“Why did you ask me to come home?” I wailed.
“Because you can still find your way back to Hashem,” said Eli. “But not here. Tatty and I think it is best if you go Israel to live with Feter Schlomo and Tante Golda. They have a new baby and you can help care for her. They have offered to arrange shidduch. Finding a match will be easier there.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, Rebekah, but I was. In one hour they had determined I would not be allowed to rejoin my family. My father made the decision without even looking at me.
“Is it so easy for you to send your sister away?” I asked Eli, tears falling down my face.
“You already left!” shouted Eli. The boom of his voice startled Penina. She put her hand on her protruding belly, as if to shelter the child inside. “You thought nothing of us! We searched for you, Aviva! We thought you were dead! And when we found out you had run off with a goy…” He was so enraged he could scarcely speak. He was spitting into his thin copper beard. “You killed Mommy, Aviva.”
“Eli!” whispered Penina. But her protest was weak. She only wanted calm. And Eli barely heard his wife.
“She loved you! And that meant nothing to you. But you question why we do not welcome you back? You are a selfish girl. You are dangerous to this family.”
I stared at him, my mind knocking like a pinball between anger and despair and longing, hitting each feeling with a force that shook me. I held my head in my hands, but I couldn’t stop it. I sat back down on the sofa and rocked myself. Forward, forward, forward. Eli and Penina exchanged a look. A look like the look the rabbi in Orlando exchanged with the woman who didn’t know the mikveh. In their faces I saw that my physical reaction to their decision to send me to live five thousand miles away told them they’d done the right thing. I was dangerous; I was to be managed. I grabbed my hair and rocked harder. A long stream of clear liquid hung from my nose, swaying as I moved. I saw it and didn’t care. I liked it. Let him see my sadness pouring out of me.
“Wipe your face, Aviva,” said Eli, not a trace of pity in his voice.
But I felt like I needed my hands to hold my mind still. Penina took a napkin from the table.
“Here,” she said, leaning over me, her belly bumping my shoulder. When I did not take the napkin, she scooped up the stream herself and wiped my face for me as if I were a baby. And I did feel helpless then, Rebekah. I would not have agreed to go to Israel and live with Schlomo and Golda and their spoiled children if I thought I had a better choice. I knew I could never go back to Florida. I had proved to your father the only thing that would keep him from taking me back, which was that I was an unfit mother. And I knew I would not survive the winter in a car with Gitty. I know now that there were other choices, but I couldn’t see them then. And truthfully, when I resigned myself to their plan, I felt a slight relief. I would do what they told me to do. I would go back to following the rules and the rules would make it possible to live. I would make no decisions. I would be like a train on a track. Turns and stops and the destination all set by someone else.
Eli and Penina went to bed and I fell asleep in my clothing, curled up on the sofa. I woke up to Sammy’s quiet crying at three o’clock. I had a headache and my eyes were red and swollen. I splashed hot water on my face in the bathroom and tied one of Penina’s scarves around my hair. There were half a dozen subway tokens among the loose change in a dish by the front door. I took two and stepped out of the apartment into the darkness. It was September, my favorite month in New York. The air still almost warm in the middle of the night. At first I was just walking, making loops in the neighborhood toward the shuttered stores on New Utrecht Avenue. And then I turned south, back toward Coney Island.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I wake up around noon, and when I open my computer I see that the library has e-mailed me with attachments on Sam Kagan and Ryan Hall. I start with Sam. He was born, like me, in 1989. The search lists addresses in Roseville, New Paltz, and Cairo, New York. Could the Roseville address be where my grandparents live? Are they still alive? There are three possible phone numbers listed. Without even getting out of bed, I try the first number, which corresponds to the Roseville address. A woman answers the phone.
“Hello?”
Aviva? “Hi,” I say, stumbling. “Is this Aviva?”
“Aviva?” says the woman. “Who is this?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, throwing the covers off. “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I’m trying to reach Sam Kagan.”
“Sam has not lived here in years.”
“Oh,” I say. “Can I ask who am I speaking to?”
“Please do not call this number again.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it is too late. She has hung up. “Fuck!” I know better than to call a possible source without ready questions and a plan to keep her talking. But I’m not thinking like a professional, I’m thinking like a desperate orphan. Fail.
I go back to my laptop and dial the second number listed for Sam. Before I press SEND, I take a deep breath. Another. In and out. I will take control of the conversation. I will speak slowly. I will introduce myself as a reporter first, and then ask if he is related to Aviva. But the number goes to voice maiclass="underline" “This is Sam. Leave a message.”
“Hi,” I say. “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I sent you a message on Facebook. Um, if you can, give me a call.” I leave my number and then hang up. My face is hot. My lips itch. The Kagans are real people. With addresses and phone numbers. With voices and attitudes. They are so close.
The last number I dial corresponds to the Cairo address. A woman answers.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m trying to reach Sam Kagan.”
“Sam? He doesn’t live here anymore. Did you try his cell?”
“I left a message,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
“So, this might sound like a kind of random question, but you don’t know a girl named Pessie Goldin, do you?”
“Sure,” says the woman. “I mean, not well or anything. She used to hang out with Sam and Ryan sometimes.”
“Did you know she died recently?”
“Pessie? Really?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m actually a reporter for the New York Tribune working on some articles about her. I’ve heard she and Sam were close.”
“They grew up together,” she says. “What happened? When did she die?”
“Early this month,” I say. “That’s what I’m writing about. It’s kind of a mystery. Her husband found her in her bathtub, but he thinks she might have, like, been killed.”
“Jesus. I can’t believe I didn’t hear about it. If you’re looking for Sam you should talk to Ryan.”
“Do you have his number?”
“Yeah,” she says, and gives it to me.
“Do you mind if I ask your name?”
“Kaitlyn,” she says. “With a K.”
“And your last name?”
“Morris. Am I gonna be in the paper?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. She seems okay with this. “Is this the best number to reach you at? In case I have any more questions?”
She gives me her cell number. “I’ll text Ryan and Sam and let them know you want to talk.”
After we hang up, I click into the search attachments for Ryan Hall. The library found two addresses: one is the Cairo address where Kaitlyn picked up the phone; one is about fifteen miles away, in a town called Greenville. I call the phone number listed for the Greenville address, but it just rings and rings.
I go into the kitchen to make coffee and while it’s brewing my phone rings. It’s a blocked number, which I assume is the city desk.
“Hi, it’s Rebekah,” I say.
“Rebekah Roberts?” It’s not the city desk.
“Yes.”
“My name is Nechemaya Burstein. Levi Goldin gave me your phone number. Are you still reporting on the death of Pessie Goldin?”