It was the first Purim without her father. His empty chair, his cane leaning in the corner, and the darkness of his study made his absence so vivid that it hurt to look.
Every year her father would make a small pile of sesame candies, one for each of her years, counting very solemnly as though he were counting the most important thing in the world. And every year the pile would grow a little bigger. She wondered whether he would have done it this year; sixteen was too old for childish rituals.
Her father should have been the one to read the Megillah, the story of how Queen Esther saved the Jews. It was the story they read every Purim. Esther handed the precious scroll to her mother, but she refused to take it. Esther offered it to Miriam, but she shook her head too.
So, Esther began reading. Matti was smiling. With a pang she remembered her father’s lessons, and was grateful that his teachings could still bring some joy to their life.
Reading the ancient text, Esther felt as if the young queen were sending her a message: that she had to act. When Queen Esther had been faced with the looming destruction of her people, she hadn’t waited for someone to rescue her. She’d made a plan. The biblical heroine had had to depend on a man she didn’t love. She’d had to win the king’s heart and get him to save her, her family, and her people.
She looked at Miriam and her mother, their faces softened by the glow from the flickering lamp, and she felt a deep gratitude. They still had each other. The idea of losing them—of being all alone in this world—was too terrifying to think about.
The Roman army was on its way back. People seemed confident of another Jewish victory, but she hadn’t forgotten her father’s warnings. She hadn’t forgotten the dizzying fear she had felt during the first attack.
She would be a fool to think that three women and a boy could manage alone in another assault. They needed a man. Maybe she had been wrong about Lazar, just as she had been wrong about Joseph. After all, Lazar had brought them food after her father had died, and he’d paid Avram. And there were no more coins in her father’s chest. How much longer could they survive without help?
Perhaps like Queen Esther, she too had been born for such a time as this. If Queen Esther could save the Jewish people, couldn’t Esther save what was left of her own family?