Jack and David sat at a small window table near the front door of The Perfect Pot—an establishment that David often frequented—around the corner from David and Lily's flat. Many of The Perfect Pot's regular patrons were students, struggling artists, and housewives. It was not a place that Jack would have chosen had he not been with David, despite the fact that the café's interior—black tin ceilings stamped with diamond patterns, walls painted a warm palm green, and soft pendant lighting shining down onto ivory colored floor tile—was rather inviting.

Jack wasn't much of a coffee drinker, usually just one cup in the morning at home to get him going. He had ordered an orangeade. David, on the other hand, was drinking his fourth cup of coffee for the day. The children were meant to collect them when dinner was almost on the table, so they had selected a spot where they would easily be found. With everything that had transpired since Break Maiden had been raided, this was the first time that the two friends had had the opportunity to talk alone since Jack had confronted David about Violet.

Given the sensitive nature of the information that the Delmans had left at her doorstop, Sarah thought that it would be better for Jack to initially speak to David about the matter away from the rest of the family. It wouldn't do for any of the children to overhear intimate details of Les' life. Furthermore, Sarah had come of age at a time when men and women didn't talk about certain topics in mixed company. She felt that Jack would be able to speak to David about Les' affairs in a more direct manner than she would be capable of.

David sat across from Jack, staring out of the window, lost in thought, not paying attention to the goings-on out on the street or within the café. The jarring possibility of Les having a son, a son who presumably lived close by, had stirred something deep within his being. On that awful afternoon, almost four years ago now, when Esther had telephoned David to tell him about the letter she had received which had informed her of Les' death, the remnants of the flower of David's adolescent sanguinity had withered. Losing Les was like losing a part of himself. To David, his little brother, though far from being a child when he was so unfairly ripped from this life and from the family who loved him, had represented youth and innocence. When David thought of Les, he often pictured the nine-year old idealistic boy whose hope had refused to waver in the face of Joseph Pulitzer's goons during the sweltering summer of 1899, rather than the somewhat aimless twenty-seven-year-old man who had gone off to fight the Germans. Now, armed with the knowledge that this boy, Alvin Delman, might be a living piece of the brother who had been taken from him, a feeling of cautious optimism welled up inside David's chest.

The sound of Jack crunching on an ice cube brought David's attention back to his immediate surroundings. Jack's hands were clasped around a glass tumbler which contained a few pieces of melting ice tinged with honey-hued dregs of orangeade. The coolness of the condensation on the tumbler against his palms felt good.

Jack leaned towards David. "I read in the papes about testing blood or something. Like, maybe you got a different kind that I got. Maybe if they tested the kid's blood, they could tell who da father was."

David had read the same articles that Jack had, but he understood the limitations of such testing. "There is no way to prove that Les is Alvin's father. Scientists are working on things like that, but nothing can really be proven with them. At least not yet. Besides, they would need Les' blood to even try it. The Delman's case is circumstantial at best."

"Circumstantial?" Jack questioned, his tongue finding its way around the word that David had used. He had a vague sense of what the term meant but it wasn't part of his everyday vocabulary.

David took a large gulp of coffee, nearly finishing what remained in his mug. "People saw Les going into Alice's apartment at night in the months before he left for the Navy. In court, a judge would say that there isn't enough evidence to prove that Les isn't the father, even though there is nothing which proves that he is the father."

This didn't quite satisfy Jack. If Alvin was really Les' son he would welcome the child with open arms, but he didn't want to see David and Sarah become emotionally attached to someone who wasn't even their own blood. What if there had been another man in Alice's life and the real father appeared to demand custody? "Yeah, but she could have been bringing other fellas up to her place."

David shrugged. "Maybe, but we have no way to know."

Jack didn't want to talk in circles. He still wasn't satisfied, but he was all out of talking points. "Well, Sarah wants to know what we should do. Do you think we should meet da kid? "

David exhaled deeply, feeling that nothing he said would be right. "If he is Les' son, he shouldn't end up in an orphanage."

A flare of pathos briefly illuminated within Jack's eyes. "Nobody should end up in an orphanage, Dave. Nobody. Every kid deserves a family."

David let his eyes fall away from Jack for a moment. He hadn't even considered Jack's time in Warden Snyder's notorious House of Refuge when he brought up the subject of orphanages, and yet, the Jacobs Family could not be the benefactors of every orphan in New York City. That was plain to see, at least to him. "We can't take in every child who needs a family."

Now it was Jack's turn to stare out of the window. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out a cigarette and a white matchbook that had the words, Pete's Place, printed on the backside in a red script. Jack wasn't a heavy smoker and never lit up at home. He usually only reached for a cigarette when he was nervous or when he was working through something in his head. Jack ripped a match from the booklet and quickly ran its head along the striker. He lit the cigarette, now dangling between his lips, and then waved the match back and forth in his hand until the flame went out. There was an ashtray sitting between the salt and pepper shakers on the table; David pushed it towards Jack. The thought of Alvin ending up in an orphanage, regardless of who his father was, didn't sit well with Jack. "Maybe we could meet Alice's parents somewhere, like in a park, and ask them to bring Alvin, so's we can meet 'im. The kid don't need to know who we are."

David looked down at the extinguished match that Jack had placed in the ashtray. He didn't care for the smell of cigarettes, but couldn't bring himself to ask his friend to put out his straight, especially when several other café patrons were also smoking. He knew how Jack felt about orphanages. "Maybe. Let me think about it and I'll call Sarah tomorrow when Lucy and Ted are in school."

Jack didn't know what else to say. This was really David and Sarah's problem to deal with after all. Les had only been his brother by marriage. David looked out the window again, wondering when dinner would be ready.

Jack suddenly changed tracks. "Hey, how's it going with Harry?"

The corners of David's eyes crinkled into a smile. "Fine, I guess. He doesn't say it, but I know that he's missing Racetrack."

"Yeah, well Ruth is getting' out tomorrow and Racetrack will be out in a few weeks."

"I am sure he's happy to have Teddy to play marbles with today," David said, shaking his head at the memory of being beaten by Harry in both games that they had played together in the week that Harry had been with him and Lily.

Jack smirked. "You never was good at marbles."

"Thanks for rubbing it in," David protested half-heartedly.

Jack tapped his cigarette against the ashtray. "Take a joke, will ya?"

As Jack pulled the ashtray slightly closer to his side of the table, an elderly woman dressed in a light gray walking suit stepped through the café door cradling a biscuit-colored Pekingese in her arms. The woman wore a cloche with a wide brim, the same color as her suit. Her wide-eyed companion had been outfitted in a natty red and white argyle sweater, tailored specifically to his diminutive size. Jack, who sat facing the door, struggled to suppress a laugh at the sight of the human-canine duo.

While David, with his back faced towards the entrance, could not see the woman and her dog, he heard her declare, in a quite audible voice, "Now Hubert, I expect you to be on your best behavior while we are here. No back-talk!"

David turned around in his chair, expecting to see a little boy being chastised by his grandmother, but when he saw that Hubert was in fact a dog in an argyle sweater, he couldn't reign in the grin that unfolded on his face. David and Jack followed the silver-haired woman with their eyes as she shuffled past them to an empty table located on the far side of The Perfect Pot's entrance before returning their gazes to each other. Without explicitly stating so, it was clear to both of them, from the expressions on their respective faces, that they shared the same unfavorable opinion about dogs wearing sweaters and the name, Hubert.

Somehow, the appearance of the old woman and her Pekingese had mellowed the atmosphere between the two old friends. In the lightness of the moment, they briefly felt like teenagers again.

Jack took a long drag on his cigarette. "So, Dave. About last week at Break Maiden. I hope you ain't sore at me or nothin'"

David had been waiting for Jack to ask about Violet ever since they had left the apartment. And now, here it was. In an effort to stall this particular line of conversation from continuing, David brought his mug to his lips, momentarily forgetting that there was nothing but a drop or two of coffee remaining in it. When nothing but a teardrop of coffee splashed into his mouth, he set the mug down, letting his eyes rest on its white rim. "I'm done with Violet. It's over."

"Over?" Jack said with some surprise. Jack hadn't expected David and Violet's liaison to last into the new year, but he was taken aback at this sudden turn of events.

David almost picked up his coffee mug again, but then remembered that it was empty. Why did he find this so difficult to talk about? It was just Jack after all. "It was making my life complicated. To be honest, I got bored with her."

Jack turned his head to the left and blew a stream of smoke away from where David sat. When he looked back at David, he said," Is there somethin' you ain't telling me?"

David shrugged his shoulders, not knowing exactly what Jack wanted him to say. After Violet had called the apartment for a second time—thankfully at an hour when Harry was already asleep and Lily was enjoying her evening bath—David knew that he had to end it. And so he had, in straightforward and unambiguous terms, via a letter that had been posted on his way to work, four days after Break Maiden was raided. When Lily emerged from the bath, asking who had called, David had lied, saying it was a wrong number. David hadn't heard from Violet since he had posted the letter and hoped that he wouldn't. Finally, David said, "It was just time to end it, ok?"

There was a whiff of defensiveness in David's tone. Jack didn't want to press too much further, but he had to ask. "Did you ever end up telling Lily?"

David shook his head no. Just as Jack thought. He loathed keeping secrets—at least secrets of this kind and of this magnitude. Jack turned his head towards Hubert, subconsciously hoping that the pint-sized pooch might once again diffuse the tension that had been ebbing and flowing between him and David since the confrontation at Break Maiden, however Hubert had settled into a deep sleep on the café's tiled floor while his owner sipped on a cup of tea and read a novelette that she had brought with her.

A knock on the window by Jack and David's table startled the two men out of their mutual disquiet. When they looked outside, they found Teddy, Lucy, and Harry staring at them, each one grinning, apparently pleased with themselves for sneaking up on the men of the family. At the sight of the children, Jack snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray. David waved the children inside. The kids filed into the café from youngest to oldest—Harry in the front, Lucy in the middle, with Teddy bringing up the rear—and approached the table. Lucy had a worn copy of Glinda of Oz, a Christmas gift from Lily, tucked under her arm.

"Dinner's ready," Teddy announced, digging into his role as the authoritative eldest child.

"Aunt Lily said you'd better hurry up," Harry added.

Jack winked at Harry. "She did, did she?"

"Uh-huh, and she said that the last person who sits down for dinner will be the last person to get dessert." Harry quoted Lily verbatim.

Lucy moved closer to where Jack was sitting and placed an elbow on her father's shoulder. She looked disdainfully down at the remains of Jack's cigarette, but didn't say anything. Lucy, much like David, disliked the fact that her father smoked. Then, she turned her attention to her uncle. "Uncle David, guess what?"

David thought that his niece was going to tell him about some school achievement of hers. That is usually what she talked to him about. "What?"

"Uncle Eli is coming to visit next month. He called just after you left the apartment with Papa." Jack and Sarah's kids called Lily's twin brother 'uncle', even though Eli was not the Nadler sibling who had married into their family. Both Jack and David were astonished to hear Lucy's news.

Jack picked up his matchbook from the table, where he had discarded it after lighting up, and placed it back into his shirt pocket. "He's coming all da way from Scotland?"

"He's going to arrive at the end of June," Teddy confirmed.

At the mention of Eli's name, David's hands tensed up, but he made a concerted effort to keep a composed expression upon his face. David hadn't seen Elias Nadler since the latter had moved to Glasgow to write for The Herald two days after David's wedding to Lily. Eli and David had met in a journalism class at Buffalo State and had become fast friends. It was through Eli that David had met Lily—at a family visitation weekend that UB held annually in early October. For the last six years, David had fervently hoped that he would never have to come face to face with Eli again because doing so would force him to confront things that he had made great efforts to bury.


Notes:

Obviously there was no DNA testing in 1921 which could be used to verify Alvin's paternity. In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists were beginning to investigate the possibility of using blood type to determine paternity, but results from those tests, could only suggest a paternal profile (thereby excluding certain individuals) whereas modern DNA testing can point towards a specific person as being a given child's father with a high degree of certainty.

Orangeade is a sugary orange based drink containing no alcohol that was popular in the 1920s.

Glinda of Oz is the 14th and last book in the Land of Oz series. It was published in 1920.