It is good. It’s great, and for three perfect years, I am content in all my relationships. Miri frets about Chani sometimes — she’s such a free spirit, Blima anchors her. Blima is sweet by nature, sunny, and a steady arm for Chani, and Chani encourages Blima to step out of her comfort zone.

“They’re a perfect match,” I gush one morning. “On Shabbos, they organized their own color war with the boys. They made up a song and a cheer and came up with races and competitions. It was really something.”

Miri laughs and sips her hot cocoa. “And the boys played along?”

“The boys found the foam swords in the basement and decided to have a real war,” I say ruefully. “I don’t think the boys are very interested in color war. Maybe if they’d invited a few more girls over.”

A shadow crosses Miri’s face, and I lean forward. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you ever noticed that all the girls who come to play with both of them don’t come back?” she asks.

I hadn’t. But as I think back, I remember. Avigail had come twice in second grade and once earlier in the year, but she’s been busy the last few times that Blima has invited her. Blima had slept over at Shaindy’s house, but Shaindy’s mother had mentioned that Shaindy isn’t ready to  sleep out yet. Shana had also come over a few times, but I can’t recall a single time when she’d walked over when Chani had been there, too.

But Chani isn’t a problem. She plays with all of those girls, too. Blima tells me about games they’ve played at recess, and they’re a sweet, tight-knit group of friends. I contemplate it. “I wonder if the other girls are intimidated at how close Blima and Chani are,” I say finally. “Sometimes, they do tend to forget that the other girls exist.”

It would be Miri who picks up on that, all empathy and sensitivity and a heart twice the size of anyone else’s. She says now, “We’ll have to remind them to include the others.”

That’s easy enough. I mention it to Blima at dinner that night, in between navigating a food fight that Moishy and Avigdor have started and discussing a test that Yanky has tomorrow. It’s a brief conversation, one that I’m not sure Blima internalizes, but it’s the best I can do in the chaos of my evenings.

And then.

And then Miri mentions something odd the next time we get coffee at Sundae Brunch, a comment beneath a frown. “Chani told me that Blima didn’t want to be her partner during gym yesterday. She paired with one of the other girls instead, and Chani went without a partner.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “It must’ve been that discussion we had about including others. You know, what we spoke about last week? I mentioned it to Blima. Didn’t think she’d leave Chani out, though.”

Miri shrugs. There is something in the shrug that I don’t like, a tinge of hostility, and I feel something strange well up inside of me. Hadn’t it been Miri who’d brought this problem up in the first place? Why is Blima the villain for trying to reach out to someone else? I leave the cafe that morning with an unpleasant taste in my mouth, a first-ever dissatisfaction with Miri.

But maybe Chani was really upset. I opt for understanding, and I shrug off the conversation as I head to work and forget it entirely for the rest of the day, right up until Blima comes home.

She comes in with her eyes downcast and her lip trembling, and I immediately know that something is wrong. “Blima,” I say, and I set aside dinner and the laundry and sit down with her on the couch. “What’s going on?”

Blima’s wavering lip surrenders to a tidal wave of tears. “Chani is having a sleepover this Shabbos,” she says between sobs. “She invited Avigail and Rivky and Shaindy and she didn’t invite me!”

My little girl, all mousy-brown hair and wide-eyed innocence, dissolves into despair on the couch, and I hold her tightly and feel fury rising up within me.

I blink. Is this revenge? Has Miri encouraged Chani to do this because Blima partnered with another girl one day? I think back to Miri’s shrug in the cafe this morning. No longer thinking straight — I am awash in the protective instinct that will never let me forget a slight toward my daughter — I dial Miri’s number with trembling, seething fingers.

“Oh,” Miri says coolly, and she doesn’t sound like my friend right now but like someone who has little patience for this discussion. “Well, after what happened with Blima yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea for Chani to try to branch out. Make more friends so she isn’t left alone.”

I take a breath, force myself to be calm as I stare at my daughter’s red-rimmed eyes. “Well,” I say. “How about we arrange a playdate for them tomorrow after school? It sounds like the girls could use some quality time together.”

Miri hesitates. I can hear the silence over the phone like seeing a void, an instant of emptiness that speaks volumes. “Chani mentioned that she has plans with Ariella tomorrow. Maybe we can try for next week.”

“Maybe,” I say, and I am discouraged and angry. I turn to the boys and Blima, a new plan formulating in my mind. “Pizza day tomorrow,” I announce. “We’re going to go out for dinner.” Yanky whoops. Moishy cheers. I glance at Blima. “Blima, why don’t you invite Shana along?”

I can do third-grade politics with the best of them.

Things go from bad to worse with Blima and Chani. Chani responds to Blima’s pizza outing with Shana by telling her that she’s annoying, according to Blima’s report. At the park on Shabbos, we spot Chani with her sleepover friends, and Blima stops playing with Moishy and asks to leave.

On Monday at coffee, Miri is as immovable as her daughter. “Chani feels like Blima is giving her the cold shoulder. You know Chani. She’s just defending herself.” She sips her cocoa and looks as defiant as I feel.

“And you know Blima,” I point out. “She’s the sweetest kid in the world. Balanced and gentle and she loves Chani.”

Miri shakes her head. “Sometimes she can be a little cold,” she offers unsmilingly. “Chani sometimes needs a little more energy to her friends, you know? It’s not personal.”

And Chani sometimes has a mean streak, I think, but I don’t say it aloud. It’s too far, and we are mother bears protecting our cubs in this cafe, as tense as our little girls must be feeling in school. We make small talk after that, chat about our jobs and our husbands, but it’s stilted in a way that it never usually is. Under the surface, I can feel something ugly within me, judging every word from Miri’s mouth. Blima is suffering because of Chani’s mean streak. Does she get it from Miri? Miri is so outgoing with our mutual friends, is often the life of the party at Shabbos get-togethers and on the park benches, and I wonder if she encourages Chani to aim for popularity, too.

We part at the door to Sundae Brunch, and I don’t say my usual see you Thursday? It rises up in me and is tamped down by a lump in my throat, and I know that Miri notices when her face sets, and she leaves without saying goodbye.

We don’t get together on Thursday. By then it is days of Blima coming home in tears as I try to reassure. “You can have a sleepover with Avigail this week,” I promise. “Do you want to do homework with Shana again?”

“I don’t want them. I want Chani!” Blima bursts out, inconsolable, and I reflect on what a terrible mistake it has been to foster this intense, codependent relationship. I had made my own mistakes — had trusted Miri Schreiber, with her easy smile and quick perception — and now Blima is paying the price.

Chani has taken to tormenting Blima in school, making snide comments and asking for her seat to be switched. I call Miri on Thursday afternoon, at a loss for any other options, and I speak to what feels like a brick wall. “Isn’t there some way you could speak to Chani?” I beg her. “Blima is suffering—”

“Blima told Chani today that she’s a terrible friend,” Miri says, and her voice could freeze fire. “Blima refused to be on the same team as Chani at recess today and humiliated her in front of the whole class. Your daughter is the problem here.” Her voice is sharp. “Get her under control,” she says. “I am tired of Chani being attacked because Blima is holding a grudge.”

“Chani is blowing this out of proportion,” I snap. I am desperate in my helplessness, bent on getting in one good blow at this woman who holds power over my daughter’s happiness. “You let her do whatever she wants, and now look at how she’s treating Blima—”

“You baby Blima and can’t imagine that she might actually be the spoiled one,” Miri retorts, and I reel back, stung. “Blima is so convinced that she’s always right that Chani has been caving to her for years. It’s never been good for Chani.”

“Chani takes advantage of Blima,” I shoot. “I see it all the time. She drags Blima into situations that Blima doesn’t want — she’s just happy to have a follower.” Our words are heated, too heated, and I struggle to find something more pacifying. I don’t want this to backfire on Blima. “Look,” I say at last, attempting to calm my voice. “The girls had a good thing. Three years is a long time to give up over a rough couple of weeks. Why don’t you send Chani over this Shabbos afternoon? You can come along, too, and keep an eye on things. Let them make peace together.”

Miri doesn’t hesitate this time, though the unspoken words might have been more preferable to her tense reply. “We’d rather not,” she says and hangs up the phone without further comment.

The complications keep rolling in. Blima is still miserable in school, and even her teacher offers little help. “I’ve tried pairing her up with other girls,” Morah Klein tells me. “She just won’t go. She sits alone and talks to no one.”

From the sound of it, Chani is doing the opposite. I hear from Blima about grand games at recess with everyone else, a revolving door of playdates, and nothing but sharp words for Blima. Chani flourishes without Blima, and I lie in bed at night and quake with rage at this little girl who has hurt my daughter. I can do nothing to stop it, can’t fight for Blima in the classroom, and I can do nothing to force Miri to do the right thing, either.

Miri and I are no longer talking. We see each other across the room at local weddings, at events organized by mutual friends, and at shiurim, and we don’t speak. I walk away from one gaggle of friends when she joins them, she makes a hasty exit from another friend’s house when she walks in one Shabbos afternoon and sees me on the couch. I can’t believe sometimes that I put three years of my life into a friendship with someone so selfish, someone who has no compassion for a child who is suffering.

I find myself nearly as miserable as Blima. I talk to my husband about my everyday life, the same way I’d once talked to Miri over coffee, but he reacts in different ways, offers solutions to problems instead of camaraderie, and seems unbothered by what once would have outraged my friend. Shmulie is my best friend, but he is no Miri.

Somehow, Miri had wormed her way into a tiny gap in my life and widened it gradually until it is a gaping hole, an ache that I can’t fill with other people. I hate her for that, but mostly for everything that she’s done to Blima. Blima is a frightened, quiet girl now, timid and inhibited as she’d never been before, and I can feel the pain clawing through me whenever I think about her alone in that classroom.

A month passes, and nothing improves. I see Miri at the supermarket. We meet at the yogurts, and I glower at her when she picks the last of the flavor I needed. She knows my kids are picky just as I know hers will eat anything, and I am sure she’s taken the blueberry to spite me. Miri meets my gaze, her eyes challenging, and I grab a couple of vanilla yogurts I know no one will touch.

We wind up on line together, Miri just behind me, and I wonder how she sleeps at night, knowing what her daughter has done to Blima. How she has the nerve to stand there when she’s done nothing to stop Chani. I pick through incidents in the past: little asides I’d taken as insightful, but now I see were really obnoxious; forgetfulness that had been inconsiderate and I’d easily forgiven; and always, Miri’s confidence that she knows best. I had appreciated it once. I hadn’t realized it was a red flag.

I am unloading my bags when Miri pushes her cart to the car beside mine. She speaks abruptly, holding out the pack of yogurts I’d wanted.

“Shevy,” she says. “We have an hour before the kids come home. Maybe we can go back to Sundae Brunch and talk like adults for a few minutes….” Her voice trails off, and she averts her eyes, suddenly self-conscious.

My heart longs to say yes, to rebuild the relationship that had once been my rock. But it is too late for that. I understand too well what that relationship had been now, how Chani’s shortcomings are all right there within her mother. I know that our friendship is dead in the water, sailed away and never to return again. I could never be friends with Chani’s mother. I could never wave away Blima’s suffering.

I don’t take the yogurt. “I don’t think so,” I say darkly, and I push my cart back to the store.

On my way to my car, I see Miri resting her forehead against the side of her minivan, her eyes closed, and her face twisted into a grimace. Good, I think with nasty satisfaction. Let her get a taste of Blima’s pain.

Slowly, Blima rebounds. She spends more time with Shana, but is still dull when I ask her about recess or anything remotely social. Then a few girls ask for playdates and Blima seems to enjoy them. Soon, the smiles return to her face, and I am glad that she is beginning to heal from the horror that had been friendship with Chani Schreiber.

I navigate the neighborhood while avoiding the Schreibers. Moishy is encouraged to play with other boys, and Yanky and Avigdor have picked up enough of my resentment to stop hanging out at the Schreibers on Shabbos. If Shmulie talks to Miri’s husband in shul, he doesn’t discuss it with me.

We make new friends. A new family moves in around the corner with a girl Moishy’s age, and I wander over there to visit the sweet younger woman who is his mother. She is a little bit too giggly for me, but I know she will never hurt me the way that Miri has hurt me — well, Blima. Maybe I’ll find another friend like Miri someday, maybe not, but really, I’m past that anyway. And I see how Miri has done more harm than good.

I am casual about it when other friends mention that they don’t see us together much. “Oh, life gets in the way, you know?” I say, and then I give a laugh. “You can’t really expect to make close friends after high school, can you?”

Blima is happier now, but I still feel miserable, and I refuse to consider why. It can’t be that I miss Miri, because Miri was toxic. It had been an unhealthy relationship, and I am so thankful I got out before it became more entrenched.

I can see all of Miri’s worst traits now: her defensiveness, her stubbornness, her needling me about things I hadn’t wanted to talk about. She’d always mock me gently about drinking all that coffee, and I had taken it as good-natured instead of constant criticism. Now I understand. I’ve dodged a bullet by getting away from Miri.

It can be difficult to avoid her, but I try it. I’ve started walking the kids to a park across town rather than bumping into her, and I shop later at night. Still, it’s only a matter of time before we wind up in the same line again, waiting at the bagel store on a crowded Sunday afternoon.

She is right in front of me. I know it, am tense with it, and my neck hurts from how I’ve craned it in the opposite direction. I speak to Blima, intensely aware that Miri can hear every word. “You go ahead and get the drinks for the table,” I say. “Go sit with Moishy. We’re going to be on line for a while.”

“Can we get drinks, too?” asks a voice that I recognize, a girl I’ve resented for months and haven’t seen since. Chani is standing there in front of me, holding on to her mother’s hand, and she looks like a little girl instead of a larger-than-life villain. “I want chocolate milk, please? Please?”

I glance at the fridge. There is only one chocolate milk. I notice Blima walking toward it, hear Miri’s acquiescence from a distance, and see Chani make a beeline for the chocolate milk just as Blima’s hand closes around it. We both freeze, Miri and I, waiting for a confrontation. Maybe it will be Chani who starts it, confident and used to getting her way. Maybe Blima will stand up for herself, as she must be learning how to in school. Maybe Miri and I will speak in fiery voices, battling over a drink in a bagel store like we are eight-year-old girls with grudges.

I tense as I see Blima saying something to Chani. They’re too far for me to hear, but I see Chani beam at my daughter, that gap-toothed smile I’d always found so adorable. Suddenly, they’re running back to us, twin grins on their faces.

“Can we share it, Mrs. Schreiber?” Blima asks hopefully. “We both really love chocolate milk—”

“We share germs at school all the time,” Chani says confidently. “Yesterday, Blima finished my shock pop, and I had some of her noodles.” They beam at each other, Blima holding the chocolate milk up at Miri and me, and I am aghast.

“Blima,” I say slowly. “You and Chani are sharing snacks?”

Blima blinks at me. “We always share snacks. You know that.”

I’d known that, a relic of the time before their fight. I trace my thoughts back through the past few weeks. Blima’s cheerful countenance had returned, and I hadn’t asked her about it, just assumed it was her new friends. I am wrong. Blima has mended a friendship, good as new, and never thought to mention to me something that is as natural for her as breathing. Eight-year-old girls are fickle and free, quick to love and forgive without a second thought.

And I have torpedoed a friendship over a squabble between eight-year-old girls.

I stare at them and nod, at a loss for words. I have been so, so stupid. I’ve thrown away one of the richest, strongest parts of my life over a child’s fight that I’d taken too personally. My helplessness had become rage and resentment, and everything before it has been tainted.

Chani and Blima run to where their brothers are sitting, tables already pushed together so they can sit beside each other. They are chattering, pointing at the construction outside, enthralled by it. And there I stand, on the line beside Miri, my heart clenched with the resentments of adulthood, which stick like burrs and have to be pried off by force.

I turn to look at Miri and find her staring at me with a gaze as flabbergasted and guilty as mine must be.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 817)