“You know, Ashira,” Mrs. Gerber says, “I’m really happy to hear that the schoolwork isn’t a problem, and that socially things are going well. I’m just wondering how the adjustment to a new country is going. And to live with your grandparents. Sometimes, you can have people who are very well-meaning, but there are cultural differences, and there can be misunderstandings. Sometimes, it can help to talk things through with someone else.”

What.

What what what what is she talking about?

Not the Shomrim incident, surely, and not the fact that I’ve been getting frustrated at Bubby’s… there-ness, the way she’s always around, hovering near the stairs, the kitchen, wanting to chat or bake together, to hear about my day.

I mean, Bubby wouldn’t have called her, would she?

“I… don’t really understand,” I say, slowly. “Is there something specific that someone said? Because really, everything’s good, I’m not sure—”

Mrs. Gerber watches my face carefully. “I’m just wondering… if you ever feel unwanted… where you are. Or hurt by anything.”

Unwanted.

This is going from weird to weirder.

If there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that Bubby and Zeidy desperately want me there. Want me happy.

“N-no. Not… I don’t—” I think of Raizy and my cousins, and I’m stammering because, okay, they do kind of make me feel hurt and unwanted, but who cares about a bunch of bratty cousins, right?

Mrs. Gerber seems to take my shaken confidence as agreement. Or at least an invitation to push a little more.

“Look, Ashira, I want to tell you that I’m here for you. We all are,” she says softly. “There’s no need to feel like you need to put on a show if you’re hurting inside. To think you have to act like everything is okay.”

The words trigger something in my memory.

Purple ink, words slashing the page, Ima’s letter: I’m done, done, DONE with the pretending, with the acting, with the crumbling inside every day. What had she written?

They want me out… I know they want me out, I hear the phone calls…

Oh. My. Goodness.

Mrs. Gerber thinks it’s me. She thinks I wrote that letter… Miss Wolff must have read it, decided I’d written it, and shown it to her, as our mechaneches.

My mind races, trying to remember the sentences, see them from an outsider’s point of view. I can’t live like this anymore. I want out. She must think I’m… I’m—

Wait, she probably thinks I’m writing about my grandparents! About Bubby and Zeidy. She thinks I think that they don’t want me when… oh my goodness, this is too, too crazy.

“It’s really… I think this is a misunderstanding,” I stammer. What should I say? Should I bring up the letter? But she isn’t even saying outright that she read it.

A bubble of ironic laughter rises in my throat. Seriously? I’m hounding myself about why Ima wrote the letter, and here my teachers are convinced that I’m the one who wrote it, that I’m struggling with existential crises.

They have all the same questions that I do.

“Really,” I say to Mrs. Gerber. “I’m really fine. My grandparents love having me there. I have… it’s going well. I don’t — there’s nothing to worry about.”

She looks utterly unconvinced, but after the silence stretches for a full minute, she concedes defeat.

“Remember, if you have anything bothering you, no matter how small, I’m here for you, we all are,” she says as I leave.

I make my escape, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the situation.

They’re worrying about a letter written more than 20 years ago. What a waste of energy.

I stop short, right in the middle of the corridor.

Wait… what if I’m doing the same thing? What if Ima never even wrote that letter? It could’ve been Aunt Chana. Or anyone’s. Maybe… maybe a friend of hers wrote it and gave it to Ima to read? That could make sense; my mother’s always having our guests confiding their life stories to her. Her friends could have easily done the same thing.

But what about the pen, the handwriting?

I shrug it off. Maybe she loaned her favorite pen to her friend. Maybe she and her best friend had similar handwriting. Maybe I’d imagined the similarities because I was expecting it to be Ima’s—

The bell rings, and I make a sudden decision. The letter isn’t Ima’s. I just won’t believe that it is.

I feel so light, airy, and free that I almost skip home. Bubby has chocolate chip muffins waiting, and best of all, Ima calls just as I finish making al hamichyah.

“Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice,” I tell her happily.

“You too, honey,” Ima says, laughing. “We finally get to catch up.”

“I know.” I snuggle into my pillow and start telling Ima everything: about the suitcases and getting her gift, about school and homework and the annoying mechaneches talk today….

“She called you in just stam, no reason?” Ima asks.

Oh. I stop, a little befuddled.

“Well, not exactly,” I say, stalling for time. “It’s because I had this letter in my bag… and a teacher confiscated it… and she must’ve shown it to Mrs. Gerber, because—”

“Ashira, sweetie,” Ima says, and her voice is concerned. “What letter? Is everything okay?”

I swallow. “I found a letter. In your desk drawer,” I admit. “But I’m sure you didn’t write it, I have no idea who did, and it’s nothing, I put it back and I’m just going to forget about it—”

“A letter?” Ima’s concern has sharpened to a tension I can feel across the phone line. “What letter? What did it say?”

I can’t keep this from my mother. And something inside me just needs to know the truth.

I take a deep breath and tell her the whole story.

And then the line goes quiet. For so long that I think Ima’s phone might have cut off again.

“Ima?” I ask into the silence.

There’s a sound like a breath catching. “That letter…” Ima says, finally. “It was me. I wrote it.”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 955)