“Sorry, Ashira,” Dini and Tzivi chorus. Shani sniffles, but she hands me a paper napkin with a candy bar, and a paper with the words, Sorry for going in your room and touching your stuff written in large, careful letters.

Oh, boy, now I’m starting to feel stupid. Like, I made a whole, huge deal and the whole family’s getting involved.

“They’re just not used to Bubby’s spare rooms being off limits,” Malky says, when the kids scuttle downstairs after I assure them it’s okay and I’m not angry with them. Anymore.

I try to smile. Now I’m plain old mortified at how far this blew up out of proportion.

“It’s fine, I get it. They didn’t mean any harm. It’s been their room longer than it’s been mine.”

“No, don’t say that, Ashira. You belong here as much as all of them. Just because you grew up abroad….”

It’s nice that she’s saying it. But the truth is, it’s not the same. Growing up far away when the cousins are in and out of Bubby’s house on a daily basis… you’re just not part of things in the same way.

“Come on, let’s go back to the party, Bubby’s getting worried,” Shevi says. “I mean, if you’re okay—”

They’re treading on eggshells for me. Ouch.

“I’m okay,” I assure her. “I’ll just… be down soon.”

I just want a few minutes to myself.

The aunts traipse downstairs, along with various little ones. Aunt Chana lingers. I think she feels like she has to look after me.

“I’m okay. Really. I’ll be down soon,” I say, but this time, I’m touched. She’s treating me like she treats her own kids, like I’ve seen her treat Raizy and the others, and… it’s kind of nice.

Almost like having Ima nearby.

Well, not almost, but at least it’s something.

“If you’re sure about that.” Aunt Chana squeezes my shoulder again, and then she leaves, too, closing the door gently behind her. Bless her.

Finally. Peace. Breathe.

I mean, I’m starting to kinda like my extended family, but sometimes a girl needs her space.

There’s a knock on the door, again, and now I’m annoyed. “I said I’m coming,” I grumble as I go to open it.

But it isn’t the aunts this time. It’s Yaakov.

“You abandoned a dreidel game,” he says, like it’s a huge aveirah. “How could you?”

“I was rescuing my room from invaders,” I retort. Never mind that I only found out about the invasion after I escaped the party.

“Yeah, so I heard,” he says drily. “The cousins were in a state over it, they thought you were gonna hate them forever.”

“As if they would care.”

Yaakov stares me down. “Hey. Get over yourself,” he says, his voice mild to take the sting out of the words. “This is not a war, ya know. It’s family, this is what happens. People get on each other’s nerves and they get over it. You’re not a guest here anymore. You’re part of the family, and yeah, sometimes things happen.”

This is family? Ugh, how can he say that? It’s nothing like that; it’s the cousins who’ve been here all along, trampling on my stuff and acting like… like… like I don’t even exist.

Or… is it?

“Imagine it was Mali and Ita Naomi who were busy with your makeup, okay?” Yaakov says. I blink, because I hadn’t thought of it that way. But it was so the sort of thing my little sisters would do. Maybe not now, but a couple years back, or whatever.

“If it was your own kid sisters, you’d yell at them, they’d say sorry, zehu, all over. So you’re also part of this family, we all are. It might not feel like it, because we didn’t know the family too well before we came, but it’s the way they look at us, I know that for a fact. They messed with your stuff, that’s what kids do. They said sorry. They won’t do it again. But it’s not a fight or something. No one’s out to get you, Shir.”

I think about Raizy and Bella giggling in the corner and my little cousins jumping on my bed. Maybe it’s just… what kids do. Maybe it’s nothing to do with me at all.

I remember how Dini squealed she’s here, she’s here when I came into the room. Almost like… they were waiting for me. Like… they wanted something.

If Mali and Ita Naomi had been playing in my room, I realize, I’d have thought that they wanted something from me. Attention, maybe. Could my cousins have just been after the same thing? To get me to notice them, look at them, talk to them?

Am I really that standoffish?

“Anyway, I’m going back down there, and you should come, too,” Yaakov says. “Everyone’s wondering where the Indian princess is.”

“Haha, very funny,” I say. But as often happens with my brother, I’m only partly annoyed, because the other part of me thinks he might be right.

I’ve been apart from the cousins, the family. Maybe partly because of where I come from. But some of it… it’s come from me, from my own thoughts and feelings and homesickness and feeling of just being different.

But if I’m the one holding myself back… maybe it’s time for me to let go. And time for me to go join the party. Join… my family.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 972)