“Yeah, well,” Dovid said. I waited, but he didn’t continue speaking. He just took his yarmulke off his head and twirled it around on his finger

“Okay.” Miriam shrugged. But I could tell that she disagreed. Did she really think it was totally fine to depend on them so much?

“You heard what Bubbe wrote in the letter. It’s obvious that Mama’s nervous. What do you think is going on?”

“What does it say about me?” I demanded. What did Bubbe know about me anyway?

Miriam didn’t say anything more, but I could tell that she was confused. It might have been cold, but we never left without Faiga

“Oh, come on Dovid.” Yitzchok made a face. “You’re the one who keeps telling me we need action! A plan! Now we have one”

Faiga looked at me, a glint in her eye. “You need to pay attention. I can’t always be working your life out for you”

A normal seudah. A seudah where Mama’s cousin made Kiddush and passed out the wine 

There are boys missing. Men missing. The very yeshivah is in a different place, and we all feel it

One day soon, I would miss a lot of learning time and there was no way I’d be able to hide that from Mama