from her nap, it was so clear to her, there in the post-nap haze where the purest thoughts are born: America. “America!” She jumped out of bed and she laughed, to herself, out loud, and the laughter filled up the room with a sound these walls hadn’t heard in a long, long time. America. How could she not have thought of it? The thought gave her strength. She hurried to prepare for the children. Esther’ke was playing silently in her crib, like she was used to doing. Like a dance, she pulled the house together, pouring clear water on the floors and sweeping the dirt together. She took Recha’le by the hand, strapped the baby into the carriage, and rolled it down the hill. The grocery had extra vegetables. She could make soup. She still had some eggs in the basement, from the organiza-
aging around the other, less bruised produce. She walked back up the hill, a spring in her step, imagining what America looked like. She would go there. She would collect, like her neighbor, Mr. Cohen, had, not so long ago. He came back with $10,000, enough to live for almost an entire year! No one in her own family had ever gone. Her father discouraged them very, very strongly. They were YerushShe should ask more. Let her voice almim. Pure, be heard, because He listens. generational Yerushalmim. Instead of taking, she could ask. They had never stepped one foot off the tion that had given her a Pesach holy soil. distribution. She usually didn’t How would she pay for the go down to the machsan to get ticket? Or borrow for the ticket, one, because she rationed them even if she hoped that in Ameriwisely, three eggs a week so it ca it would be repaid. might be able to stretch until How many women, especialSuccos, when she would rely women like her, who weren’t ceive another tzedakah package, by nature born to be grabbers, smaller, but still something to beggars, users, how many mothfeed her children. But today was ers went? different. She cracked one, waWhere would her children tered it down with water from be? How was this different than the sink. And sang. placing them in an orphanage? She would make food. Doubt was quick to set in and Her mind fed her happier take up residence within her pictures now, as she raced down plan, adjusting the shades and the hill, collected the vegetables, turning off the lights. didn’t stand and pick, but took America? What was she thinkthem all, the ones so rotten they ing? Just thinking about saying created a film of brown packthis plan to another human be-
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ing was enough to put the plan where it belonged, in the pile of dead ambitions that resides in every heart’s “could-have” file. She wouldn’t go. She would never go. It was ludicrous to go, or to think of going. But… what was the alternative? Coming home and washing off the pile of rot from her vegetables, she discovered that in the entire pile there were only two inner pieces of squash she could salvage, and the faintest sliver of pepper not yet rotted. Hungry. Again. And here the children were. She had to go to America, infuse hope. There was no way she could even entertain going. She couldn’t just continue. She couldn’t just keep going. One more day. But even today was hard. Even today was too hard. Going was as disruptive as putting her children in the orphanage. But the other alternative was staying here in the now, the unbearable, unsustainable day that would end in them going to the orphanage, leaving her orphaned of her children. What was the alternative? To be continued... Chany Rosengarten authors columns and serialized novels in leading publications. She can be reached at gchanyg@gmail.com.