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“I’m tired.”
    “So you’re going to sleep?” I asked too quickly.
    “After my bath.” She lit another cigarette.
    “To bed? You’re going to bed?” My voice was high and squeaky.
    “Of course,” she lied. “And before I forget, I put a letter from Tzippy on your dresser.”
    I thanked her and took the stairs two at a time.
October 14, 1973
B”H
    Dear Barbara,
    I hope this arrives before your quarter-birthday. In a few days, you’ll be seventeen and three fourths.
    Aunt Ruthie isn’t grumpy anymore. She hasn’t been yelling at Miriam for leaving jelly on the counter or Tamar for blowing her nose too loudly. Now she’s just sad. She talks about my Uncle Shlomo, the one who moved to Jerusalem, and how worried she is that he’ll get killed in the Yom Kippur War. I’ve been making all of the dinners for my cousins and me. I’m getting to be a pretty good cook, although I did burn the noodles once. I’ll get better. I have to be a balabusta if I’m going to marry and become a rebbetzin.
    I worry about Uncle Shlomo too. Give my mother a kiss for me.She’s probably upset about him even if she doesn’t show it. My mom’s not always as strong as she looks, but that’s a secret between the two of us.
    Write me soon. I miss you.
    Love,
    Tzippy
    I wrote Tzippy right back, thanking her for remembering my quarter-birthday and promising her that I would check in on her mother. I didn’t tell her that last Shabbos, while Rabbi Schine had ranted on and on about the Yom Kippur War during his sermon, the rebbetzin stared absently toward the front of the shul, biting her pinkie nail. I’d only seen her act worried once before, when Tzippy got a concussion after falling off the monkey bars at school. After I finished licking the stamp, I wrote Tzippy the letter I couldn’t send.
October 17, 1973
B”H
    Dear Tzippy,
    Everyone is talking about the war. My worries are small in comparison, yet they feel huge to me.
    Scott Dayne, the oafish boy who draws swastikas on his biology folder, said that he hoped the Jews would lose the war because we had it coming to us. David Koppelberg, now my biology lab partner, said that most Jews were normal, not freaks like us. He said that people who belong to our shul act like Moonies. He called your dad Rabbi Moon-Schine and me Moon-Schine Girl. My father said to ignore him, that one day your dad might unveil David’s neshama , but even if he had a soul, I bet it would be drab. I guess I should pity David’s drab neshama and ignorance of God’s 613 commandments.
    Besides, I have my mother’s soul to worry about. She’s going to getcaught soon. I know it. Writing this is making me feel worse. I miss you.
    Your best friend,
    Barbara
    Lying under the covers, I listened to the water from the bathtub swish through our old pipes. Any good feelings I’d experienced that day were devoured by my wild obsession with the mikveh and now poor Mrs. Isen, her sad twins, and my father. I wondered what would happen to him if the Schines found out about my mother’s romance. After Mr. Isen left his family, the Schines told Mrs. Isen to rip her lapel and go to shul every day for a year to recite the kaddish prayer of mourning for him, as if he’d really died. Mr. Isen moved to Brookfield, the Gentile part of town, and when my mother and I bumped into him while shoe shopping at Marshall Field’s, he couldn’t even look us in the eye. If the Schines wanted to erase Mr. Isen’s existence for “running off with a shiksa,” as my dad put it, then what on earth would they do to my mother for sneaking around with the Shabbos goy? I was sure she was bound for Brookfield. Never again would she respond to the call of Rabbi Schine’s Shema or savor the sweetness of the rebbetzin’s freshly baked challah. Her soul would be boarded up for good. And where would that leave all of us?

4
    September 2009
    T he letter arrived on a Sunday. Hand-delivered. Someone could have crept up the walk and popped it