Laibel studied her. “Tell her? Didn’t you already speak to her?”

Rochel fumbled with the fringe on the pillowcase. “I made the baby cry and told her to call back.”

He laughed.

Rochel made a face. “I can’t talk to you now. You’re laughing, and I’m falling apart.”

“You don’t see any humor in this?” Laibel asked.

“Not now, maybe tomorrow.”

“Have it your way. Sleep well.”

“That’s if I fall asleep.”

Rochel went quiet and soon heard Laibel’s breathing slow. Alone with her thoughts, she reviewed how it all went down. Maybe there was some point that could redeem Hindy, even if Rochel didn’t want to do so. 

The term was slowly closing in, the midterm schedule had already been posted, the girls had already complained about the arrangements, when Hindy approached her after class.

“I’m going to be out of the country for your midterm. My first cousin is getting married in Israel.”

Rochel looked at her expectantly. This was not her department; the principal signed off on such arrangements and the secretaries took care of the details. She just proctored her final and got the makeup ones a week later. 

“You need Mrs. Werdiger’s approval, and the office will take care of it. I have nothing

to do with it.”

Hindy smirked. “Yeah, so, I’m not going to be here for the make-up day session.”

Rochel raised her eyebrows but said nothing, still not her issue.

“I want you to be there when I take my final,” Hindy continued.

So now it was Rochel’s issue. Her jaw went slack. A chutzpah. 

“If you want me to be there, then be there when everyone else takes the final. I make sure to proctor the day my test is being given.” 

“But I’m not going to be in the country.”

“That’s your choice. But I’m not going to be available when you want to take the final.”

Hindy looking down her nose at Rochel.

“Fine. I’ll talk to my father about this.” She pursed her lips and sauntered away, without so much as a nod goodbye. At the time Rochel didn’t realize the implications of Hindy invoking her father. Naively, she had thought Hindy was going to reconsider the dates of her trip.

Two days later, the principal poked her head into the teachers’ room during the Minchah break and asked to speak to her. Rochel had followed her into her office. “Did you tell Hindy Mandelbaum that she shouldn’t go to her cousin’s wedding and that your English midterm was more important?”

This caught Rochel off guard. “What? No.”

“Interesting.”

“What’s going on?”

“I just got off from a conference call with Rabbi Schwimmer and Dr. Mandelbaum.”

The principal paused, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it, then plunged in.

“And it seems that’s what you said, or maybe that was the impression Hindy got when she spoke to you about your final. And now Dr. Mandelbaum, one of our biggest supporters, is starting to doubt the school’s chinuch if we have teachers who would suggest that an English midterm was more important than a family wedding — let alone a wedding in Eretz Yisrael.”

Rochel’s mouth was agape. “Is there a part where I get to tell my side of the story?”

The principal shrugged. “You can tell me. I’ll listen and believe you, but honestly, it’s irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant? The truth is irrelevant?”

“You’re a bit naive, Rochel. Yes, the truth is irrelevant when it comes to dealing with

certain people.”

“So what happens now?

“You proctor her final. That’s it.”

“I can’t do that.”

The principal waved her hand impatiently,

“Just swallow your pride. Two hours and it’s over. Hindy’s their youngest, you won’t

have to deal with them again.”

“It’s not that.” Rochel’s voice got low and urgent. “My father’s in hospice. When I’m not here, I’m there. He has days left. I can’t leave him. We’re just two kids, me and my sister who’s 15 years older than me, and she’s making a wedding in two months. I can’t leave my mother there alone.”

The principal inhaled deeply and looked empathetically into Rochel’s eyes. “I’m so

sorry.” She paused a few moments, and continued. “I know it seems ridiculous, and insane, and unfair, but your job depends on your proctoring Hindy’s final.”

“Are you serious?” Rochel whispered.

The principal didn’t have to say anything, Rochel knew she was, before she had even asked. Between a rock and a hard place. How many times had she spoken of such predicaments in her classes? How do people choose between grasping at wisps of a soon-to-be-past, to clutching that which would bring them life in the future?

Rochel chose the future, and the past made her pay. She proctored, watched carefully as Hindy filled out the multiple choice section, made her way through the short answers, and leisurely wrote an essay. When she stood up to hand in her final, Hindy hadn’t asked a single question, hadn’t needed any explanations. Her eyes met Rochel’s with intent, and her mouth held a suppressed smile.

“Thanks for proctoring, Mrs. Landau,” she said as she offered her paper. Rochel did not extend a hand to take it, and it lingered in the air. After a few expectant seconds, Hindy placed the test on the edge of the desk. Only once Hindy’s back was turned, did Rochel touch the test, stuffing it in her bag and exiting first the classroom, then the school in a contained fury. In the car, she shoved her papers into the passenger seat, where they spilled over onto the floor. The coffee Rochel had spilled that morning, leaving the puddle of brown because she was rushing to proctor on time, oozed all over Hindy’s paper. Rochel watched, powerless.

“Augh!” She raised both hands and brought them down on the steering wheel. The horn blared, and Rochel shrank back in surprise. She checked to see no one was around, and she brought her fist back down on the steering wheel, tension and anger flowing fluidly. Another sideway glance, and she put the car in drive and drove to the Hospice Care Center.

Her mother and sister were there. “He was asking for you,” Shaindy said. Rochel looked at her mother for confirmation; she gave a tiny nod. 

“How is he today?” she asked.

Shaindy shrugged. “Not the best, not the worst. He’s out of it now.”

Rochel swallowed and nodded. Tatty was asking for her, what did he want to tell her?

Shaindy stood up. “I’m heading home now, be back tomorrow morning. I’m taking Ma with me.” She tugged on her mother’s sleeve, the floral print pulled away from the arm, damp. Rochel nodded and watched them retreat, their eyes never leaving her father’s face. She sat down, the cushion exhaling a thin sigh.

The night was spent holding, stroking her father’s hand. She dozed intermittently, but then caught herself awake. She willed her father to wake up, she didn’t want to miss the moment if he did; he wanted to say something to her, he was asking for her. His sheifeleh was there, did he know? Sleep must have overcome her, she woke to sound of the shuffling feet of the day nurse making rounds.

Rochel stayed there till the end. She had no classes to teach, no tests to mark, save one. There was takeout for her husband, and a very understanding sister-in-law who took care of her son. She couldn’t leave, she was waiting. She couldn’t miss the moment he might come to and ask for her again, for his Sheina Ruchele.

But he didn’t. He just slipped away. One minute he was sleeping and the next moment there was a silence they couldn’t place, until they realized.

Mother and daughters looked at each other and noticed they had all been holding hands in vigil, a circle of life. Rochel dropped her father’s hand, her mother took hers back, Shaindy froze. And then came the tears.

Everything happened behind a cloud of intense emotion Rochel couldn’t process: the levayah, the kevurah, and then came shivah, where she just sat in thought. People asked such stupid things: How long was he sick? Were you there? And the stupidest of them all: What was the last thing he said?

Rochel shrugged; she didn’t know. “I wasn’t there,” she told her second cousin twice-removed. A moment’s pause.

“I wasn’t there,” Rochel repeated slowly.

The cousin nodded politely. “I wasn’t there,” Rochel said again, faster. The cousin nodded once more, but now with a look.

Rochel’s breathing quickened, and she felt a flush rise from her chest up her neck. “I wasn’t there!” She looked around wildly, and grabbed her sister’s forearm. “I wasn’t there,” she yelled at Shaindy.

Shaindy pulled herself back but Rochel’s arms were flailing, her voice cracked and warbling as she repeated, “I wasn’t there, Shaindy. I wasn’t there!” Rochel yanked on her sister’s sleeve. “I wasn’t there, Shaindy!” 

Shaindy got up quickly, pulled Rochel on to her feet, and took her to the back room. Rochel sat in her father’s old recliner, face hidden behind her hands. “Shaindy, I wasn’t there,” she whispered.

Shaindy stroked her arm and back. “I know, I know,” Shaindy soothed.

That was it; that was why she hated Hindy. Rochel rolled over in bed. It was after two in morning. Hindy had abused the power she had access to — now Rochel had her chance. She shifted uncomfortably in bed. Her aunt would be calling tomorrow, and Rochel didn’t know who would answer the phone, the reeling orphan or the mature adult.

She flipped her pillow. It was cool to the touch. If she could just fall asleep, she could deal with it tomorrow. Rochel thought of her father, what he would say, but she stopped herself before she started: from the vantage point of Heaven, wouldn’t the only answer be, “Let it go”? It didn’t satisfy.

She’d have to actively think it through, but she just wanted to sleep. If this were a book I was teaching, she considered, what would the character do? What would I want them to do? What nuances on human nature would I bring out — that we’re all selfish, vengeful people?

There had to be another angle. She stopped and remembered her previous conclusions: responsibilities, abuse of power, that’s what the point was. She flipped over her pillow again and smacked it. Who cared about her story? No one, no one but she, and she was feeling selfish and vindictive. Something had snapped in her, the dichotomy of desire and confusion too strong, and Rochel felt her body inhale deeply and exhale into a deep, exhausted sleep. 

Morning, she woke to surprising clarity. And before she had coffee and cookies, she dialed her aunt,

“Aunt Brenda,” she started, strong, assertive.

“So glad you called me back, I can already cross you off my todo list of today.”

“So, Aunt Brenda,” Rochel said, her tone faltering slightly, losing a little of its resolve.

“Yes?” Aunt Brenda said, she sounded expectant, waiting for

Rochel to start her report, there was rummaging on her end as she got pen and paper.

“Aunt Brenda,” Rochel said again.

“Listening.”

“So, let me be honest.”

“I hope you’d be — that’s why I called you.”

Rochel breathed in, she tried to talk, but the words were soldered somewhere high in her palate, she’d have to break them out.

“I’ve had… issues with Hindy Mandelbaum.”

“Really?” Aunt Brenda sounded too interested.

“But those are my issues. And not relevant to you, not relevant to the job you need her to do.”

“But issues with you?” Aunt Brenda interrupted. “You’re a doll, who could have issues with you?”

“Irrelevant,” Rochel said, and was surprised at the strength in her voice. It was tempting, very tempting to wag her tongue, but she remembered the theme of her story last night, what she woke up with. The author’s ploy was parallel story lines, and she, the victim, was going to do it right, and not fall to instinctive human nature, like literature loved to exploit. Her story was a happy story. Even if her father was dead, and she had never said goodbye.

“You’re my niece, I’ve known you since you were born — well, almost, I married Uncle Moishe six months later, but never mind. What happened, sheifeleh? You can tell me.”

She was good, her aunt. She flipped from inquisitive to warm and supportive, but Rochel wasn’t biting. Hindy may not have known the repercussions of her actions, but Rochel knew what the repercussions of her own would be.

“Look, Aunt Brenda. I know you want to know. But I can’t. I’m telling you it’s not relevant. The responsibility is yours, not mine, and it would be wrong of me to try to take that achrayus from you.” Rochel spoke with a certainty she was coming to believe.

Poetic Justice was for poets, not for her.

“I hear,” Aunt Brenda conceded. “I really respect that.” She paused. “You’re a good kid. You’re like your father, you have clarity, a sense of right and wrong.” Aunt Brenda went quiet, and shifted gears. “Well, I guess we’ll schmooze another time, I have a decision to make.”

She hung up and Rochel sat still for a moment. She got up to make a coffee. She took a cookie, then reached for a second, but held back: she was responsible.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 519)