Epitaph Read Online Free PDF

she’d made. “Here,” she’d say. “Try this and tell me what you think.” The whole torte would sell.
    â€œThat’s my Sadie,” Henry would say. “She got them eating out of her hand!”
    â€œIdiots,” Hattie would mutter, but even she liked what Sadie did for the bottom line.
    SLOWLY, IN FITS AND STARTS, the economy improved. By 1877, Hattie’s ferocious economizing and strict management had placed the business on a solid cash basis. The threat of bankruptcy receded.
    If Mrs. Henry Marcus had been kept strictly ignorant of how and why this had been achieved, she was correct in surmising that Henry’s mood and outlook had improved. Which is why she thought it was perfectly reasonable to make a completely ridiculous suggestion on a chilly night in 1878, when she and her husband were getting ready for bed.
    â€œWe should buy the girls a piano.”
    One shoe on, one shoe off, Henry stared. Sophie was as round and sleek as a sea lion under the covers, but her voice was firm with the sort of resolution that every married man recognizes and dreads.
    â€œIf Sadie gonna get a husband, she gotta get some accomplishments , Henry.”
    San Francisco’s men still outnumbered its women a hundred to one. In Henry’s observation, all a female needed to get a husband were two of those and one of the other. Four limbs? Desirable, maybe. Not required.
    Stalling, he toed off the second shoe and bent over to pull off his stockings.
    â€œI had a piano,” Sophie reminded him coyly, “and such a husband I got!”
    Wasn’t music got you a husband, Henry thought, but he’d have yanked his own tongue out with pliers before he said as much.
    â€œBoth girls should take lessons,” Sophie persisted. “Hattie, she gotta get some graces or she never gonna get married. You treat her like a son, Henry.”
    He slid into bed beside her and made a grave tactical error. “And how you think we gonna get a piano up them stairs?”
    Sophie had clearly thought this through. Sitting up, she warmed to her topic, which involved blocks and tackles and windows, and what several ladies at the synagogue had done for their daughters in similar circumstances.
    â€œI’m not listening!” Henry warned, but the very fact that she’d raised this bizarre notion was oddly comforting, so he let her rattle on, thinking all the while, She don’t know. Thanks, Gott! Hattie didn’t tell her!
    â€œSophie,” he said finally, turning down the light and speaking the truth, “the last thing in the world this family needs is a piano.”
    â€œDORA’S MOTHER INVITED ME and Hattie to a concert!” Sadie announced at dinner a few nights later. Dora Hirsch was Sadie’s best friend at school.
    â€œA piano concert?” Sophie asked innocently. As if she hadn’t already talked to Mrs. Hirsch about this. “And who is playing?”
    Sadie looked blank. “She told me but . . . I don’t remember. Some lady.”
    â€œNever mind who’s playing,” Hattie said. “Who’s paying?”
    â€œWe’re to be Mrs. Hirsch’s guests ,” Sadie said primly. She made a face at Hattie. “‘Guest’ means she pays, we don’t, idiot.”
    â€œSadie!” their mother said sharply. “Don’t call names.”
    â€œCan’t beat the price,” their father admitted. “All right. Why not?”
    â€œI’ll tell you why not,” Hattie said. “Mrs. Hirsch is a piano teacher, and there’s no such thing as a free sample. She’s fishing for students.”
    â€œSo, good!” Sophie said, passing kugel to her husband. “We got two students for her. I told you, Henry. The girls need to play piano so they can get husbands.”
    â€œI’m not getting married,” Sadie declared, just to stir things up. “I’m going to be an emancipated