“I didn’t get a chance to tell you before,” Mrs. Weiss continued, pausing to gauge Tamar’s reaction, “Yael Baum wanted you to know that instead of meeting, the boys will be calling you on Sunday. She wanted to know if early morning works for you.”

Well, excuse me! is what Tamar wanted to say. Instead, she closed her eyes for a quick second, took a deep breath, and spoke as calmly as she could. “Oh,” she said, her voice trembling slightly with rage, “so when I spend weeks asking if I can speak to the boys on the phone the answer is, ‘it’s too complicated. Your aunt wants to wait. The boys are not settled.’ ” Her voice took on a high-pitched, mimicking tone. “But when Aunt Dina decides it’s good for her, then suddenly everything’s all rosy?”

Mrs. Weiss looked at her quietly, listening.

“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks,” Tamar spat. “I’m not playing her game. Tell them forget it. I’m not interested in a phone call.”

Tamar abandoned her drink, turned on her heel, and went right back into bed. Her face was burning, flaming from embarrassment at the way she had spoken to Mrs. Weiss and from pure, unadulterated anger.

“Okay, so does this make up for it, Tamar?” Sam pleaded.

“Yeah, come on Tamar,” Danny entreated, “I gave up basketball to come today.”

“Basketball?” Tamar snorted. Then she forced a smile on her face. There was no use ruining today because they had canceled last week. And they had agreed to come this Sunday when they probably had other plans. Make that definitely had other plans. Basketball. “Okay,” she smiled, “maybe it does sort of make up for it. But how could you skip our time together to go snow tubing?”

“Waddya mean?” Sam whined, “wouldn’t you? I mean, Aunt Dina was taking the whole family, we couldn’t miss that. And besides, we’d never been snow tubing — which, by the way, was awesome!” He turned to Danny and the two of them shared a grin.

Tamar could feel her heart ache. Aunt Dina was taking the whole family, Sam had said. The whole family. But… Her gut twisted and she felt as though someone were tearing at her. Was that how they felt? That Aunt Dina was their family? Would Danny and Sam tell her tomorrow that they were changing their last name to Samuels to match Aunt Dina’s kids?

“Um,” she swallowed, “sounds amazing.” She tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. “What was it like? I’d… I’d love to go snow tubing one day!”

The boys launched into a speech, tripping over each other’s words, correcting, injecting, gushing, until she finally heard what it was like to feel the wind whip against your face as you slide down an icy mountain, then run up the hill in the deep snow to do it all over again. And she had to admit, it did sound awesome.

“What have you been up to these past weeks?” Danny asked after he finished describing the steaming hot chocolate and marshmallows they had enjoyed around a campfire.

“You know, the usual stuff,” Tamar said flippantly, “nothing exciting like what you did. Well, unless you count applying for a bunch of jobs.”

“Did you get any? A job, I mean.”

“Nope,” Tamar shook her head regretfully. “And I was really hoping for a job at this clothing store near the Weisses. But they said that if they’re interested, they’ll get back to me in a week. I haven’t heard anything and that was a week and a half ago.” She looked at the boys and felt validated to see that they were really listening.

“I hope it works out,” Danny said. “You’d be great in a clothing store.”

“Yeah, well,” Tamar shrugged, trying to look carefree, “looks like that one’s a dud. But I’ll keep looking. I’ll probably find something eventually.”

The door opened and all three of them looked up. “Guys?” the boys’ social worker called from the doorway. “I think it’s time to wrap it up over here.”

Tamar glanced up at the clock. He was right. Was it really 4:15 already? Tamar slowly got to her feet and watched her brothers next to her doing the same. As she started toward the door, Tamar could feel someone standing very close to her.

“Sam?” she asked.

“Yeah?” Sam replied from right next to her elbow.

“Everything good?” There was something about the way he was standing. So close she could feel his breath.

“Great,” he said in a small voice. But his eyes betrayed him. Tamar had raised him, cared for his every scrape and bruise from the time he was seven. She knew that look in his eyes. Turning to face him, Tamar wrapped her arms around Sam in a tight hug. He didn’t pull away, just buried his head in her coat and squeezed her like he would never let go.

“Don’t worry, Sam,” she whispered, stroking his soft hair. “Soon we’ll be together. I promise you. Really, really soon.”

You lied, Tamar thought to herself as she walked up the steps to the Weisses’ house. You have no idea when they’ll find a place for all of you. Or if. She could feel the taste of betrayal in her mouth. When did she ever lie to her brothers? They were a team, fighting to survive together for so long. And teammates don’t lie.

Swallowing hard to rid herself of the taste in her mouth, Tamar sat down at the dining room table. She flipped absentmindedly through her binder, trying to focus on something — anything — to clear her mind.

Jewish history. Right, they had gotten that test back on Friday and she had stuffed it in her binder without even looking at it. She opened the test paper. Fifty five percent. Figures. At least it was better than the 27% she got on that math test they got back last week. But she didn’t even care. The only thing that seemed to penetrate her brain right now was Sam. Standing and hugging her.

“Um, Tamar?” Devorah poked her head into the dining room.

“Yeah?” Tamar answered absentmindedly, trying to wrench herself out of her thoughts.

“You have a phone call. Somebody Rikki something? She says she’s calling from Tassel.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 849)