Her next call is to Yoely in Tzfas. He denies any connection to the Uncle Shmaya affair. He agrees that it’s an amazing idea, but sad to say, he didn’t think of it and certainly didn’t implement it. And yes, he’s raised most of the sum he was aiming for. Nechami doesn’t ask him how. If her brother has chosen to achieve his goal by collecting handouts in Meron, she’d rather not hear about it. She inquires after his daughters and where they’re holding with the dresses for the wedding, sends regards to her sister-in-law, and moves on to her next brother. Dudi.

“Uncle Shmaya!” Dudi is taken with the idea. “That was stupid of me, not to think of him. But wait, I have the access code to the fund. Let’s see how much he gave, and then at least you’ll know how upset you have to be that you missed out.”

She waits patiently while he types and clicks, and then she hears an awestricken “Wow!”

The suspense is unbearable now. “Nu, how much?”

“Just a second, I’m calculating it. That’s 4,000 pounds! The old man’s lost his mind!”

Nechami doesn’t like Dudi’s tone. “Maybe he’s just very generous,” she says.

And now she realizes it was Gedalya himself who called Uncle Shmaya. She pictures him going into his little office at work, closing the door, maybe even locking it. Dialing a long, international number. Telling Uncle Shmaya about his little Tovi.

“If you’d called me this morning, I would’ve called Uncle Shmaya right away,” Shua says, already busy pulling a few seforim down from the bookshelves. “We could’ve been the ones to bring in that money.” Their pledge is weighing on his mind, too. A pledge to tzedakah is not to be taken lightly, he says. But he can’t imagine how he’ll raise the money.

“No,” she answers.

“You’re absolutely right,” he says, impressed with her pure hashkafah. “We have to believe, b’emunah sheleimah, that whatever is meant to come to us will come.”

“I wish I had such strong emunah,” she says. “But that’s not what I meant. All I meant was that I never would have called you during seder.”

There was no way she could have called him then. She couldn’t and didn’t want to. A barrier stood before her, a wall of shining stone. And who had built that wall, putting every precious gemstone in place? She had. Who had dug its foundations? Who had raised it from the ground up? She had. And over the years, she had polished every stone to reveal its fire.

•••

True, you might have made some mistakes, she tells her younger self, the exhausted Nechami, as they walk down to the office that evening to make up for lost work time. (Odelia Gunter claims she’s going to have a heart attack unless Nechami sends her that Beit Amir file today.) You might have gotten bruised on the way, and you may still have some healing to do.

But look at what we have now, what came out of all those mistakes. What a home, what children, what a fortress with walls of diamonds.

The young Nechami nods in agreement. And then they merge into one, open 3ds Max, and start sketching the walls of Mosdos Beit Amir.

•••

Tovi

At night, when my little sisters are asleep, and Ima’s asleep already too (she’s tired all the time lately), and Abba’s not home from work yet, I slip quietly into the bathroom to look at myself in the big mirror.

Tonight, I’m going to take a really good look. I won’t chicken out in the middle and start organizing the toothbrushes or arranging all the soap in a neat row.

“Self-awareness is the key to a healthy character.” That’s what Esther Lelov, the parenting coach, said in an interview in Hed Kevodah. Abba claims that Hed Kevodah isn’t for young girls like me, and I shouldn’t be reading it.

I summon up all my courage and look at myself. This is the self-awareness I’m after. My eyes aren’t bad at all. They’re an interesting color, grayish blue. I like them. And I’m really lucky that they see so well, too. For years I didn’t realize that. When my friend Chaya Lea came to school with new glasses, with sparkling metal beads on the temples, I wanted a pair too. I started nagging Ima, telling her everything looked blurry. She got very worried, and got me an urgent appointment with Dr. Kalman. He examined my eyes and made me read numbers projected on the wall.

“Your daughter has 20/20 vision,” he told her. “She doesn’t need glasses. You’re lucky.”

It took a long time until I understood what he meant, why I was so lucky. Imagine wearing glasses with only one ear to hook them on.

Next, my nose. It’s pretty small and pretty straight, and it’s in the middle of my face where it belongs. I feel a bit silly staring at it, but it gets my approval.

My smile is really cute, I think. My hair is just regular, like lots of other people’s. Brown and straight. I have it cut in a bob now, with a hairband. If everything works out and the surgery is successful, I’ll start wearing it in a ponytail. Or maybe a braid. I’d like a French braid, or two braids, like Batya’s sisters make for her.

My self-awareness is very strong now as I keep looking in the mirror, checking every detail of my face.

And then I sigh, like an old lady full of aches and pains. I take off the hairband. I shut my eyes. I don’t want to look.

I open them. I’m ready now. I know nothing has changed. On the left side of my head, where an ear should be, there’s a hollow.

One time, when we were in the hospital clinic, I met a girl my age who also had microtia, and her facial bones hadn’t developed right. I felt bad, like it wasn’t fair that I had a normal face and hers wasn’t shaped right. But she chatted and laughed with me, and she said it was okay, they were going to repair it all for her.

I check now for symmetry. I think the left side of my forehead is sort of squished, just a bit. I’m not sure. Maybe everybody’s face is like that. I go to my room and get a ruler out of my schoolbag. I try to take some measurements, but I can’t get them exact enough to tell for sure. I go back to my room where my sisters are asleep, and shine a small flashlight over Tzviah’le. She’s sleeping on her side. I can’t check now to see if her forehead also looks a bit squished. Maybe it’s normal. I try shining the light on Suri. She starts to wake up. I turn off the flashlight and get out of there.

Chaimke comes home from yeshivah. He swings the door open, steps into the dark apartment and sees me with a ruler and a flashlight in my hands.

“What are you up to now?” he asks.

“Look,” I say. I show him the little wrinkly place on the left side of my forehead. “Does everybody have that?” I ask him.

“Tovi,” he sighs. “You’ve been checked and measured enough already. If there was any problem — I mean any other problem besides the one we know you have” (he means the one I don’t have, but I don’t bother correcting him), “they would have found it by now.”

He’s disappointed to learn that Ima is sleeping. He gets ready for bed in two minutes, says Krias Shema, and goes straight to sleep.

My hand goes up to my left temple. They’re going to take some skin from there to cover the Medpor implant. Suddenly I’m shaking. I feel cold. I’m scared. Very very scared. I can’t tell Ima, because she’s been so tired and weak lately. I can’t tell Abba, because he’s feeling pressured enough as it is. And I can’t tell Chaimke, because he’s sleeping, and anyway he wouldn’t understand. There’s nobody I can talk to about it. So I’ll just talk to Hashem.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 890)