August 10, 1943

If diaries could speak, you'd no doubt be asking me how my father took the news of my engagement. After all, it's one thing for a man to like the boy his daughter is seeing and quite another for him to have the idea of marriage sprung on him at such short notice.

But Edwin is no boy, and I am no child.

"I will ask your father," he said, somewhere in the middle of all of yesterday's kissing and hugging.

"No," I said quickly. "I'll tell him." It's not how I'd ever imagined things going, but it felt right.

I had planned to wait until morning, but as soon as I walked into the house from work, I found my father in the front room, and he gave me a pointed look. "What's happened? You look like you've seen a miracle."

I sat down on the sofa, beside the man who had raised me, loved me, and held me together for twenty-eight years. Without saying anything, I wrapped my small, cold hand around his thick fingers and rested my head on his shoulder.

"What is it?" he asked. "You're behaving like you did when you were eight years old and scared to tell me something."

He wasn't wrong. Perhaps there was more than one recollection in his mind, but the time I was remembering was a few months after my mother's death, months when I had been distracted and sad.

It probably seems like, from my diary, that my father and I have always been close, but before my mother's death, we hadn't been—as much, anyway. We had loved each other, surely, but Papa had been the tall, quiet figure who led the synagogue, and I had been a little in awe of him. My mother, with her laughing eyes and quick wit, had been the one who raised me and disciplined me and tucked me into bed while my father talked with the men of the synagogue late into the night.

And then she was gone, and the house had grown so quiet it was like a tomb. As small as I was, I had done my best to be silent, to eat what the ladies of the synagogue prepared for us without complaint, and to put myself to bed and get myself ready for school. My father was in a haze of grief, his eyes red-rimmed and his own plates of food barely touched.

We went on like this for a while, until my teacher finally sent me home with a note that filled my heart with dread because I knew what it contained—an explanation of how badly I, who had always been called a smart child, was doing in school since our grief.

"Have your father sign this," she said.

Briefly, I considered trying to forge Papa's signature, but even as a little girl, I was pragmatic enough to realize I wouldn't get away with it. Instead, my heavy feet carried me the two blocks home to our small house, and I came inside, not knowing what in the world I was going to do.

"Anna, what is wrong, small one?" As I walked through our living room, my father's voice surprised me out of my overcast thoughts. I didn't realize it then, but I know now that even when I thought he was paying little attention to me, he never stopped watching. Perhaps, until that day, he hadn't known how to respond to what he observed.

Papa was sitting on the sofa, studying Talmud. He was casually dressed, and he looked young and tired. (He didn't look young to me then.) "Nothing, Abba," I said quickly, trying to brush past him to get to my room.

He put a hand out and gently but firmly pulled me closer to him. Filled with fear about the paper in my pocket, I couldn't meet his eyes. He took the hand that wasn't holding my waist and lifted my chin, looking into my face. After a long look, he pulled me into his lap and put his arms around me. I buried my face in his shoulder, trying not to cry.

"Is it your mother?" Papa asked softly, his voice muffled by my unruly hair.

I shook my head no, feeling my face go red, glad he couldn't see it.

"You're scared of me." I stiffened in his arms, and he continued. "I've—I've seen it for a while now, but it's gotten worse since she left us. I told myself it was just the pain of loss, but it isn't. Grief doesn't take away everything, but you—you've extinguished yourself like a candle."

"I'm sorry, Abba," I said, not sure what I was supposed to answer.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, my Anna," he murmured softly. "We will start again—I'll start again, I mean. If you let me."

"Please—don't be angry," I said, suddenly scraping up the courage to retrieve the crumpled note from my pocket. I didn't understand what my father meant by his emotional declaration. He had never been so open with me before. But his gentleness gave me enough boldness to do what I knew I must.

He scanned the note quickly, and I watched his face from behind my hair, unable to tell how he was reacting. When he'd finished it, he folded it in half and discarded it on the wooden table in front of the sofa, his left arm still holding me tightly.

My father turned back to me then and gave his full attention to snuggling, rearranging me on his knee so that I was cuddled into his chest and easier to hold. Confused, I pushed away and looked into his face. "Papa, are you going to punish me?"

"Small one," he answered kindly, "if I were going to punish you, I would have to punish myself too. Do you think you're the only one who can't concentrate on your books? For months now, the words swim in front of my eyes when I try to study, and my teachings have been hollow at best. It's not a fault to be sad and distracted. Time will help us both, and until then, we can help each other."

I settled against him then, relief and comfort spreading through me like warm water. Papa simply held me for ages, and finally I fell asleep. The last thing I remember from that night is him picking me up in his strong arms, carrying me to bed, and tucking me in with a kiss—the first time he'd ever done that, but far from the last.

After that day, he read me my assignments aloud after school each day, and I read him his books, curled up on his lap and secure in the crook of his arm. We had both made each other better at our work, and we had never been distant again.

"What are you thinking of?" I sat up and smiled as my father's voice pulled me out of my memory.

"I was thinking of when I used sit on your knees and read Talmud out loud," I answered.

"Not so long ago," he replied, which didn't allay my concerns that the idea of his little girl marrying a near-stranger would be less than welcome.

"Tell me," he ordered, not unkindly but certainly with intention.

"I—Edwin has asked me to marry him," I answered. "He says that if we marry, he can protect us." We had learned to be direct with each other, my father and I.

He nodded. "And what was your reply?"

"I told him I would," I said in a low voice.

"Just so," he answered, but there was sadness on his face that was worse than him getting angry or trying to forbid it. I crumpled into tears.

Papa put his arms around me. "Why such unhappiness, small one? You must marry, and it will be well."

"You're sad, Abba. I hate it when you're sad."

"Yes," he answered, "I am sad. If it weren't for this war, you would have long days to walk with your Edwin down the streets of our city and learn him and laugh and argue and become something together, the way your mother and I once did. I am not sad for your choice. I am sad for what this fighting has stolen from you and your soldier. It's not right for young people to be robbed of these things."

"But you consent?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, hugging me tightly, "you have my blessing."

A/N: This story is going to continue; have no fear. I'm still on the heels of a year of major health challenges that included life-changing surgery and chemo. Some weeks are better than others, but I'm getting better over all.