Hershie put down his fork. "Sell the house?" While his father hadn't exactly built the house with his own hands, he had sold his guts out at his discount menswear store to pay for it. His mother had decorated it, but his father's essence still haunted the corners. "Why would you sell the house?"
"Oh, it's too big, Hershie. I'm just one old lady, and it's not like there're any grandchildren to come and stay. I could buy a condo in Florida, and there'd be plenty left over for you."
"I don't need any money, Mama. I've got my pension."
She covered his hands with hers. "Of course you do, bubbie. But fixed incomes are for old men. You're young, you need a nest egg, something to start a family with." Her sharp eyes, sunk into motherly pillows of soft flesh, bored into him. He tried to keep his gaze light and carefree. "You've got money problems?" she said, at length.
Hershie scooped up a forkful of pound-cake and shook his head. His mother's powers of perception bordered on clairvoyance, and he didn't trust himself to speak the lie outright. He looked around the dining room, furnished with faux chinoise screens, oriental rugs, angular art-glass chandeliers.
"Tell Mama," she said.
He sighed and finished the cake. "It's the new Minister. He won't give me my pension unless I tell him my secret identity."
"So?" his mother said. "You're so ashamed of your parents, you'd rather starve than tell the world that their bigshot hero is Hershie Abromowicz? I, for one wouldn't mind — finally, I could speak up when my girlfriends are going on about their sons the lawyers."
"Mom!" he said, feeling all of eight years old. "I'm not ashamed and you know it. But if the world knew who I was, well, who knows what kind of danger you'd be in? I've made some powerful enemies, Mama."
"Enemies, shmenemies," she said, waving her hands. "Don't worry yourself on my account. Don't make me the reason that you end up in the cold. I'm not helpless you know. I have Mace."