandmother wrote to Jimmy? A million years ago, if I might add.”

“Hopefully not a million. That would make me awfully old,” Connie joked back.

Mack smiled, letting go some of the tension he’d so visibly been holding in his brow.

Connie clasped her hands in her lap. “Pardon the chair,” she said first. “Broke my hip a while back, and my ankle before that, so they have me shoved in this contraption. Thank heavens for my great-grandkids who decorated it. Cuties come every Friday afternoon.”

“It’s stunning,” I said, feeling Connie shine her warmth on me.

“My mind, it’s all here, I want you to know. And I’m not telling any stories or lies.” She pointed to her head, and Mack nodded.

Sensing he wanted an answer, Connie went on.

“Your grandma and I grew up in Brooklyn together. For some reason, Rose was one of the few kids in her neighborhood to attend public school, not yeshiva like the others. Other Jewish girls, I mean. Rose was always smart, and as a teen she helped with the books for your great-grandfather’s apothecary. He owned a drugstore where they would mix elixirs and creams. That was before he got into the makeup business with your grandpa, Harold, as you know. Anyway, she and I went to grade school together and became fast friends. We stayed friends all through school. I’d go to Rose’s and eat chicken soup and salami sandwiches, and she’d come to mine and sneak food that wasn’t kosher. We developed recipes together. Always at my house.”

“The soup!” I couldn’t help myself.

“Yes, the soup. Jimmy loved our soup…”

---