While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “I am sorry. But I do not know the answer to your question.”

  “Sometimes . . .” she said softly, “sometimes I feel really, really mad at God.”

  He could hardly speak. “Yes. Yes, so do I.”

  She looked up at him, and he saw her tears through his own. And before Jacob realized what was happening, Esther flung herself at him, clinging tightly to him, sobbing against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her in return – the first embrace he had felt for a very long time.

  CHAPTER 10

  ESTHER HURRIED TO FINISH drying the supper dishes for Penny, swiping the towel across a plate and shoving it into the corner cupboard. She didn’t want to stay in the kitchen with Penny Goodrich a minute longer than she had to. She wished she could go downstairs and help Mr. Mendel with his dishes again. She had felt a kinship with him last evening that she didn’t quite understand except that he seemed as sad and as lonely as she was. But Mr. Mendel had insisted that the dishes were too many for her to do all at once, and so when Peter’s ball game had ended, she and her brother had returned to their own apartment.

  Penny seemed to be taking her sweet time washing the dishes tonight, as if her mind wasn’t really on her work. She still had all the pots and pans to finish, but she suddenly pulled her hands out of the soapy water and wiped them on the front of her apron as she turned to face Esther. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Does Peter talk to you?” Penny kept her voice low, as if she didn’t want Peter to overhear them, even though he was all the way upstairs in the bedroom.

  Esther shrugged and turned away. She had been taught to tell the truth and to respect her elders, but she didn’t want to reply. She busied herself by straightening the dishes in the corner cupboard, nesting a stack of smaller bowls inside the larger ones.

  “I met with Peter’s teacher the other day,” Penny continued above the rattle of glassware. “His teacher said that he doesn’t talk at all in school. Not one word. And he never talks to me. . . . So I was wondering if he talks to you when the two of you are by yourselves.”

  Esther slowly turned around and looked up at Penny. She could only shake her head as tears squeezed her throat. Worry and fear for Peter had weighed Esther down like a sack of rocks, and even though she resented Penny’s interference, she was tired of carrying the burden of her brother’s silence all alone.

  “He writes everything down,” Esther finally managed to say. “Even to me.”

  “Did he tell you why? Or what’s bothering him?”

  Again, Esther could only shake her head as she struggled not to cry. Penny would treat her like a baby if she did. She took a moment to control her tears. “Peter says he wants to talk, but he can’t make the words come out. I thought he was playing a game at first, and that he’d get tired of it in a day or two. But I think he’s scared now.”

  “So he isn’t doing it on purpose?”

  “No. . . . Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. His teacher says he just needs time to get used to all the changes around here. I asked her if I should take him to see a doctor, but she said to wait until your father comes home.”

  Esther nodded and turned away again. She was trying to be strong, trying not to let Penny see how scared she was.

  “I know you want to help him, Esther, and so do I. Do you think we could work together and help each other?” She waited for a reply. Esther didn’t offer one. “Your father will be home for a visit after basic training, and I’d hate to get him all worried about Peter. He has enough on his mind now that he might be going off to war soon. Wouldn’t it be better if we tried to help Peter before he comes home?”

  Esther didn’t know what to do as fear for her brother battled the resentment she felt toward Penny. She didn’t want to cooperate with her. She wanted everything to be the way it used to be, with Penny gone and Daddy home again.

  “Talk to me, Esther.”

  She whirled to face Penny, spilling her anger instead of her tears. “Daddy will see how much we need him here. He’ll see that he can’t go away again – he can’t! Peter needs him!” She threw down her dish towel and hurried from the kitchen. Then, worried that Penny would follow her and keep trying to wear her down, she bolted upstairs to the safety of her bedroom.

  Peter looked up at her in surprise as she rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. But he didn’t speak, didn’t ask what was the matter, even though he must see Esther’s tears. He was the only family member she had left, yet he lived in his own silent world, reading Captain Marvel and Superman comics and shutting Esther out. She scooped up the slate from the dresser and threw it at him.

  “Everybody’s worried about you, you know. Your teacher and Penny both know that you’re not talking to anybody. And things are going to get a lot worse if you don’t start talking. They’re going to take you to see a doctor. You have to tell me what’s wrong!”

  Peter looked angry as he climbed off the bed to retrieve a piece of chalk. He began to write, his lips pressed together in a tight line, leaning so hard on the chalk that it snapped in two. When he finished, he held up the slate to show Esther.

  I don’t know what’s wrong!

  “Can’t you try to say something?”

  I do try!

  “Well, do you want them to take you to the doctor?” He shook his head vehemently, then wrote, Just leave me alone.

  “Fine! I’ll leave you alone!”

  She hated the word alone. Thousands of people lived here in Brooklyn with her, yet Esther had never felt more alone in her life. This was all her fault. If she had stayed beside her mother that day in the market instead of stomping off, maybe she could have protected Mama from that runaway car. Mama would still be alive, Daddy would still be living here with them, and Peter would still be able to talk. In that one defiant act of letting go, Esther had caused everything to go wrong, and now she had to figure out a way to make everything right again.

  She rummaged in her school bag for a pad of paper and a pencil and flopped down on her bed to start a list for her father, scrawling across the top: Reasons why you have to leave the army and come home.

  1. We miss you.

  2. We’re all alone.

  3. It’s not the same here without you.

  4. Grandma Shaffer is sad, too.

  5. Something is wrong with Peter and you have to help him.

  6. Penny is –

  Esther tapped the pencil against the pad as she searched for the right word. To be honest, everything Penny did around the house was okay: cooking, cleaning, washing their clothes. She was never mean to them, never yelled at them, and she tried really hard to be cheerful and friendly – too hard, in fact. Esther didn’t want to be Penny’s friend. When it came right down to it, Esther couldn’t think of a single bad thing to say about Penny except that she wasn’t Mama and she never would be. No one could take Mama’s place. Ever. Esther closed her eyes, trying to picture her mother’s face. Panic squeezed her chest when she realized that she couldn’t do it.

  She threw down the pad and jumped up, hurrying into Daddy’s bedroom to look at the photograph he kept on his dresser – except that the framed picture wasn’t there anymore. Esther had forgotten that her father had taken it with him. A jumble of Penny Goodrich’s things stood in its place on the dresser top: a jar of cold cream, a hairbrush and bobby pins, a handkerchief, and a pile of loose change for the bus. Esther gazed around the room in dismay. Nothing looked the same or even smelled the same now that Penny lived here. Daddy had rarely opened the shades to let in the sunlight after Mama died, but Penny rolled them wide open every morning.

  Esther went to the window to look down on the street and saw the ugly, blackened shell of the synagogue. She hated the sight of it, all closed off with barricades to keep people away. In the distance, she saw Mr. Mendel coming slowly up the street toward the apartment, walking with his head down, his eyes focused on his
feet as if he didn’t have the strength to lift his head and look up. Maybe he couldn’t bear to see the synagogue, either. Esther felt drawn to him for reasons she couldn’t explain, and without knowing why she hurried all the way down both flights of stairs from the third floor and went outside. She sank down on the top step of the porch, out of breath. A moment later, Mr. Mendel came up the sidewalk and turned toward the building.

  “Hi, Mr. Mendel. Do you need any help today? Is there something you want me to do for you?”

  He gazed at her with a look of confusion before managing a faint smile. “It is very nice of you to offer – but see?” He held up his hands, which were no longer bandaged, even though he still wore the plaster cast on his right arm. “My fingers are free at last. But thank you just the same.” He squeezed past her and climbed the porch steps, gripping the railing with his left hand.

  “Do you know when they’re going to start fixing the synagogue?” she asked him.

  “I imagine they must wait for the insurance company. Such things take time.”

  Esther sprang to her feet and followed him to the door. “What did people do inside there? Before it burned down, I mean.”

  He paused, jingling his keys in his hand. “It was a place to study Torah and to pray . . .”

  Esther’s anger returned at the mention of prayer, remembering all of her unanswered ones. She needed to know what she was doing wrong. “Does God answer people’s prayers if they pray inside a synagogue?”

  He shifted his gaze away from Esther, staring into the distance with a look of such deep sadness that she was sorry she had asked. “No,” he said softly. “No, not everyone’s prayers. Not always.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand, Mr. Mendel. Why should people bother to pray if God doesn’t answer? What’s the use?”

  He turned toward the door, slowly shaking his head as he stuck his key into the lock. “That is a question for men who are much wiser than I am.”

  Esther stayed on the front porch after he went inside. The night air was cool for mid-October and she wasn’t wearing a jacket, but she didn’t want to go back upstairs to her lonely apartment yet. She wrapped her arms around herself and sat down on Mrs. Mendel’s porch glider. It squealed when she rocked on it, unused for more than a year. She rocked harder, letting the motion soothe her anger.

  A few minutes later she saw Jacky Hoffman from next door pedaling his bicycle up the street, heading in her direction. She stopped rocking so the noise wouldn’t draw his attention and slouched down on the seat. But he spotted her anyway and halted on the sidewalk in front of the porch.

  “Whatcha doing, beautiful?”

  “Go away, Jacky.”

  He planted a hand on his hip, gripping his bike with the other. “That’s a fine way to pay a fella back for a compliment.”

  “You didn’t mean it.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “No. I don’t want to bet.” She stared past him at the synagogue again. It looked sinister in the growing dusk. He turned around to see where she was looking.

  “It’s a mess over there, isn’t it?” he asked. “A real eyesore. I wonder when the stupid black-hats are going to tear it down.” She remembered how gleefully Jacky had played in the water on the night of the fire, leaping over the hoses and splashing in the puddles. But he looked very different tonight, almost respectable with his shirttail tucked into his pants and his dark hair neatly combed. No one would ever guess he could be such a troublemaker in school.

  “How come you’re all dressed up?” she asked him.

  “I have a job after school delivering groceries. You should see all the money I make in tips.” He grinned, and Esther was surprised to realize how cute he was, like a younger version of the movie star Gary Cooper. She shook her head to erase the absurd idea.

  “What are you going to do with all the money you make?”

  “Well, I’m going to the matinee at Loew’s Theater on Saturday after work. Wanna come with me? My treat.”

  Esther’s face suddenly felt warm, as if the synagogue across the street were burning again. Jacky had invited her to go to the movies with him. She had felt so lonely only a moment ago, with no one in the world to talk to. And now Jacky Hoffman, dressed up and looking respectable, was offering to be her friend, inviting her to the movies. He had called her beautiful.

  “Thanks,” she said, “but my brother and I have to do chores on Saturday.”

  “Hey, what’s wrong with your brother, anyway? I heard some of the kids making fun of him, calling him a moron and saying he doesn’t know how to talk.”

  Anger made Esther sit up straight. She lied without a second thought. “For your information, there’s something wrong with his throat, and it keeps him from talking. People shouldn’t make fun of him, because he can’t help it!”

  “Is that right.” Jacky flashed his handsome grin again. “Well, from now on, I’ll stick up for him when the other kids pick on him, okay? All those little kids are afraid of me.”

  Her anger vanished as quickly as it had flared. “Thanks. That would be very nice of you to stick up for him.” She couldn’t imagine why Jacky was being so nice for once, offering to defend her brother. She recalled his reputation for schoolyard brawls and added, “Just don’t hurt anybody.”

  He laughed. “Nah, I never pick on anyone littler than me. You and your brother can walk home from school with me anytime you want to from now on.”

  Ever since Peter stopped talking, Esther had felt so isolated at school. She would time their arrival in the morning so they’d get there just as the bell rang, avoiding the other kids. Then she would rush out the door with him after school and hurry home without talking to anyone. It was the only way to protect her brother from the other kids’ questions and jeers. She smiled up at Jacky now, seeing him in a whole new light. The kids wouldn’t dare make fun of Peter with Jacky around. “Okay,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for the offer.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.” He waved and continued walking his bicycle toward his apartment building next door. Halfway there he turned around again to shout, “And I meant what I said, Esther, even though you don’t believe me. You’re the prettiest girl in school.”

  Esther didn’t know how to feel about the compliment, especially when it came from someone like Jack Hoffman. She jumped off the glider and unlocked the front door, shaking her head as she bounded up the steps to her apartment. Of all the many changes in Esther’s life these past few months, the change she had just seen in Jacky Hoffman was one of the strangest.

  The next morning, Esther and Peter carried their dirty clothes down to the basement so Penny could wash them. For the first two weeks that Penny had lived here, she had dragged their laundry to her parents’ house every Saturday, but she had quickly decided that was too much work. Now she used Mama’s washing machine in the basement, letting Peter shave the soap into the tub and giving Esther the job of feeding the clothes through the wringer. When all the laundry was hung outside on the clothesline, Penny let Esther and Peter choose from a list of other chores that needed to be done – things like running the carpet sweeper, dusting the furniture, emptying the wastebaskets, and scrubbing the bathroom sink with cleanser.

  “The work will go much faster if everybody pitches in,” she said in that cheery voice Esther hated. Esther still resented Penny, of course, but she really didn’t mind the work. Her mother used to give them chores to do, too. And Esther had hated the way Daddy let the apartment get so messy after Mama died.

  Today, as Esther dusted the furniture, she recalled how Mama had sometimes chased her with the feather duster and tickled her beneath the chin with it as they worked together. She wondered if Peter remembered things like that. He was pushing the Bissell sweeper across the living room rug, putting all his nine-year-old muscle into the job. Penny was rubbing furniture polish onto the piano bench when it accidentally tipped and some of the sheet music spilled onto the floor.

  “Hey, I didn’t know
this lid opened up. Look at all this music.”

  “Don’t touch it! Those are Mama’s!”

  But Penny ignored her, paging through the music as she picked up each sheet from the floor. “So this was your mother’s piano.” Penny’s voice was soft, as if she were inside a church. “Did she play a lot?”

  Esther gave a quick nod. It felt wrong to talk about her mother with Penny Goodrich.

  “Do either of you know how to play?” Penny looked from one of them to the other until Peter – the traitor – pointed his finger at Esther. “You can play the piano, Esther?”

  “Our mother was teaching both of us,” she said, shooting an angry glance at Peter, “but then she died.”

  “I wish I could play,” Penny said. “I think it would be so much fun to be able to sit down at a get-together or a birthday party and play songs to cheer everyone up.” She studied the cover of one of the books. “This has your name on it, Peter. Come on, sit down and play something for me.” He shook his head. “Please?” He shook it again. Penny held the book up in front of him and smiled. “I’ll make you a deal. If you play one song for me, I’ll finish sweeping the carpet for you.” Another shake of his head. “And I’ll empty all the wastebaskets for you, too. What do you say?”

  Once again, Peter turned traitor. He smiled mischievously as he swapped the carpet sweeper for the piano book and sat down at the keyboard. No one had played Mama’s piano since she’d died, and as Peter slowly picked his way through one of his beginner’s pieces Esther remembered how music had once filled the apartment like perfume. Everywhere Esther went, whether upstairs in her bedroom or on the back porch, she used to hear her mother practicing. It had always made her smile. That was one of the things that was wrong with their apartment now – the silence.

  Penny applauded when Peter finished, even though he hadn’t played very well. “We haven’t practiced in a long time,” Esther said. “Nobody felt like it.” She needed to explain, defending her mother’s reputation as a teacher.