While We're Far Apart (11 page)

Jacob didn’t even try to stuff the letter back into the envelope. It couldn’t be done. The bandages must come off. Now. If he couldn’t cut them off himself, he would swallow his pride and go upstairs and ask his tenant for help. Jacob started toward the door, then stopped. Ed Shaffer wouldn’t be there. In the aftermath of the fire, Jacob had forgotten that his tenant had left to join the army. Well, maybe one of the children could help him cut off the dressings. He gripped the doorknob between both hands and turned it. The door opened – and the boy from upstairs tumbled into Jacob’s living room as if he had been sitting on the floor with his back against the door.

“What in the world . . . ?”

The boy scrambled to his feet, ready to run.

“Wait. Don’t run away, please.” Jacob tried to corral him with his cumbersome hands. “I would like to ask a favor of you.”

The child turned to him, and the fear Jacob saw in his eyes made him feel like an ogre in a fairy tale. He hadn’t meant to frighten him. The boy had never run from Miriam that way. But then Miriam Shoshanna had spoiled both of those children, passing out caramel drops and slices of honey cake. Surely they knew she was gone, didn’t they?

Jacob shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Could you come inside please and help me with the radio? I cannot do it so well with these.” He held up his hands. He tried to smile to put the boy at ease, but his smile felt so forced that Jacob wondered if he had forgotten how. “Come, come. The radio is right here.” He rested his hand on the child’s shoulder to herd him through the door. “Tell me your name again?”

Instead of replying, the boy dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of lined notebook paper, folded many times, and the stub of a pencil. Smudged writing filled the paper on both sides, but he found a blank place and printed:
Peter
.

Odd. Very odd. But perhaps Peter thought Jacob was odd, as well.

“I am sorry if I frightened you, but I was not expecting anyone to be leaning against my door. I never heard you knock because my radio is too loud . . . Was there something you wanted?” Maybe he had come to ask him to turn it down – something Jacob had tried in vain to do.

Peter nodded shyly and pointed to the radio.

“Heh? My radio? You would like me to turn it down, yes?” Peter shook his head vigorously – no – and made a motion like a ball player swinging a bat. He managed a flicker of a smile as he pointed to the radio again.

“Ah. You were listening to the game.” A nod. Jacob wondered why the pantomime? Why not simply speak up? He had no patience with guessing games.

“And so as the seventh inning comes to an end,” the announcer said, “the Brooklyn Dodgers lead by three runs.”

Peter’s smile widened, and he held up three fingers in triumph.

“Is that the team you like?” Again, a shy nod. Jacob didn’t have the heart to make him change the station. He would do it later himself, after the boy helped him cut off the bandages.

Just then the door to the apartment upstairs rattled open and the sister shouted down the stairs. “Peter? Peter, where are you?”

The boy went to the open doorway and looked up, silently waving his arms at her. Apparently he was playing his little game with everyone, not just Jacob.

“What are you doing?” she called down to him. “You know we’re not supposed to bother Mr. Mendel.”

Jacob was going to lose his assistant. He hurried over to the door. “Please, he is not a bother. I asked him to come inside. I need a favor.”

She stared at Jacob for a moment, then descended the stairs silently and gracefully. She was a lovely girl, blond like her father, and she carried herself like a princess. He recalled that her name was Esther, like the queen in Scripture. She would be a beauty like her mother, no doubt. The brief memory of the children’s mother – so tightly entwined with the memory of Miriam Shoshanna – stuck him like a knife in his ribs.

“How are you doing, Mr. Mendel?” Esther asked politely. “We haven’t seen much of you since the night of the fire. Are you okay now?”

“Yes. I am fine. But I would like someone to cut off these bandages for me. As you can see, I am quite helpless with them on.”

She took a small step backward. “Shouldn’t a doctor or . . . or a nurse do it? I’ve never done anything like that before. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“You cannot hurt me. Just cut them off, please. You will find a pair of scissors in that desk drawer.”

“Why do you need them off?”

“Because I cannot do anything for myself with them on. I cannot turn on the stove to heat up my dinner or turn down the radio – I can barely feed myself, and I am growing tired of it.”

“I can turn on the stove for you. And fix the radio.”

“Are you going to feed me, too? Heh?” He saw that he had frightened her a bit, and he hadn’t meant to. Why vent his frustration on her? “I am sorry. I should not have said that.”

“That’s okay. I can help you in the kitchen, if you want.”

Jacob glanced at Peter. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the radio, listening intently.

“It’s another base hit for the Dodgers . . . Looks like it’s going to be a double . . . Yes! He’s safe on second . . .”

“Do you have a radio of your own upstairs?” Jacob asked her.

“We do, but we’re not supposed to listen to it until after our homework is done.”

“Ah. I see.” He would let the boy listen a while longer. “Come into the kitchen then, if you don’t mind, and we will see about some food.” He opened the crammed refrigerator for Esther and showed her what he wanted to eat. “Do you know the best way to warm it up? I am tired of eating everything cold, but as you can see, all my pots are dirty and I am unable to wash them.”

“I’ll wash them for you.”

“It would be less work for you to simply cut these off.” He felt a smile tugging his mouth as he held up his hands again. “Then I could wash them myself.”

She caught the joke and smiled in return. “I don’t know anything about bandages, Mr. Mendel, but I do know how to wash dishes.”

“Fine. Whichever you prefer.”

He watched her choose a pot from the pile and scrub it clean with soap and water. “It’s really sad about the synagogue burning down, isn’t it?” she asked as she worked.

“Yes. Yes it is. I suppose they will rebuild it. But even so, it will never be the same.”

She scooped several spoonfuls of the casserole he had chosen into the clean pot and put it on the stove to warm. It had been a long time since Jacob had watched his wife work in the kitchen. Miriam Shoshanna had loved to cook. Watching her knead the dough and braid the
challah
for Shabbat had been like watching a sculptor at work. He wondered about the daughter-in-law he had never met, Sarah Rivkah. Did she bake challah for Avraham and light the Shabbat candles and recite the blessing? And his granddaughter, little Fredeleh –

“Can I ask you a question?” Esther interrupted his thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Everyone says that my mama and Mrs. Mendel are up in heaven now, but I don’t understand why God wanted them, do you? Couldn’t He see that we need them down here a lot more?”

Jacob felt tears burning his eyes. He looked at his cluttered kitchen, the stack of dirty dishes, then at the child waiting for his reply, and he realized her need was every bit as great as his was, even if her graceful hands were not covered in bandages.

“I am sorry. But I do not know the answer to your question.”

“Sometimes . . .” she said softly, “sometimes I feel really, really mad at God.”

He could hardly speak. “Yes. Yes, so do I.”

She looked up at him, and he saw her tears through his own. And before Jacob realized what was happening, Esther flung herself at him, clinging tightly to him, sobbing against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her in return – the first embrace he had felt for a very long time.

C
HAPTER 10

E
STHER HURRIED TO FINISH
drying the supper dishes for Penny, swiping the towel across a plate and shoving it into the corner cupboard. She didn’t want to stay in the kitchen with Penny Goodrich a minute longer than she had to. She wished she could go downstairs and help Mr. Mendel with his dishes again. She had felt a kinship with him last evening that she didn’t quite understand except that he seemed as sad and as lonely as she was. But Mr. Mendel had insisted that the dishes were too many for her to do all at once, and so when Peter’s ball game had ended, she and her brother had returned to their own apartment.

Penny seemed to be taking her sweet time washing the dishes tonight, as if her mind wasn’t really on her work. She still had all the pots and pans to finish, but she suddenly pulled her hands out of the soapy water and wiped them on the front of her apron as she turned to face Esther. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Does Peter talk to you?” Penny kept her voice low, as if she didn’t want Peter to overhear them, even though he was all the way upstairs in the bedroom.

Esther shrugged and turned away. She had been taught to tell the truth and to respect her elders, but she didn’t want to reply. She busied herself by straightening the dishes in the corner cupboard, nesting a stack of smaller bowls inside the larger ones.

“I met with Peter’s teacher the other day,” Penny continued above the rattle of glassware. “His teacher said that he doesn’t talk at all in school. Not one word. And he never talks to me. . . . So I was wondering if he talks to you when the two of you are by yourselves.”

Esther slowly turned around and looked up at Penny. She could only shake her head as tears squeezed her throat. Worry and fear for Peter had weighed Esther down like a sack of rocks, and even though she resented Penny’s interference, she was tired of carrying the burden of her brother’s silence all alone.

“He writes everything down,” Esther finally managed to say. “Even to me.”

“Did he tell you why? Or what’s bothering him?”

Again, Esther could only shake her head as she struggled not to cry. Penny would treat her like a baby if she did. She took a moment to control her tears. “Peter says he wants to talk, but he can’t make the words come out. I thought he was playing a game at first, and that he’d get tired of it in a day or two. But I think he’s scared now.”

“So he isn’t doing it on purpose?”

“No. . . . Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. His teacher says he just needs time to get used to all the changes around here. I asked her if I should take him to see a doctor, but she said to wait until your father comes home.”

Esther nodded and turned away again. She was trying to be strong, trying not to let Penny see how scared she was.

“I know you want to help him, Esther, and so do I. Do you think we could work together and help each other?” She waited for a reply. Esther didn’t offer one. “Your father will be home for a visit after basic training, and I’d hate to get him all worried about Peter. He has enough on his mind now that he might be going off to war soon. Wouldn’t it be better if we tried to help Peter before he comes home?”

Esther didn’t know what to do as fear for her brother battled the resentment she felt toward Penny. She didn’t want to cooperate with her. She wanted everything to be the way it used to be, with Penny gone and Daddy home again.

“Talk to me, Esther.”

She whirled to face Penny, spilling her anger instead of her tears. “Daddy will see how much we need him here. He’ll see that he can’t go away again – he can’t! Peter needs him!” She threw down her dish towel and hurried from the kitchen. Then, worried that Penny would follow her and keep trying to wear her down, she bolted upstairs to the safety of her bedroom.

Peter looked up at her in surprise as she rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. But he didn’t speak, didn’t ask what was the matter, even though he must see Esther’s tears. He was the only family member she had left, yet he lived in his own silent world, reading Captain Marvel and Superman comics and shutting Esther out. She scooped up the slate from the dresser and threw it at him.

“Everybody’s worried about you, you know. Your teacher and Penny both know that you’re not talking to anybody. And things are going to get a lot worse if you don’t start talking. They’re going to take you to see a doctor. You have to tell me what’s wrong!”

Peter looked angry as he climbed off the bed to retrieve a piece of chalk. He began to write, his lips pressed together in a tight line, leaning so hard on the chalk that it snapped in two. When he finished, he held up the slate to show Esther.

I don’t know what’s wrong!

“Can’t you try to say something?”

I do try!

“Well, do you want them to take you to the doctor?” He shook his head vehemently, then wrote,
Just leave me alone
.

“Fine! I’ll leave you alone!”

She hated the word
alone
. Thousands of people lived here in Brooklyn with her, yet Esther had never felt more alone in her life. This was all her fault. If she had stayed beside her mother that day in the market instead of stomping off, maybe she could have protected Mama from that runaway car. Mama would still be alive, Daddy would still be living here with them, and Peter would still be able to talk. In that one defiant act of letting go, Esther had caused everything to go wrong, and now she had to figure out a way to make everything right again.

She rummaged in her school bag for a pad of paper and a pencil and flopped down on her bed to start a list for her father, scrawling across the top:
Reasons why you have to leave the army and come home
.

1. We miss you.
2. We’re all alone.
3. It’s not the same here without you.
4. Grandma Shaffer is sad, too.
5. Something is wrong with Peter and you have to help him.
6. Penny is –