*

Conflict of interest. That’s what the lawyer told me when I finally realized Dassi was ignoring my calls on purpose. I’d been naive till then — I’d thought she was just avoiding me because she was overwhelmed and embarrassed that things were going wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said, sounding polite but not at all sorry. “It’s a conflict of interest. I can’t represent you and my client at the same time. You’ll have to find another lawyer.”

“I am your client,” I’d protested. “We bought the house together.”

“You can ask the front desk for a referral,” he’d said, and transferred me.

Asher’s drilling holes in the wood, so I have to raise my voice to be heard. “Dassi got all her money out of the deal before it was too late,” I tell him. “And all my money disappeared. Does that make any sense to you?”

“Not this again.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, ‘Not this broken drill bit again.’”

“You know, some people say it’s my fault Dassi’s been single all these years.” I shake my head incredulously as Asher drills holes at suspiciously random intervals. “Did I steal fifty thousand dollars from my cousin? Did I turn the entire extended family against her? Did I hurt someone where I knew they were most vulnerable?”

Asher says nothing. The drill roars.

“What are you building?”

“A distraction.”

So funny.

I used to love talking to Savta every day, but now I dread it. There’s just one thing she wants to hear, and I can’t tell it to her.

“The wedding is in two weeks, Racheli.”

“I know, Savta. It will be so much nachas for you.”

“Nachas! You want me to have nachas, you know what to do.”

“Savta, your heart!” I try to change the subject. “I bought a new dress,” I say. “Lavender. With these silvery feathers along the bottom. You’re going to love it.”

“A dress makes a difference?” Savta’s getting impatient. “Nu, Racheli?”

Do you know what it’s like to be lied to? To be told something by someone you trust, and believe them without question, and then find out that it was completely untrue and they told it to you anyway because they knew that by the time you found out it would be too late?

I could never lie to someone. Especially not Savta.

“What if I can’t?”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t forgive her.” The words come out in a staccato rap.

“Racheli, it’s been so long.” Savta sounds exasperated.

“It’s not so long.” It’s like there’s a demon inside me, mercilessly firing the words. “She was my best friend! I trusted her! Do you know how hard it is for me to trust people since then?” I remember how I almost broke up with Asher right before we got engaged.

“Racheli—”

“Do you know how long it takes to save fifty thousand dollars? We need that money!”

“Racheli, you need to let it go!”

“I don’t want to!”

Silence.

“I’m sorry, Savta.”

“It’s not me you have to say sorry to!”

Something inside me snaps. “I’m not the one who has to apologize,” I say tightly. “Do you know that in all these years, Dassi has never once asked forgiveness from me?”

*

When Asher comes home from shul the next morning, I’m slouched on the couch in a hoodie and slinky skirt — what I used to call “depression casual” when I was in shidduchim. I put on a pathetic expression to complete the look, but he doesn’t ask.

“I met your father at Shacharis,” he says.

“Really?” I sit up in surprise, then remember that pathetic, depressed people lie down. “Why is he here?”

Asher looks at me for another minute before replying. “He came to be with Savta. She’s in the hospital.”

“What?!” I sit up again.

“She’s in the hospital,” he repeats. “She’s okay…I mean, they think she’ll be okay.”

I stare at him, trying to divine the answers to the questions I don’t want to ask. “What happened to her?”

“Look, maybe you should talk to your father. I don’t know too many details.”

“No! Tell me!”

“They think… she had a heart attack. A small heart attack.”

“A heart attack?”

“A small one!”

“There’s no such thing as a small heart attack!” I jump up from the couch, but there’s nowhere to go, so I throw myself right down again. “I gave her a heart attack!” Tears push against my eyelids. “It’s my fault!”

“Racheli, Savta is elderly and has had a heart condition for years, I’m sure it has nothing to do with…”

“It’s all my fault! Is she going to… will she be okay?”

“She’s going to be fine—”

“How do you know? Did Abba say that?”

Asher hesitates. “I— she’s going to be— Racheli, stop crying—”

I can’t stop!

“Look, Racheli, why don’t we go visit her and you can see for yourself?”

“No! No! I don’t want to go!”

“But Racheli, you’re overreacting, if you go visit you’ll see that—”

“No, I can’t, I can’t!”

“Why not?”

I press my fingertips into my eyes. “I can’t go. If she dies, I’ll never forgive myself. And if she lives, she’ll never forgive me!”

*

When Asher goes to Maariv I find myself in the study. There are plenty of bills on the desk, so why am I rummaging around in the bottom filing cabinet?

J, K, L, M… Marcus. N, O, P… Piperman.

I pull out some documents just as my phone rings. “Racheli?” It’s Abba; he sounds distracted, with that funny distance you get when you talk on a cell phone in a hospital.

“Yeah?” I hold the phone too tightly and my breath is short.

“I just wanted to let you know that Savta’s doing much better.”

I release my breath in a whoosh.

“She’s allowed to have visitors, so you can come anytime.”

“Oh,” I stammer. “Oh. Okay.” I will go to Savta. I will go to Savta and tell her I forgive Dassi. And then she’ll get better and everything will be okay again.

“Do you want to speak to her?”

I panic. “Uh… I… Can I call back in a few minutes? I… need to… I’m just in middle of… something.”

“Sure. I’ll send her your regards.”

I drop the phone and blink rapidly. The papers are wet in my fist.

Marcus came highly recommended, but even he refused to take the case. “I can’t help you,” he’d said, scribbling something on the back of a business card. “Go to Piperman. He’s a divorce lawyer.”

A divorce lawyer?

That was the day I decided not to go to court. I hired Piperman, paid him a small fortune to redo everything Dassi’s lawyer had already done on our — no, her — behalf. Piperman tried to reach out to him but he didn’t make himself available and we lost the race against the clock. Dassi got her money and mine was gone.

That’s when I realized that she’d known all along we wouldn’t be able to recover all of it, otherwise she’d never have shut me out. The memory burns in my throat.

Disadvantaged as I was already in the shidduch market, at least I had the money — money that represented years of my life. Now I didn’t have money; instead I had a family feud, a ruined reputation. Thanks, Dassi.

“Hey,” says Asher from the doorway.

I stuff the papers back in the drawer. “You’re home early!”

“I thought you might want to go out, to see Savta.”

I shake my head. If I go to Savta like this, I’ll just give her another heart attack.

*

“You can’t go on like this,” Asher declares several days later. “Get a babysitter. I’m taking you out somewhere.”

I’m grateful. I need this. I put on my sheitel and some makeup. This will be nice.

When we’re ensconced in the car, I ask Asher where we’re going.

“To the hospital,” he says.

“The hospital!” I feel stricken.

Asher hums as he drives.

Savta’s room is in a regular unit, not intensive care. Asher pokes his head through the doorway. “Savta?” he calls out. “Can we come in?” He motions me in ahead of him. Then he disappears.

Traitor.

Savta sits, propped by pillows, like a queen on a throne. “So, you come, finally,” she says, fixing a beady eye on me. I practically sag with relief; she’s still the same Savta.

“How are you?”

Savta snorts. “Better than I look, but no one believes me. And you? Afraid to visit your own grrrandmother?”

“I wasn’t afraid,” I protest.

“You call me every day, but in the hospital, no? Of courrrse you’re afraid.”

I shake my head. “Not afraid, just… guilty.”

“Guilty?” She sounds genuinely bewildered. “For what?”

“For…” Do I really have to say this? “For arguing with you. About… forgiving her. And giving you a heart attack. I’m sorry.”

“Ach,” Savta waves a hand. “Everyone thinks they are so important. You think you can make me sick?” She points upward. “He makes me sick, He makes me better.”

“So… you’re not… angry at me?” I say in a small voice.

“Angry. Angry!” Savta rolls her eyes like I’ve said something preposterous. “That’s your problem. You think you are so great.” She points at me. “Things happen… And only if He says. It’s totally separate.”

This is just unbelievable. I fold my arms. “Yeah, sure, totally separate.” I grab a cup of water from the wheelie-table thing and turn it upside down. “Oh,” I exclaim exaggeratedly. “Look what happened!”

Savta raises her eyes heavenward. “Listen, mammele, you got your personality from me. And yes, that’s right. What you did — your cheshbon. What happened to me — His cheshbon.”

I take a deep breath and count to ten. “Do you know yet if you can come to the wedding?”

“Who, me?” She shrugs elaborately. “I’m just an old lady. What do I know?”

“What do the doctors say?”

“It makes no difference what the doctors say, Racheli, and don’t you ever forget it.”

For a self-described old lady, she can be impossible. “What do you think is going to happen?”

She smiles serenely. “What He wants, will happen, Racheli. This I told you already.”

*

I spend the day of the wedding moving aimlessly from room to room; Asher spends it sanding The Thing. Finally I stop pacing and park myself on a stool facing him.

“Tell me why,” I say. “Give me one good reason!” He says nothing, just watches me steadily over a rising cloud of wood shavings. “She doesn’t deserve it!”

“Please,” Asher rolls his eyes. He shuts off the sander and points it at me. “You’re not doing it for her.”

“Savta—”

“You’re not doing it for Savta either.”

“Oh, yes, I—”

“The only person who stands to gain anything here is you.” He switches the sander back on.

“I — what?”

“Is Dassi suffering?”

“What?”

“You’re suffering. If you forgive her, you stop suffering. Simple.”

Simple?!

“You don’t understand.” My voice is rising. “Savta doesn’t understand. No one understands!” I’m almost shouting. “You have no idea what you’re asking of me!” I hate the way my voice breaks. “Do you know what it’s like to be 28 and single and have your two younger sisters already married with kids? Do you know what it’s like to be stabbed in the back by the person you trust completely? Dassi knew everything!” I hate the tears streaming down my face. “And she took everything. And there was no way for me to — to explain it to — to him!” I’m sobbing as I cover my eyes with one hand, fighting to stay coherent, to explain. “Because her mother, Tante Shoshie, was the shadchan. He just disappeared out of my life. One day we were almost engaged, and the next day he was just — gone… She took everything…”

Asher puts the sander down.

“I would have stuck by you, Racheli,” he says quietly. “If it had been me, I wouldn’t have dumped you just because the money disappeared.”

This has got to be the most bizarre thing — my own husband comforting me over a shidduch rejection.

“That’s not the point!”

“It is exactly the point.” Asher’s voice is firm. “If I had been dating you then, I wouldn’t have run away when the whole thing with Dassi blew up, because we were supposed to get married. The reason it killed the other shidduch is because you weren’t supposed to marry him.” He folds his arms across his chest and raises his eyebrows. “Get it?”

I have a terrible headache. “So what does that mean?”

Asher hands me his phone and walks out of the room. “It means you can call Savta. And then you’d better get dressed. The chuppah is in two hours.”

*

I’m quiet as Asher drives to the wedding.

“You okay?”

“I think so.”

We enter the hall together. I hold my head high and look neither to the right nor the left. The feathers on my new dress tickle my ankles. I fight the urge to giggle.

After Asher checks his coat he turns to me. “Well,” he says. “I go there.” He jerks his thumb toward the men’s side. His eyes search mine.

“I just have one question.”

He waits.

“What’s that thing you’ve been building?”

A slow smile spreads across Asher’s face. “Oh, that. A bridge.”

I enter the hall laughing.

Dassi sits at the far end of the room in a cloud of tulle and lace. I scan the room, searching, searching, but disappointment settles heavily over me and I find an unobtrusive spot at the edge of the circle of waiting well-wishers.

“I would never have thought this shidduch could happen,” trills a fluttery young seminary girl.

Her friend nods wisely. “When it’s bashert, it’s bashert.”

She doesn’t know how right she is.

When it’s my turn to greet Dassi, I step forward and take her hand. She says nothing, and my breath catches as I look into her eyes. They shine like the diamond on her finger.

“You should be zocheh to build a bayis ne’eman b’Yisrael,” I say. A loyal house in Israel.

“Thank you.”

I melt to the side as the next guest comes forward. Tanta Shoshie sits to Dassi’s right, head bent in conversation with a guest. I step toward her and the surrounding crowd parts. There — right beside her — sits Savta. I lean forward, but Savta stands and grabs me in a hug. “Mazel tov!”

(Originally Featured in Calligraphy Pesach 5777-2017)