I couldn't let the class queen invade my daughter's haven

Sheva: I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to protect my daughter.

Dina: Why are you punishing my child when she’s done nothing wrong?

Sheva

Idon’t know why I’d expected this to be different. Maybe because it was a trip, not a formal occasion like a wedding or even a sit-down family Chanukah get-together. Maybe because it was the first time we were doing this, all of us together, with my parents — a real pilgrimage to the nearby country park. Maybe because Libby enjoys nature, she loves hiking, and I’d kinda hoped that it would push her to be more a part of things.

Or maybe I just hadn’t thought about it very much at all.

Because if I had, I would’ve realized: Things don’t change that easily.

So she didn’t have a book with her to disappear behind. So she was dutifully trailing along on the hike, exchanging a few words with my youngest sister, Bracha, who was wearing fashion booties absolutely not suited to a nature trail, and pushing her pristine Bugaboo over twigs and dried leaves.

She still wasn’t there, walking among the knot of teenage girl cousins led by my niece Mindy.

And when we sat down for lunch, breaking up the hike (not much of a hike, really, it was a two-hour trail along the easiest, flattest path we could find) for some food and schmoozing, the girls all flopped down on the grass in a circle, sipping from Contigos and sharing lunch, while Libby sat herself cross-legged near me and the little ones, opened a package of pretzels and pulled out — of all things — a book.

I bit my lip — say something? Don’t say something? — and settled for a light, “Libs? Why don’t you join the cousins, over there?”

She looked at me and shrugged, words unspoken in her deep brown eyes, but then she shrugged and put the book away, as if to say, watch what happens.

I did. I watched as she headed over to the tight circle on the grass. Chani — two years younger than Libby — moved aside to make space for her, but then…

The group of girls continued talking animatedly, voices and laughter carrying on the breeze, while Libby sat stiff, silent, part of the circle and yet so alone.

I knew why.