I put my pencil down, got my crutches, and got out of there. The classroom doors slammed behind me like an audible exclamation point. Mom had been waiting outside for me. Ben followed. I told them I felt like I was going to have a seizure, even though usually those came without warning. We went home right away. Mom kept stealing looks at me in the mirror. I closed my eyes, trying not to think of those words, but they dive-bombed me like mosquitos in the summer. Medical. Malfeasance. Settlement.
Mom asked, “Are you okay, Jenna?”
I said, “No. I need to go home. I need to go home. I need to go home.”
“We’re going, baby. We’ll be there soon.”
When we got there, Mom unloaded me from the van and helped me to the bathroom and then to bed. I pulled up the browser on my iPad and typed my name, plus my Uncle Steve’s name, plus medical malfeasance, then settlement.
I tried to tell myself whatever I found wouldn’t change anything. Wouldn’t change me.
Then I pressed search. The results loaded, and I saw it. My name. The doctor’s name, Dr. Jacoby. Settlement. Steve Cohen, my Uncle Steve. The rest was hidden. I could pay money and find out how much we got, but there was no point.
I finally knew the truth: I wasn’t supposed to be born like this.
The world shifted under me. Mom knew. Dad knew. Uncle Steve knew. This was worse than the Santa deception. I wanted to scream at Mom and Dad. I wanted to yell at Uncle Steve. I wanted to find them and shake them and make them fear me.
I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen until my vision felt painted with the blue-light glow. How could they all have lied to me?
“Do something,” a voice inside me whispered, sounding braver than I felt. “Do something.” The voice sounded familiar. Like it belonged inside me. Because it did. It was Jennifer, the girl who I could have been, would have been, if only a doctor hadn’t messed up sixteen years ago. I beat my tears back. She was right. I needed answers. I would get them.
And the first person I was going to start with was Uncle Steve. He had been part of the betrayal, so he was going to spill his guts. He owed me.
I sent him an email with the settlement information attached and one simple line.
We need to talk.
He texted back.
In a meeting. Can’t call now. But can text. How did you find that?
Does it matter?
No. I guess not. This was all for you. To be sure you were cared for.
Cared for? Like an abandoned kitten? Like an orphaned child?
No. Like my niece.
So you did one of these for Rena?
Do you want to meet up after I’m out of work? Talk about this?
No. Not now. Right now I want you to keep this between you and me.
I don’t think that’s the right thing. For you or your parents.
As your client I expect you to respect my wishes.
My client?
Uncle Steve has always joked with us that he’d represent us against our parents if we ever needed him—as long as we paid him a dollar, he was our legal knight in shining armor. But if we really wanted to make it sacrosanct, we’d pay eighteen, the Jewish number that meant good luck. He was teasing, of course, but I pull up Venmo and send Uncle Steve a fast eighteen dollars.
Fine, we’ll keep this between us for now. But this doesn’t change anything. You’re still the same girl.
That’s where he was wrong. This changed everything. It changed me. Every decision I’d made before this finding became suspect. I rethought my classes, my life’s plans, my participation in therapy. In short, I rethought my world.
Three
The morning after the MRI, I wake up with my body throbbing from the abusive tests. But for some reason today, I feel pulled toward some kind of magic. Like something exciting is about to happen. Jennifer’s voice finds me and whispers in my ear that I need to get up, go to school. But my head is woozy, my eyes are glued shut, and I want to sleep for days.
I hear Rena’s alarm go off. Then Mom’s steps down the hall. “You up?”
She means Rena, not me. No one expects me to go to school today.
The drugs they put in my IV for contrast are still sloshing around inside me, making me dizzy and nauseous, but I’m not down for a sick day. Not with Jennifer’s voice in my head telling me there’s a reason I need to get up.
Jennifer’s voice comes to me, and it’s like magic. The kind I’ve always believed in. The truth is, I have always had this weird obsession with magic. And while that doesn’t make me unique or anything, because I’m sure everyone believed in magic when they were little, the thing is, sometimes I still do.
Practical magic, at least.
When I was twelve going on thirteen I started going to see the rabbi to study for my Bat Mitzvah. As I waited in the library outside the rabbi’s study for my turn, I’d walk by the bookcases, my crutches making the tiniest sound as they tapped the floor. My eyes fell on the beautiful gold lettering on the spines. Tikkun Olam. Jewish Mysticism. The World of Wonder. Malakim. “Malakim,” I whispered the word written in Hebrew, like a secret code. When I looked that word up later, I saw it meant angels or messengers. Man, was I bought in.
But one day I picked up one of the books and read through it as I listened to the rabbi helping Eric Lisben recite his Haftorah. The combination of his soulful singing and the words on those pages got inside me, into that place that wanted magic. As I read, the letters seemed to rise off the page and swirl around in the air.
“Ah. That’s a good one,” Rabbi Goldman said, emerging from his study and eyeing the book I was skimming on Jewish Mysticism. “Have you read the part about the thirty-six saints?”
I shook my head.
“They say that in every generation there are thirty-six saints who keep the world in balance. No one knows who these saints are. Not even the saints know. When one of these saints die, another is born to replace them.”
“Wow,” I said, following him into the study. It was sort of like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer deal, though that’s not the kind of thing you can say to your rabbi.
Rabbi Goldman sat on the side of the desk, his one leg hanging off. He laughed, and when he did, the soft wrinkles around his eyes creased even more. He had gray hair and a deep voice. “Yes, wow.” He rested his cheek in his beefy hand. “Some believe that these saints remind us of the divine inside of each of us. Any one of us can be one of the thirty-six, Jenna.”
It was then I decided what I really wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be like one of those saints. I knew I could be important. I could be righteous. I could be free.
Anyway, after the Dr. Jerkoby debacle, I’d told myself it was time to grow up and ditch the fantasies, but this still felt real to me, somehow. Like hidden inside any one of us could be the power to save the world. Our little corner of it, at least. And wouldn’t that be cool?