Mommy continued without pause, “Mammeleh, I have to run now, I got up early to do paperwork and I’m not nearly finished grading. Can we schmooze a little later?”

Shira sighed and bit her lip. “Of course,” she said stiffly. “I’ll give Rikki a kiss from you, send regards to—”

But Mommy had already said “Bye, zeeskeit!” and hung up.

Shira pursed her lips together and shifted Rikki to the floor. “Go on, sweetie, walk a little.”

The shoes were nice. But they were also kind of plain, and they were Rikki’s first pair of shoes. Shira wasn’t ready to settle on them yet. But there were so many options to try, and Rikki wasn’t cooperating.

Shira felt like kicking herself; it was almost Rikki’s nap time, what did she expect? She was struggling to force Rikki’s chubby foot back into the first shoe they had tried, for comparison, when the saleswoman took pity on her. “I think these will be the best fit for her,” she said, lifting the black patent lace-ups.

“Are you sure?” Shira asked over Rikki’s cries. “I know you said she has a wide foot, I want to make sure they’re giving her enough support—”

“The Beberlis are the best for first walkers,” the woman said firmly. “They support very well. They come in velvet, too, if you prefer….”

Fifteen minutes later, Shira wrestled her stroller and a wailing Rikki down the long flight of stairs. Rikki would probably get a too-short and uncomfortable nap on the bus-ride home and then be grumpy the rest of the day, and Shira still hadn’t thought about supper and the four customers who still wanted their wigs done tonight. But at least the gray velvet Beberlis shoes were safely ensconced in their tissue-paper cocoon in her stroller basket, so she could tell herself the trip had been worth it.

At the bottom of the stairs, she reached over to soothe Rikki, stroking her dark curls and repositioning her blankie. Rikki leaned against the side of her stroller, pacifier bobbing in her mouth and eyes drifting closed.

The bus stop was full. The little girl next to her was slurping on a bright red slush and Shira’s mouth watered; she had finished her water half an hour ago, and even in March the Yerushalayim sun beat down strong. Shira shifted the stroller, moving Rikki out of the sun. Then the 16 pulled up and the crowd rushed forward, sweeping her along with it.

The bus was packed, a dozen conversations swirling around her, people comparing their purchases and making plans for the week, for Yom Tov, children crying and whining and laughing. Shira stood on the round metal platform where the two halves of the bus joined, next to three other mothers and their City Minis, trying to keep her balance and not fall onto the group of little boys in plaid shirts with their swinging tikim as the bus swerved wildly.

She bent down to check on Rikki. She was sleeping, oblivious to the cacophony and the heat, lashes and hair dark against her angelic face. Shira closed the canopy around Rikki, shielding her from the commotion.

She closed her eyes and breathed, trying to block out everything, too. Mommy seemed relieved she wasn’t coming for Yom Tov. Well, Shira was relieved to be staying here. Here she was important, she had a husband and a baby who needed her, she was competent and capable and could make Yom Tov on her own.

There was no swarm of big sisters who always knew better, no crew of little boys who always needed Mommy’s attention more than Shira. Mommy was probably glad she was staying in Yerushalayim; there’d be one more bedroom available.

Someone brushed up against Shira’s shoulder, and she opened her eyes, irritated. It was a woman in a severe black sheitel who looked to be about her own age, and she was continuing a loud and personal phone conversation in Shira’s ear.

“So I tried signing him up for next year but everyone is full! Seriously! What am I supposed to do all day — how exactly am I supposed to go to work if I have the baby home?”

Shira rolled her eyes. She shouldn’t feel self-righteous, she knew. She was lucky she worked from home. But still… she didn’t think she could ever leave Rikki with a ganenet.

The bus was barreling down Sorotzkin already, and Shira suddenly realized she hadn’t paid for her bus fare. She bit her lip and looked down at the stroller where Rikki was sleeping soundly. It wouldn’t fit between the seats, even if she were willing to jostle Rikki enough to wake her up.

“Selichah,” she said to the nearest plaid-shirted little boy. “I need to pay…. Can you…?” She stumbled through the Hebrew, while jerking her head toward the front of the bus and waving her Rav Kav vaguely. The little boy nodded and took hold of the handle of Rikki’s stroller, still chatting with his friends.

Shira squeezed between the two women with bulging shopping bags in front of her, gripped the handle behind the closest seat, and pushed her way forward. The Rav Kav reader beeped as the bus leaped over a bump in the road and Shira narrowly missed falling onto a small old woman reading from a Tehillim. She grabbed the pole to catch herself and shouldered her way through the crowd, back to Rikki.

“Todah,” she thanked the boy, taking the handle of the stroller from him. He nodded and continued his conversation.

Next stop: Bar Ilan/Rabbeinu Gershom

There was a surge of passengers embarking and disembarking, a flurry of bags and strollers and shopping carts, and Shira used the opportunity to get a bit closer to the back door. Three more stops…two… and then, Next Stop: Yam Suf/Shaul Hamelech.

The doors hissed open and Shira clanked out from between them with the stroller, wincing at the way Rikki’s head must be jostling against the side of her seat under the canopy. She fingered a tear in the foam of the stroller’s handlebar — when had that happened?— then reached into the stroller basket to make sure the shoebox had survived the trip.

Her fingers crinkled unexpectedly against soft plastic. She ducked down to look. It wasn’t the bag from the shoe store, it was a shopping bag filled with tomatoes. And instead of a shoebox, she saw a lumpy, faded purse and a small pile of sticky candy wrappers.

Once, when Shira was much younger, just after Yosef Dov had taken the training wheels off her bike, she had been pedaling furiously down the block, feet pumping in rhythm and hair flying behind her, when she felt something jam — her skirt was stuck between the gears and the chain, and the bike stalled and teetered and she fell, skinning her knee so badly it stuck to her tights for the next week.

Looking at the stroller basket — the broken snap that hadn’t been broken this morning, the rip in the handlebar, the unfamiliar purse, her brain jammed, hard, like something was stuck in its gears, impossible to process.

And then her mind kicked in again, and at warp speed. Heart thumping in her throat, she leaped over to the front of the stroller and yanked back the hood, because if she had the wrong stroller, that meant that she also had the wrong—

Ohmygoodness this wasn’t her baby.

This baby was round and pudgy, eyes closed gently in sleep, tiny fists clenched, and chest rising and falling under his blue stretchie, thin fair hair brushed over his forehead.

She had the wrong baby!

Shira’s breath came in short spurts, panic exploding in her chest and out of her mouth. “Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness, no no no what am I going to do?”

There was a baby in her stroller — no, not her stroller, in someone else’s stroller! — and Shira had left. Her baby. On the bus.

“Oh my goodness,” Shira choked out again, “What am I going to do?”

She buried her face in her hands so the sound of her ragged breathing was magnified, and she could feel the wetness starting to coat her fingers.

Okay, Shira, stop. “Stop,” she said out loud, dragging her fingers down her face and taking as deep a breath as she could muster.

Rikki. The bus. She needed to catch the bus. But the baby! She couldn’t leave this stroller here, this little baby alone!

She couldn’t even see the bus anymore; the great green beast had already lumbered down Yam Suf and around the corner to Sanhedria Murchevet, but she had to catch up to it, so she grabbed onto the stroller and ran down the street.

Was that the—

No, it was a 52. Rikki was on the 16, and the 16 was gone, and how on earth was Shira going to be able to find her? There was a sudden jolt as Shira, still running, accidentally rammed the stroller straight into a woman stepping out of a taxi.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I—” but then Shira trailed off, ignoring the woman’s astonished look. “Wait!” she called to the taxi driver. “I need a ride — can I…?”

The driver gave a curt nod, his mouth a grim line in his deeply tanned face, and Shira pulled the baby out of the stroller and yanked it closed. She threw the stroller, the tomatoes, and the big bulky purse into the back seat, and climbed in, holding the unknown baby.

“Where you want to go?” the driver said as he flicked on the meter, his voice deep and gravelly.

“I — I need—” Shira was trembling, tripping over her words. She took a deep breath and said, as slowly and clearly as she could, “I need to catch up to the 16 that just passed. Now!”

“Mah karah, giveret, mah karah? I Shmulik, I drive many years here. I can help you. You leave something on this bus?” Shmulik swirled the wheel beneath his hand, pulling away from the curb.

“Yes! No. I mean, yes, my baby is on that bus!”

In the rearview mirror, Shmulik’s eyebrows rose, then knitted together. The taxi jerked to a sudden stop. Shira’s foot tapped. Move, just move!

“But, giveret—” Shmulik said, twisting around to look at her, “Your baby is here!”

“My baby — this is not my baby!” Shira cried. “I have the wrong baby. Please, please, just go, I need—”

Shmulik’s eyes widened in comprehension, and he boomed, in what was evidently supposed to be a reassuring voice, “Giveret! Do not be worry! The bus, he drives le’at, le’at, very slow, I will catch up! We get your baby, giveret!”

The car pounced forward, jolting Shira and the baby in her arms. The heavy purse was thrown sideways and slammed onto the floor. A wad of receipts and a pile of safety pins and candies spilled out.

“Oh!” Shira wailed, but then she had a flash of inspiration, and frantically began a one-handed search through the pile.

A bus card, a faded yarmulke, a pizza store coupon, and yes! A cell phone!

Shira flipped it open with her shaking fingers. The menus were in English, thank goodness. Contacts… HOME.

Before she could dial, Shmulik’s voice boomed loud from the front. “‘Allo! Dudi. Ma nishma?” He was speaking in rapid-fire Hebrew, but Shira was able to catch the gist of the conversation. “Ken, ken, tinok! Yes, her baby. They switched. No, the 16. Sanhedria, Levin. Who drives that route now? Who? Call him for me. Yes, now! Bye.”

Shmulik’s eyes were narrowed and gleaming, and he hunched over, his fingers gripping the wheel. “Giveret, I say, do not be worry! Your baby, we will catch him!”

Shira nodded mutely. She wasn’t shaking anymore, but if she tried to speak, she thought she might throw up. She hit the call button on the phone she had found, praying.

It rang. And rang. And rang. No answer, no voice mail. Shira’s eyes filled with tears again.

“Ach!” Shmulik let out a string of words Shira definitely hadn’t learned in high school Ivris. She jerked her head up and saw that a garbage truck had just pulled out onto the street ahead of them. The taxi slowed to a crawl.

Shmulik banged the wheel in frustration, but his phone rang again. “Allo! Dudi! Ma karah? Do you have news? What did the driver say?”

Shira leaned forward, straining to hear, to understand the foreign language and guttural accents.

“Ahhh… okay. Okay. Let me know. Be in touch.”

Shmulik stopped the car again and turned around, a strange, softer expression on his face. “My friend, he say he is mitkasher with the nahag. The kav is finish, everyone is go down off his bus, no one there they have missing a baby.”

Shira’s heart thudded painfully, and time slowed. There was a loud buzzing in her ears.

“But someone must have— They have to—”

“Giveret.”

“They have her, they have to have her, I have to find my baby!” Frantically, she flipped open the cell phone again, pressed the call button for HOME.

The ringtone buzzed in her ear, a busy signal, two short beeps, one long. Two short beeps, one long. And then someone answered.

“Hello?”

Shira almost cried tears of relief.

“Mommy, are you almost home?” the person who picked up the phone sounded very young, speaking English with a heavy Israeli accent.

“Um — I … I have your mother’s phone. She…” Shira wasn’t sure how much of the story she should relay. “She left her purse on the bus. She’s not home yet?”

“No. Soon.”

“Okay, what’s your add—”

The kid hung up before she could finish her sentence, and when she tried to call back, no one answered.

Tears leaked out of her eyes again, and on her lap, the baby began to squirm, his mouth forming a little “o” as he opened and closed it. It looked like he was starting to look hungry.

She had the baby’s home number, but she was no closer to finding Rikki. Or the mother of this baby.

Shmulik had started driving again, slowly. He was talking, offering reassurance, advice, guidance, but Shira couldn’t hear him. A fog had taken over her brain, blocking out all sound except her own heartbeat, a dull throb that sounded like Rik-ki. Rik-ki. Rik-ki.

The baby on her lap squeezed his face into a yawn. Shira stared out the window, seeing through the buildings of Sanhedria as they glided by. Children were on their way home from school, mothers and fathers and big sisters were holding hands and pushing strollers and the street was busy and full of other people’s babies. What kind of mother leaves her baby on the bus?

“Nachon, giveret?”

Shira just nodded. She didn’t know what she had agreed to, but it didn’t matter. She continued gazing blankly out the window, when suddenly—

“Stop!” she yelled.

Shmulik slammed on the brakes, and Shira had struggled out of the taxi and onto the sidewalk before the car had fully stopped moving. Rikki! It was her, she was there at the bus stop, asleep in the stroller exactly as Shira had last seen her.

“Rikki!”

“Yossi!” cried a voice at the same time, and for the first time Shira noticed the worried-looking middle-aged woman standing next to Rikki’s stroller.

The woman rushed over and plucked the baby from Shira’s arms, but Shira had eyes only for her daughter. She knelt next to her stroller and unbuckled the straps with shaking hands. Rikki shifted and yawned, blinking awake, and Shira lifted her, burying her head in Rikki’s dark curls and inhaling the sweet smells of Bamba and baby shampoo.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so, so sorry, beautiful. Oh, Rikki, I’m so sorry!”

The other woman’s eyes were wet, too. “Yossi, sweetheart!” she said, kissing her baby. “Baruch Hashem, we found you! I just realized you were gone… thank you for finding him!” She turned to Shira.

Shira swiped at her eyes with her free hand. “I didn’t find him,” she said thickly, “I took him. I can’t believe this happened to me!” She squeezed Rikki again, “I’m so, so sorry, baby. Oh, Rikki, I can’t believe I did that to you. Mommy is so sorry, Rikki,” she whispered.

“Your baby is okay, she’s okay,” murmured a gentle voice from behind her, and Shira twisted around. The woman colored slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, it’s none of my business. But she’s okay! You don’t need to keep apologizing, she’s okay. She doesn’t even know anything happened.”

Shira didn’t understand. “I — I lost her! I left her on the bus! I can’t believe this happened to me! I never leave her. I’m her mother, and I lost her!”

“Yes, you’re her mother,” the other woman said softly. “And nu?” She was holding Yossi securely in the crook of her elbow, but she spread her other arm out. “A mother is a person, too. A mother makes mistakes.”

“Not like this.”

Yossi let out a whimper; Rikki babbled happily and pulled on Shira’s necklace.

The woman smiled softly at Rikki. “You’ll learn. We try, we do what we can, and we daven that it’s enough. Sometimes it is, and sometimes,” she waved her arm again, in surrender, “it’s not. But it’s all we can do. We’re human.”

Shira nodded and bit her lip. Tears were still flowing down her face. She sunk onto the bench, clutching Rikki.

“Giveret!” said a deep gravelly voice as Shmulik ambled over. “Mazel tov! You find her, the baby!”

Shira let out a shaky laugh. “Yes, baruch Hashem. We found her.”

“Good, good. Now I am telling Dudi, he is telling Egged they should stop to look now, and also, giveret, what you want me to do with the tomatoes?”

Shira saw Yossi’s mother give a start, then follow Shmulik to his taxi to take her tomatoes and her purse and that horrible stroller that looked exactly like Rikki’s.

“Giveret!” Shmulik commanded. “Come, I take you home. You need rest now.”

Shira laughed again and stood on trembling legs, gripping Rikki’s waist tightly. She turned to the woman next to her. “Thank you so much.” She took a breath to say more, but she didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. “I… thank you.”

The woman smiled at Shira, a motherly smile. “Thank you for taking care of Yossi.”

“Bye, Yossi,” Shira said, laughing and crying. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Come visit us,” said the woman, scribbling her name and phone number on the back of one of her receipts. “I’d love to get to know you.”

“I will.” Shira smiled and waved as she climbed into the taxi with Rikki.

There was a surreal feeling in the taxi on the ride home. Everything was brighter, sharper, louder.

Rikki was so small, curled up on her lap, her perfect dark eyelashes blinking slowly. Shira didn’t know how she would ever let go of her again.

They were pulling up in front of her building when her phone rang. She answered it automatically, and was surprised to hear Mommy’s voice.

“Hi, Shira, zeeskeit, I’m sorry I had to run earlier. You know how it is, this time of year.” Mommy sounded tired.

“Mmm.” She knew how it was — all the time, not just this time of year.

But Mommy had called her back.

“We’re really going to miss you, zeeskeit. Are you sure it won’t work for you to come in?”

Shira’s head was pounding, and tears stung her eyes again.

“Mommy,” she started, and then she swallowed, hard. A mother is a person too, she heard Yossi’s mother’s voice in her head. But she couldn’t tell Mommy what had happened yet. “I’ll call you back, okay?” she choked out, before hanging up and paying the driver.

The three flights up to Shira’s apartment had never felt so long. She collapsed onto the couch holding Rikki and closed her eyes, just breathing.

It took a long time until she was able to drag herself to the kitchen, trying to clear the fog from her head as she breaded the chicken cutlets, trying not to let her voice tremble too much when she told the story to Ezzy when he called to check in, trying to just talk to Rikki, play with her, without breaking into tears.

She kept thinking of baby Yossi’s mother, cradling her son so securely in her arm. You’re her mother. A mother makes mistakes.

It was late when Shira finally got to washing the sheitels. The feel of warm water rushing through her hands always made her relax, and even though the wig she was holding was full and heavy, Shira could feel the muscles in her back and her jaw loosening. She massaged conditioner into the hair, trailing her fingers through the locks, and listened to the sound of the water.

“She’s asleep.”

Shira jumped and craned her neck to see Ezzy framed in the bathroom doorway, light filtering past his silhouette. She hadn’t heard him over the water. “Thanks.” She smiled at her husband and turned off the faucet, holding the sheitel out so that it would drip into the tub. “I couldn’t put her down all afternoon.”

“You still traumatized from today?” Ezzy was speaking in the gruff-tender voice he used when he was worried.

Shira gave a shaky laugh. “Not quite,” she said, carefully lifting the dripping sheitel out over the bathtub. “But Ezzy…”

He waited as she wrapped the wig gently in a towel.

“I was thinking. Maybe we should go home for Succos. I want to see my mother.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 735)