Strangers

detective novel or a science fiction story - and made something of him. He had been an employee in a jewelry store when she married him, but by the time she died he owned two shops of his own.
        After the funeral, the family gathered at Aunt Rachel's big house in Brooklyn Heights. As soon as she could slip away, Ginger sought solace in the dark solitude of the pantry. Sitting on a stool, with the aroma of many spices heavy in the air of that narrow place, praying to God to bring her mother back, she heard Aunt Francine talking to Rachel in the kitchen. Fran was bemoaning the grim future awaiting Jacob and his little girl in a world without Anna:
        "He won't be able to keep the business going, you know he won't, not even once the grief has passed and he goes back to work. The poor luftmensch. Anna was his common sense and his motivation and his best adviser, and without her in five years he'll be lost."
        They were underestimating Ginger.
        To be fair, Ginger was only twelve, and even though she was already in tenth grade, she was still a child in most people's eyes. No one could have foreseen that she would fill Anna's shoes so quickly. She shared her mother's love of cooking, so in the weeks following the funeral she pored through cookbooks, and, with the amazing diligence and perseverance that were her trademarks, she acquired what culinary skills she had not already learned. The first time relatives came for dinner after Anna's death, they exclaimed over the food. Homemade potato rolls and cheese kolacky. Vegetable soup with plump cheese and beef kreplach floating in it. Schrafe fish as an appetizer. Braised veal paprika, tzimmes with prunes and potatoes, creamy macaroni patties fried in hot fat and served in tomato sauce. A choice of baked peach pudding or apple schalet for dessert. Francine and Rachel thought Jacob was hiding a marvelous new housekeeper in the kitchen. They were disbelieving when he pointed to his daughter. Ginger did not think she had done anything remarkable. A cook was needed, so she became a cook.
        She had to take care of her father now, and she applied herself to that responsibility with vigor and enthusiasm. She cleaned house swiftly, efficiently, and with a thoroughness that defied her Aunt Francine's sub rosa inspections for dust and grime. Although she was only twelve, she learned to plan a budget, and before she was thirteen she was in charge of all the household accounts.
        At fourteen, three years younger than her classmates, Ginger was the valedictorian of her high-school class. When it became known that she had been accepted by several universities but had chosen Barnard, everyone began to wonder whether, at the tender age of fourteen, she had finally taken too big a bite and would choke trying to swallow it.
        Barnard was more difficult than high school. She no longer learned faster than the other kids, but she learned as well as the best of them, and her grade average was frequently 4.0, never less than 3.8 - and that was the semester in her junior year when Jacob was sick with his first bout of pancreatitis, when she spent every evening at the hospital.
        Jacob lived to see her get her first degree, was sallow and weak when she received her medical degree, even hung on tenaciously until she had served six months of her internship. But after three bouts of recurring pancreatitis, he developed pancreatic cancer, and he died before Ginger had finally made up her mind to go for a surgical residency at Boston Memorial instead of pursuing a career in research.
        Because she had been given more years with Jacob than she had been given with her mother, her feelings for him were understandably more profound, and the loss of him was even more devastating than the loss of Anna had been. Yet she dealt with that time of trouble as she dealt with every challenge that came her way, and she finished her internship with excellent reports and superb recommendations.
        She delayed her residency by going to California, to Stanford for a unique and arduous two-year program of additional study in cardiovascular pathology. Thereafter, following a one-month vacation (by far the longest rest she had ever taken), she moved East again, to Boston, acquired a mentor in Dr. George Hannaby (chief of surgery at Memorial and renowned for his pioneering achievements in various cardiovascular surgical procedures), and served the first