Coming Out

about what matters in life, and

the precious times we share. May you be

forever blessed. With all my heart and love,

Mom/d.s

Proverbs 3110: Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.11: The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her….12: She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.13: … She worketh willingly with her hands.14: … She bringeth her food from afar.15: She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household….16: She considereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.18: … her candle goeth not out by night.20: She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.25: Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.26: She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.27: She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.28: Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also praiseth her.29: Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.31: Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Chapter 1

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein was whizzing around her kitchen on a sunny May morning, in the brownstone she shared with her family on Jane Street in New York, near the old meat-packing district of the West Village. It had long since become a fashionable neighborhood of mostly modern apartment build ings with doormen, and old renovated brownstones. Olympia was fixing lunch for her five-year-old son, Max. The school bus was due to drop him off in a few minutes. He was in kindergarten at Dalton, and Friday was a half day for him. She always took Fridays off to spend them with him. Although Olympia had three older children from her first marriage, Max was Olympia and Harry's only child.

Olympia and Harry had restored the house six years before, when she was pregnant with Max. Before that, they had lived in her Park Avenue apartment, which she had previously shared with her three children after her divorce. And then Harry joined them. She had met Harry Rubinstein a year after her divorce. And now, she and Harry had been married for thirteen years. They had waited eight years to have Max, and his parents and siblings adored him. He was a loving, funny, happy child.

Olympia was a partner in a booming law practice, specializing in civil rights issues and class action lawsuits. Her favorite cases, and what she specialized in, were those that involved discrimination against or some form of abuse of children. She had made a name for herself in her field. She had gone to law school after her divorce, fifteen years before, and married Harry two years later. He had been one of her law professors at Columbia Law School, and was now a judge on the federal court of appeals. He had recently been considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. In the end, they hadn't appointed him, but he'd come close, and she and Harry both hoped that the next time a vacancy came up, he would get it.

She and Harry shared all the same beliefs, values, and passions—even though they came from very different backgrounds. He came from an Orthodox Jewish home, and both his parents had been Holocaust survivors as children. His mother had gone to Dachau from Munich at ten, and lost her entire family. His father had been one of the few survivors of Auschwitz, and they met in Israel later. They had married as teenagers, moved to London, and from there to the States. Both had lost their entire families, and their only son had become the focus of all their energies, dreams, and hopes. They had worked like slaves all their lives to give him an education, his father as a tailor and his mother as a seamstress, working in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side, and eventually on Seventh Avenue in what was later referred to as the garment district. His father had died just after Harry and Olympia married. Harry's greatest regret was that his father hadn't known Max. Harry's mother, Frieda, was a strong, intelligent, loving woman of seventy-six, who thought her son was a genius, and her grandson a prodigy.