It was the thing he remembered most and the thing he tried to remember least. It changed each time he told it. To Lilly it was one thing, to Kate another, to the Rabbi another still. To all of them it was a manipulation, a way of getting them to remain in his life. He was ashamed that he’d used that way.
Back when he was still interested in s*x, he’d used it to get laid too.
* * *
Gershwin and his father moved at the end of the summer. No one, including Gershwin, least if all Gershwin, could talk his father out of it. For every reasonable argument—further from synagogue, further from the university, further from everyone they’d ever known—his father countered with his own reasonable argument. As far as synagogue was concerned, sure it was a place of solace and comfort after Lou’s death,
