“Just ignore them, Ellie. You’ve been a spectacle before — and you didn’t care back then, so why should you care now?”

T

he road snakes through lush forest here and there quaint cottages peek out enchantingly through the trees — but all I can see is the destination. I realize that I’m strangling my left thumb with my right hand. I let go and watch the blood drain back down.

“Drivers fall asleep on these back roads all the time” I blurt out to Zack.

“Ellie it’s 2 p.m. And I’ve had four coffees today. And your uh unique energy during this trip is not exactly conducive to sleep.” He glances at me for a split second. “You okay?”

“Mmm. Yes. Tooootallly fine.” I flip down the sun visor and slide open the mirror parting the bangs on my sheitel again. “I look ridiculous. I’m going to be a spectacle.”

He groans in response. In the five hours since we left home this conversation has repeated itself roughly forty times.

“We did this all wrong Ellie. Had I known the extent of your sheitel insecurities I could have grown out my dreadlocks again. No one would’ve glanced in your direction” Zack says seriously.

I marvel at his ability to keep his face perfectly straight.

“Gonna be honest here that wasn’t your best look” I say smiling.

“What? Come on...”

I laugh.

“Just ignore them Ellie. You’ve been a spectacle before — and you didn’t care back then so why should you care now?”

Oh the lies we told each other at 17.

“I cared Zack.”

“I know.”

Zack views my family as the last frontier. In his brain (the brain that dropped out of school at 15 and is now a resident in one of the finest teaching hospitals on the East Coast) there is no land unconquerable no beast that can’t be tamed.

Somehow he’s formed a frosty treaty with his own family found peace amid the ravaged outback of his past an extraordinary feat I never would have thought possible. But that’s Zack. He approaches it all with a calm logic I find fascinating and irritating.

Of course the only reason we are winding our way up this mountaintop is because of him. When my mother called to invite us to Bubby’s 90th birthday Shabbos I immediately found an excuse. Unfortunately Zack was home.

“Ellie they want to see us. They are begging to see us. How long are you going to punish them? You’re a grown-up — a mother. The past is water under the bridge.”

Back then in the dead of winter the water was a distant roar.

Now it’s a tsunami threatening to break over my head.

The problem is they don’t know about our transformation. The last time we visited my parents was ten months ago and that was for a quick weekday supper. Then there were no outward changes in our appearances. But now... A lot can happen in ten months.

I slide open the mirror. Slam it shut. I have a sudden urge to take the thing off stuff it in my bag.

The tires crunch down the gravelly road as I direct Zack to my parents’ summer home. I haven’t been here since I was a teenager. I take a deep breath squeeze my hands together hard.

“Ellie. Water under the bridge remember? We’re moving forward. It’s one Shabbos only 30 hours.”

I nod open the car door and unbuckle sleeping Mia from her car seat while Zack goes around to the trunk. Glancing up at the porch I notice a curtain flutter behind the living room window. The door opens before we knock my cousin Shiffy reaching us first. “Rachelli? You look stunning!” Her eyes open wide as they reach the top of my head. “Is this a Dini?”

She touches it. Actually comes over and runs her fingers through my hair. Okay not my hair an assortment of young Eastern European women’s hair. But my point stands.

I shift Mia from one shoulder to the other awkwardly.

“Smile” Zack whispers as Shiffy turns to call the others.

“I am!”

“No. That’s called a grimace. It might have the shape of a smile but it’s actually the body’s response to pain” Zack whispers back.

Tanta Bashie comes over next her eyes growing wide. “It’s Zecharia and Rachelli!” she says loudly staring at my sheitel in shock.

Zack raises his eyebrows.