Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb

if you got yourself ready for those grits yet.”
    “Not ready.”
    She was remarkably quick at splitting and whipping eggs. Goldah hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he smelled them in the pan. She slid them onto a plate and cut up a few pieces of melon and laid them alongside.
    “Mr. Abe likes to fry up his pastrami. He just got it new yesterday. You ever try fried pastrami?”
    “I haven’t, no.”
    “It’s pretty good. I think Mr. Abe done it the first time ’cause a how much he love the smell a bacon. He told me how he used to smell it down in Yamacraw when they was young and living there, coming up along the street and just knew itwas the best thing he ever smelled in his whole life.” She set the plate in front of him and brought over a fork and knife. “He can’t eat it, a course, on account it not being koshuh. There’s lots a stuff he and Miss Pearl don’t eat on account a the koshuh. But he says fried pastrami just about as close as he’s going to get to that smell a bacon without it actually being the bacon. I can fry you up some, if you like?”
    “Thank you, no.” Goldah took a sip of the coffee and started in on the eggs.
    “You know, I ain’t asked you yet. You koshuh, Mr. Ike?”
    “No.”
    “Not at all?”
    “Not at all.”
    “So that’s something some Jewish folk do and some don’t?”
    “I suppose. Yes.”
    “I didn’t know that.” She smiled, and Goldah noticed the fineness of her cheeks as they rose toward the deep brown of her eyes. She went to the percolator. She checked something in the oven and then went across to a large cupboard.
    “That’s the same with praying?” she said.
    Goldah was struck by the directness in her question. He wasn’t sure how to answer. She said, “You can stop and start with that, too?” She refilled his cup.
    “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that one.”
    “Miss Pearl none too happy you not going with them this morning.”
    Goldah felt this more strongly than perhaps he had expected. “Did she say something?”
    “She don’t need to say nothing. I know when she’s feeling something, and this morning she was feeling she wanted you with her.”
    “Maybe I’ll go next week.”
    “Oh — so you’ll be getting your believing back by next week?” He smiled and she picked up a cloth, opened the oven, and brought out a long pan. The smell was of apples and raisins and she set it on the counter. She sprinkled a handful of sugar from the tin over the pan, then brushed her hands, set the pan back in the oven and closed the door. “You like fresh tomatoes with your eggs?”
    She was at a bowl with a knife before he could answer. She cut the tomato into thick wedges and set the pieces on his plate.
    “You leave any of that on the plate and Miss Pearl’ll really find her anger, and I’ll be in more trouble than you.”
    There was a knock at the door and Mary Royal peered over through the thin curtain. She wiped off her hands and bent down to catch her reflection in a tin tray on the counter. Goldah had never seen — or perhaps couldn’t remember — such tenderly plied preparations for a man. Mary Royal pressed at her hair, rubbed her finger across her chin and cheeks, then straightened her blouse as she stepped to the door. Goldah saw only her back as she opened the door and said, “Raymond Taylor, I can run a clock on you. Mr. Ike having his breakfast inside.”
    Goldah saw a moment of unspoken communication between them before Mary Royal stepped back to let Raymond Taylor in.
    He was the young man on top of the ladder from that first day, not much taller than Mary Royal but far darker. His hair was cut close to the scalp with a thin part on the right, and he had small ears that sprouted like two sprigs of mint. He was carrying three large brown paper bags across his chest, each filled to the top. Goldah saw the deep strength in his forearms and the size of his shoulders, but it was the care between them that struck him