They hadn’t seen Rav Harriett in forever.
“Not forever,” protested their mother. “When did we—we went apple picking, remember? When was that, last fall?”
The kids insisted it had been longer than that. Danny said it must have been two years ago because he remembered bringing back a sack of apples for his soccer team and he hadn’t played soccer in two years. Annamae said it had to have been three years ago because she hadn’t taken judo in three years. Danny said, “What does judo have to do with apple picking?” and Annamae said she remembered practicing her ukemi in the orchard. Their mother said it couldn’t have been two or three years. “It’s been just a little over a year,” she decided.
“But why haven’t we seen her?” Annamae asked. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” said their mother. “I guess we just fell into different rhythms.”
“Like Nana.”
“What? No. Not like Nana.” Her mother sounded annoyed.
Nana had had a tiny stroke. She was all better now except for something called ataxia, which meant she talked a little funny and she walked a little funny. And her eyeballs kind of didn’t hold still. It made Annamae not want to see her so much anymore.
They were setting the table for Rav Harriett. It was a Sunday afternoon, so blustery out that the windowpanes rattled in their frames. Their mother had made borscht from scratch, and also a kind of seedy cracker she insisted on calling “health crackers” even though the kids begged her not to. They were actually pretty good, almost as good as real supermarket crackers.
Their mother had put on a necklace made of little felted balls, each a different brilliant color, all sparsely strung on a piece of black floss. It made Annamae nervous, the necklace, the homemade crackers, the fuss. She understood it was proportionate to the worry she was causing.
Inviting Rav Harriett over had been Danny’s idea. Annamae knew this because it was basically impossible not to eavesdrop on people in their apartment. Just a few nights ago she’d been in bed, all washed and brushed and in pajamas, the string lights that climbed like ivy across her wall casting their cheerful glow, and just as she took her library book off her bedside table, from downstairs came the sound of her mother crying. Or not quite, but speaking in an upset, breaky voice. At first, Annamae thought she must be on the phone with Nana. Then she heard Danny say, “Why don’t you ask Rav Harriett to talk with her?” and she knew her mother must have told him the thing she’d said about God.
And Annamae was sorry. Sorry to make her mother cry, sorry to disappoint Mrs. Altschuler, sorry to waste so much money going to therapists (another overheard conversation, this one between her mother and the health insurance company), sorry to make Danny (whom she could hear now being amazing with his grown-up kindness) have to be comforting their mother, sorry she’d never probably be eligible to be called a very special girl. She was so sorry about that last thing, it made her throat hurt. Still. She was sorry, but she was not wrong.
If only she could make Mrs. Altschuler and her mother understand.
Suddenly into her head slipped Ms. Jules, her old ballet teacher from a million years ago, saying, No no no no. Don’t just make shapes. Saying—what had she said?—Really reach!
What Mrs. Altschuler wanted them to do was make shapes.
It had the same dirtiness as pretending dolls were real.
It had the same loneliness.
From her bed, Annamae heard the sound of her mother crying and the even worse sound of Danny telling her it would be okay. Misery clotted her throat.
If only she could explain it wasn’t a matter of being stubborn.
If only she could explain it was no good making up characters and being in charge of what they did and what happened to them. To be like Uncle Hersh standing at the edge of the pool, smiling his proud smile, clinking his ice cubes, saying, “I created you.”
Where was the question of curiosity in that?