Almost back at my cottage, I see a figure slipping out the door: Breine in a dressing gown, clutching something to her chest. She startles at my footsteps, then laughs when she realizes it’s only me.
“What are you doing, just coming home?” She raises one eyebrow. “Someone’s been having a good time.”
“What are you doing here at all?” I tease back. “Aren’t you supposed to live with Chaim now?”
She shows me the item in her hand. “Toothbrush. I forgot it. Chaim said not to bother, but who wants to wake up without a toothbrush the first morning next to their husband?” Her face turns pink at the last word. “Husband! Can you believe it?”
“It was a beautiful wedding, Breine.”
“Wasn’t it? I really think so.”
“It was. And now I should let you get back to your husband. If you’re away too long, he’ll think you’ve changed your mind.”
“Yes.” She gives a little, silly curtsy, holding the edges of her dressing gown. “I’m glad I saw you, though, because I was going to look for you tomorrow anyway. I wanted to tell you something—Ravid isn’t coming.”
“To bed with you and Chaim? I hope not.”
She laughs. “To Eretz Israel. Ravid is in contact with someone who has a boat. It can leave from Italy. But he and Rebekah aren’t going to come with us. They told us after the wedding.”
“Why wouldn’t he come? He’s organized all of you, hasn’t he?”
“That’s why. Ravid is staying behind to help organize more trips; he thinks he’s more valuable this way.”
“I’m sure it’s hard for you to say goodbye to a friend.”
I’m still not sure why we’re having this conversation. I don’t know Ravid well enough to have an opinion on whether he should go with the rest of the group.
But Breine’s eyes are crafty; there’s a complicated look in them as she grabs my hands. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Zofia, I’m wondering if you should come with us.” She holds up a finger before I can protest. “I know you said earlier that you have your own plans, but now the invitation is real. There are two empty spots. You don’t have to take them, but—listen. I’m grateful to you for making my dress, and I’m happy that you found your brother, and, well, I’m a little older than you, and I don’t mean to sound bossy, but—it’s been really comforting for me to move forward with life, not go back. If we went to Ravid before anyone else did, I bet he would give you the slots. You and Abek.”
“I can’t just… leave.”
“Why not? You came here to find Abek, and you’ve found him. You’ve done what you wanted to do. Think about what happens next, though. All right? It’s only a suggestion.”
I slip my hands out of Breine’s. Pretend I’m cold. Tuck my hands underneath my arms and look at the ground. “I’m not ready to decide anything yet. Abek just got here. I just found him. It’s only been a few days.”
“Does this have anything to do with Josef?”
My face burns hot that she would ask this, that she’d assume I might plan such a big decision around a boy I’d known only a few weeks.
“I apologize,” she says in response to my silence. “I saw you dancing together and now you’re coming home at four o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s not about Josef. It’s about the fact that I already had a plan. Once I found Abek, we were going to go back home. That was the plan.”
“Zofia,” she says gently. She doesn’t try to take my hands again, but she somehow makes herself shorter than I am so she can look up at my eyes. “What’s there for you now? Tell me, Zofia. What’s waiting for you back there at your home?”
“My friend Gosia,” I start, but I know that’s not an answer. Gosia would tell me to go be happy, wherever that was, and to send her postcards along the way. What else? My family’s apartment? But I could leave that for Gosia as well. That home feels like part of my history, but it was new at one point, too. At one point, Baba Rose and her husband were young and newly married, and they moved into an empty apartment and started to fill it with furniture and make a new life.
What was special about that apartment before they moved in? Nothing. Everything special about that apartment was the family they built in it. Couldn’t it have been any apartment?
I think about the last time I left my family’s home. In the dead of night, while sweet Dima slept, on the same day I’d seen a Nazi flag in my neighbor’s flowerpot and the same night a group of men had threatened me. My home had already been looted, destroyed, a shell of itself. I told myself that the place I’d grown up didn’t feel right because my family wasn’t there with me. What if it didn’t feel right because it’s not right anymore? Abek didn’t say he wanted to go home to Sosnowiec. He just said he wanted to go home.
“I just think it’s better for all of us to keep moving,” she repeats. “That’s all.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “I’ll talk to Abek.”
“Think quickly,” she says. “If I tell Ravid you’re interested, he might be able to hold off other people for a week or so. So think hard, but think quickly.”
BACK IN MY OWN BED—WHILE ESTHER DOZES ON THE OTHER side of the room, and Abek is curled up in Breine’s old spot—I toss and turn, trying to lull myself back to sleep by counting sheep, then by multiplying by twos and trying to recite countries of the world. My pillow feels hot and uncomfortable, and I can’t stop thinking that an hour ago it was Josef’s pillow my cheek was lying on. The sun is half up, filling the room with violet and then a burnt orange, and I reconcile myself to the idea that I won’t sleep any more tonight.
Across the room, a mumble. Abek. I freeze, afraid that I’ve woken him with my tossing, but then the noise gets louder. Abek thrashes in his sheets. He’s still sleeping. It’s a nightmare: The noises he’s making aren’t words but yelps, desperate and scared. Immediately, I crawl out of bed and cross over to my brother. First, I stroke his forehead, making soothing shushing sounds, but when he doesn’t settle, I shake his shoulder roughly.
“Abek. Wake up. Wake up now.” His eyes slide open, out of focus at first, scrambling for purchase in the dim room, clawing at my wrist. “You’re dreaming. You’re just dreaming.”
He shoots up, drawing in a breath. “Did I bother you? Did I say anything?”
“I barely noticed you making any noises,” I lie, my heart breaking a little at the memory of his weak little yelps. “I was awake already, actually. And Esther—” I nod to where Esther is sleeping as she usually does, head buried beneath a pillow.
“Oh.”
“And—and now that you’re awake, too, let’s get up and go for a walk.”
“A walk?” he repeats, a touch of sleep still in his voice. “Now?”
“Yes, I wanted to anyway,” I improvise, going back to my bed and looking for my shoes. Really, I just don’t want to send him back to sleep and hear him make those noises again. “Come on, I have your shoes, too.”