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Correcting her?
    She popped the plastic seal back where it belonged, then placed the tube on the counter next to his bag. She stamped the bottom of his declaration.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Ground transportation is down the corridor on your left.”
    Ezra gathered up his bags, tucked the tube back under his arm, and made his way out of the customs area. His black turtleneck, he could feel, was stuck to his back with sweat, but it was all he could do not to jump for joy.
    As soon as he got to the arrivals area, he saw his Uncle Maury in a blue windbreaker, holding up a handwritten sign that said METZGER.
    Ezra, burdened down with the bags, lifted his chin to acknowledge him, and Maury hurried over to help. Putting the bags down, they embraced, then Maury stepped back to look him over. “You’ve lost weight.”
    “And so have you.” Which was a lie—his uncle was not only as heavy as ever, but looked all of his sixty-five years, maybe even a bit more. “But what’s with the sign? You thought I wouldn’t know you?”
    “I thought I might not know you. ”
    Maury started to pick up the bulkiest bag, but Ezra stopped him. “Here,” he said, handing him a small carry-on, “you can carry this.”
    Maury walked slowly, listing from one side to the other, on his way out of the terminal. Even though he was only a year older than his brother, Ezra’s dad, he looked much older than that. Life had been hard on Maury, and—as he liked to say—he’d been hard on life. While his brother Sam had excelled at everything, and made a fortune by the time he was thirty, Maury had drifted around from job to job, woman to woman, without ever really settling down or getting serious about anything. Finally, he’d wound up working for Sam and his family, as everything from handyman to babysitter, or, as he was tonight, chauffeur.
    The black Lincoln town car was parked in the first spot reserved for VIP parking—an instant reminder to Ezra that he was once again entering his father’s sphere of influence—and Maury opened the back door for him.
    “You don’t want me up front?” Ezra said.
    “Come on and get in, I got too much of my stuff up there.”
    Ezra got in back—he knew that his uncle had always preferred it that way—and waited while Maury lowered himself into the front seat, pushed his Daily Racing Forms to one side, and navigated the car out of the airport maze.
    On the way into the city, Ezra asked where his father and stepmother, Kimberly, were that night. He was hoping that they might be at their place in Palm Beach.
    “They’re home. In fact, they’re throwing a dinner party.”
    Ezra’s heart sank.
    “Who’s on the guest list?”
    Maury knew this wouldn’t go down well. “The mayor,” he said, somewhat reluctantly, “and a bunch of other big shots.”
    “Can we go in the back way?”
    Maury glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Even after all this time, he thought, not much had changed. “You can try, but they’re expecting to see you.”
    Ezra had always dreaded this homecoming—which was why he hadn’t done it for years. The last words he’d exchanged with his father, in person, had been awfully blunt ones. And now, to make matters worse, there were the peculiar circumstances under which he’d had to leave Israel. He wasn’t sure exactly how much his family knew of what had happened there—he hadn’t told anyone the full story—but his father, as he had known all his life, had sources everywhere. What he didn’t know yet, he would soon find out.
    For the rest of the ride, they caught up on more neutral topics—the Mets, city politics, Gertrude the housekeeper, Trina the cook—and when they got to the building, Maury pulled the car into the circular driveway and stopped. “You can leave your bags in the trunk,” he said, “I’ll send ’em up in the freight elevator.”
    “Thanks,” Ezra said. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
    “Just try and keep me away.”
    He picked up the