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On Sundays he belonged to her; they did wonderful things together. Going on walks was what Sophie enjoyed most, more than going to the theater or the amusement park. She pulled him or stopped him. She marveled at her power over someone so much bigger, a man who earned money, owned a house—was this …

“I don’t know what stories you’ve heard. Naturally I had many affairs. But it was all right, your father wanted it.”

“That’s very strange.”

“I’m serious. He encouraged me. I hope you will forgive me for saying that your father was a little neurotic. The first-generation Freudians, you know, w…

She wasn’t sure what he meant; she remembered that the little boy Petie was very important to the little girl she was. His face hadn’t changed much; the same skinny boy grown very tall; she is still surprised by the wide shoulders and his big feet; he is another person now and just like any other y…

There was the corner drugstore where the big kids hung out and where every lollypop- and ice cream–licking child aspired one day to spoon the sundae or banana split whose giant images were plastered on its windows. There was East Liberty with its three five-and-ten-cent stores, twelve movie houses,…

“We,” he used to say when they first walked together in Garfield. “We are different. We don’t like foolish chatter, frills, extravagance, display of feelings. We are thinkers.” Both he and she were different from her mother in Budapest, who lived on flatteries, who dressed extravagantly, who was al…