When I turned back to Chesky — saw that faraway gleam in his eyes as he clomped across the warehouse mouthing numbers — I knew exactly what made this venture feel so sickening

I was perched on the top rung of my stepladder, trying to squeeze the Silver Spool bag between a storage container labeled Toddler Boy Summer and the acrylic ice bucket we’d gotten for mishloach manos from the Koenigs a bunch of years ago, when, like a dusty moth ball, the question crept out to tease me.

Will you ever knit that romper-sweater set for Shua if he’s turning eight next week?

The knitting needles jutted from the bag, poking a hole through a vacuum-sealed bag of petticoats, pointing a finger at me and stating the grim truth.

I had no idea how to knit.

I’d never ended up learning how to knit, and for seven-and-a-half years, this bag sat on the shelf, waiting for me to transform the off-white woolen yarn into an adorable baby outfit the Silver Spool lady had patterned for me.

My eyes traveled down to the hallway floor. It was covered in a mess of baskets and hangers and random things — like the humidifier I’d bought when Baila had her coughing attacks — patiently waiting their turn to be squeezed back into the one tiny storage closet our apartment boasted.

I sat down on the ladder, cradled the yarn like it was six-month-old Shua, and made the climactic decision. It was time for it to go.

I called my friend Tzippi for support.

“Mindy, you are my inspiration,” she said solemnly. “Tell me when the garbage bag is outside, I’ll give you a round of applause.”

I giggled. Then I asked her about the humidifier.

“Well, did you use it in the past four years?”

“No.”

“So dump it. When you need a humidifier again, you’ll buy a new one.”

“But it’s a great machine, I paid sixty-five dollars for it!”

“Sixty-five dollars? Soon you’ll be able to afford a new humidifier every week, Mindy. Or you’ll live in a house so big, you’ll offer to store my humidifier.”

“Yeah, yeah. From your mouth to my pocket.”

Tzippi saw that as an opening for her favorite topic of conversation. Money.

Specifically, my money.

“How’s your investment coming along, by the way?” she asked.

By the way. Sure.

“Nothing yet,” I answered tersely. “These things take time.”

“How long do you think it will take to start turning a profit?”

How long? How much? Send me your bank statement.

I hated this. For the hundredth time, I wanted to kick myself for telling Tzippi about Chesky’s project. I’d mentioned it to stop her nagging about why we’d stopped apartment hunting. “Because all our savings are tied up and we’re in huge debt, that’s why,” I’d blurted out. And then she’d somehow milked all the details out of me — and convinced herself that we were on our way to becoming millionaires.

Whenever I talked to Tzippi, I talked too much.

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “we’re not turning a profit so fast.”

“Well, remember me when you’re rich.”

I mumbled something about concentrating on my work and hung up. Then I took out the Toddler Boy Summer container again and started dumping faded T-shirts.

I was starting on the second-to-last shelf when I came across the sign.

It wasn’t a real sign; just a couple of words scribbled on a jagged piece of cardboard. The sign was sandwiched between the wall and a box of seforim that didn’t fit in our seforim shrank, and as I pulled it out, I forgot about the storage closet. I was sucked back in time, to the first day of camp the summer we were TCs.

I’d arrived late, after most girls were finished unpacking. Which didn’t bother me — I wished I didn’t have to be in camp at all. Camp was a place for loud girls who lost their voices cheering wildly their first hour on grounds. Nobody would notice I was there.

I stood at the entrance to our bunkhouse, unsure where to go, wondering if there was still a bed available.

And then I noticed the improvised sign, a piece of cardboard torn off a box. It was taped to the rung of the second bed, top bunk. Whoever put it there had scribbled RESERVED — Mindy Tublin.

Someone had reserved a bed for me.

That someone, I learned, was Tzippi. And over the next few weeks, when the lights were out and everyone slept, we whispered into the night. I had no idea why this random classmate had chosen me as her friend, why she felt comfortable sharing the deep, dark secrets of her life, but it felt… good.

I didn’t hate camp that summer.

A whimper from my bedroom made my TC summer fade away. Efraim was up. My storage closet would have to wait.

I weighed the sign for a moment, glancing at the trash pile. What did I need it for? How many years had it been? Twelve? Fourteen? Our friendship had evolved into a thing since those TC days, part of the fabric of our lives. This sign was… a joke. A cute memory.

But I didn’t throw it out. I took it along to my bedroom and stuck it in the bottom drawer of my dresser, under a broken picture frame I was going to fix one day, and scooped Efraim out of his crib.