Page 46 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

H e strolled on Long Lake’s sandy shore, the evening sky darkening, the air now quickly chilling, songbirds quieting. As he passed beneath a leafing willow a cardinal hidden there offered up a solo, a short “chip… chip…chip.” Along the mossy shore frogs commenced croaking.

As much as A.J. might once have relished his globe-hopping days it was always good to be home. He never tired—at least not yet—of the lake and the fields that had long sustained and fortified him. However, this would be a new test though one he welcomed: whether he could stay home.

At his boat dock he climbed the wooden stairs to the backyard. Smoke rose from the chimney, the homey, welcoming fragrance of a log fire wafting to him. A.J. moved past the sprouting vegetable garden to his left and pushed through the back door into the den.

Hadley lay dozing on the couch before the fire, her long blonde hair curling on a dark green pillow.

Finally, it seemed, she had found something that completely wore her out.

“Indefatigable,” he had thought when he first encountered her in the martial arts class he taught at the university.

She since had proved him correct in that first impression.

Next he moved to the white bassinet nearby and gazed down upon their daughter. She boasted her mother’s blue eyes and blonde hair, at least for now. He leaned close. “Welcome home,” he whispered to her. “Welcome home, love.”

He hadn’t expected a girl. No Nowak daughters that he knew of.

But just as well. Less likely to be a wandering warrior like her father.

Or cannon fodder like her grandfather, who was A.J.

’s age when he died, and with so much to live for.

Now A.J. would strive to live for them both, to make up for lost time in a way if that were ever possible.

At the credenza beside the piano A.J. poured himself a brandy—a day to celebrate and commemorate, surely.

Homecoming. From his mother’s library shelves he retrieved a black leather-bound tome, her journal, and settled into an armchair by the fire.

He paged through it and found the entry he sought, October 18, 1940.

Home today from DePaul Hospital with Alexander Jan Nowak in my arms. He favors me, not his father.

Another generation. Another step in the long march of Mankind, wherever we may be headed.

A journey couched in mystery and promise.

Always promise, ever hope. And today, for me, happiness, unbound happiness beyond compare.

Arthur Miller once wrote that all literature seeks to answer the question, ‘How does a man make for himself a home?’ I feel I have found an answer, at least for myself.

As of today, with my dear husband Janusz and our wide-eyed boy A.J.

, we are a family, and I am home. No matter wherever that may be.

For now, it is our apartment on Forest Park, overlooking the Grand Basin, where Jan and I ice-skate.

Yet who knows what joys the future may hold and where we might land.

I had always thought “Home is where the heart is” a hackneyed and sentimental saying repeated by old ladies and sermonizers who lacked originality.

Now, however, I see that it speaks to the essence of our existence.

While we live in the objective physical world, the core of our being is subjective, internal. We reside, I see, in our own hearts.

And when we are lucky—really, really lucky, as I was the day I first met Jan at the racetrack and continue to be—we come to inhabit that sweet gingerbread cottage in the woods that can never be foreclosed.

For it is of our own creation and construction and located where no one else can find it: in our hearts.

Its foundation stronger than any stone. A home impervious to flood, fire, or windstorm. And we hold the only key.

This is why one fights with all one’s might and soul to guard and protect it.

With all one’s heart. Its maintenance and care transcend all other concerns one might have.

For once you have such a home, you have fulfilled your foremost desire.

Your life takes wing, even though you may sit quietly by the hearth as I do this evening, warmed by the fire and comforted by the nearness of husband and child.

Whatever prayers I have ever said or left unsaid, all longings conscious or unconscious, have now been answered. I have made for myself a home.

A.J. took in a deep, halting breath. A sizzling log popped, sending a glowing ember to the bricks at his feet.

§ THE END §