Esther blanched as though Cohen had struck her. And maybe he had, in a way. But she shook her head.
‘Oh Cohen, I wasn’t—I didn’t mean that ... you couldn’t possibly have believed that I meant ...’ Esther paused. ‘Oh.’ She exhaled abruptly, realisation dawning on her face. ‘But you did think that, didn’t you? Cohen, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. I never meant for you to think that. I was never sorry for you, or about you. You were never an inconvenience to me. Anything but. Of everything that happened between me and your father ... you were the best thing about it. And I would marry that wastrel again, a thousand times over, if it meant I got to be your mother a thousand times over. Tell me you understand that?’ Esther asked desperately. She reached forward, taking one of Cohen’s hands in her own.
Cohen looked at where their hands were joined. Esther’s fingers were so slim, tiny in the palm of his hand. It seemed impossible that this woman once held him in her arms.
But she had. Many times over.
‘Yes,’ Cohen said, nodding slowly. ‘Yes. I understand.’
‘Do you mean that?’ Esther asked, squeezing his fingers. ‘Tell me again, Cohen. I can’t bear for us to be like ... to be like we’ve been this last decade. I want my baby boy back, Cohen. I want you to be my baby again, like you used to be.’
‘I understand, Mother. I do.’ Cohen returned the squeeze, a light pressure against Esther’s fingers. ‘But I can’t be your baby again. We can’t go back to that.’
Not yet, he thought. His relationship with his mother had, for too long, been a wound allowed to fester. This conversation was a compress of a bandage long overdue but it would take time, Cohen realised, for the wound to fully heal. He hoped it would.
Esther looked stricken at his words, and so Cohen cleared his throat. ‘But I can be your son, Mother. And you can be my mother. And we can see where things go from there.’
‘You want us to be ... friends?’ Esther asked, almost hopefully.
Cohen suddenly recalled Rushi and her querying words. Rushi, who had been a parent to River but never a friend. And he smiled.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s try being friends, as well as mother and son. I think I’d like that.’
And now Esther smiled. ‘Friends, yes. Alright then.’
Cohen smiled back. ‘I think a friend would have offered another drink by now,’ he hinted. ‘I drink my coffee black.’
‘But caffeine—’ Esther began, before Cohen cut her off with a laugh.
‘Mother, I’m six-foot-two. Do you really still think caffeine will impact on my height? God, I almost hope it does. I already struggle to find shoes and shirts that fit.’
‘Well, you didn’t get your height from me,’ Esther told him, getting up to turn on her coffee machine.
For a moment, Jim’s name was a lingering presence in the room, and they both fell silent.
‘I miss him,’ Cohen admitted quietly, his words cutting into the void.
‘Yes. So do I, sometimes,’ Esther replied with a sigh.
‘I wish I’d gone to him,’ Cohen added, his voice firm. ‘I wish to God I hadn’t let him die in that hospice, all alone.’
Esther’s face softened, her eyes suddenly filling with tears once more. She reached out, taking Cohen’s hand. ‘Oh, baby, he didn’t die alone.’
Cohen looked up sharply. ‘What?’
‘Your father didn’t die alone, baby. I was there. I went to him. I sat with him. I was there when he died.’
Cohen stared at her. ‘But you never said anything ...’
Esther shrugged, using her free hand to brush away her tears. ‘You always got so angry when he was mentioned ... and you didn’t even go to the funeral ... it just seemed easier to brush it all under the carpet, you know?’
Cohen nodded. ‘How was he? In the ... at the end?’
Esther cleared her throat, squeezing Cohen’s fingers, before moving to the coffee machine to start a steady rush of hot water. She clearly didn’t want to talk about this.
‘Please, Mother. I have to know,’ Cohen pressed her.
Esther nodded, a reluctant but resigned movement. ‘He was tired mostly,’ she began. ‘He wanted to talk about the old days. Israel came to see him too, they had a laugh together.’ She looked at him pointedly. ‘He wanted to talk about you, when he was lucid. Wanted to talk about you when you were a baby. But when he was out of it on the drugs they gave him ...’ Esther bit her lip. ‘He mainly spoke nonsense. He was in such pain by the end. He couldn’t bear for anyone to touch him. Every press on his skin hurt him.’
Cohen shuddered.
Esther suddenly gave an impish smile. ‘But he wasn’t in such pain that he didn’t try and steal a few kisses from me,’ she admitted. ‘He was always trying to steal kisses from me. He was such a scoundrel, your father. A complete ganef, from beginning to end.’
‘I’m glad you were there,’ Cohen told her.
‘It was the right place for me to be. He was a good man, you know. A good man. Just not a very good husband. Or, in the end, a very good father. Well.’ Esther handed Cohen a mug of black coffee. ‘Well, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. He just wasn’t meant to be a family man.’
Esther sat back at the table, one hand idly going to her mother’s ring. She gave a deep sigh, before pushing it towards Cohen.
‘You should keep this,’ she told him.
‘I have no use for it,’ Cohen replied. ‘When I get married again, I’m going to give my intended a ring of her own. I don’t want her to have any legacies of heartbreak or sadness on her finger.’
He meant that. When he married River, he wanted her to wear a ring from him that was – and would only ever be – hers alone.
‘What should I do with this then?’ Esther put the ring back in the box.
For once, Cohen didn’t miss a beat. ‘Save it for a granddaughter,’ he suggested, sipping at his coffee.
Esther almost glared at him. ‘Don’t tease me like that,’ she chided.
‘I mean it, Mother,’ he told her, his voice serious. ‘I’m thinking about getting married again.’
Esther stared at him. ‘What?’
‘I’m thinking about getting married again. Soon, I hope. Well, as soon as we can arrange—’
‘—you’re getting married. Again?’ Esther repeated.
‘Yes,’ Cohen said slowly. ‘I’m thinking about getting married. Again.’
‘Is she Jewish?’
Cohen grimaced but bit his tongue. Because he knew that for all Esther might now try to be his friend, in some respects she would always be his mother. His over-bearing, Jewish mother.
But he loved her for it.
‘No,’ he said.
Esther suppressed a frown. ‘Who is she?’
‘She lives in London. She’s twenty-six and deaf.’
Esther’s mouth fell unattractively open. She was silent for a full minute while Cohen calmly drank his coffee.
‘Mother?’ he finally asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Esther began slowly. ‘I don’t know what to do with any of that information, Cohen. It’s the first day of Hanukkah. The first day of Hanukkah and you’re sitting there, drinking your black coffee and casually telling me you’re thinking about getting married again? And to a gentile woman who lives in London? Are you kidding me, Cohen?’