The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff [highly recommended books txt] 📗

dropped to the edge of the bed. His embrace, which I usually welcomed, was little comfort. My mother had left me. The entire chamber seemed cavernous and empty.

Bubbe crossed the chamber and handed me a cup of watery tea. I wanted to hate her and her son now. They were the ones who had said the baby could not stay and who had all but forced my mother to flee with her to the street. But in reality, they had just stated the obvious, given voice to the truth we had all known but had not wanted to admit. The decision to leave with my sister—and to leave me behind—had been my mother’s and hers alone.

“Your mother is fair-skinned and doesn’t look like a Jew,” Pan Rosenberg offered, trying to be helpful. “She might be able to fit in on the street.” The idea was so ridiculous I might have laughed. Mama was gaunt and ghost-pale after months in the sewer, with filthy, torn rags as clothes. I should have given her Ella’s dress, I realized. I had been too distraught at her leaving to think of it at the time. That would not have made a difference, though. None of us could pass for normal people anymore.

That evening, I sat among the Rosenbergs for dinner, feeling the void where Mama should have been. “She’s coming back,” I told the others as we finished eating.

“Of course she is,” Bubbe replied, not sounding at all like she meant it. I calculated in my head how long it would take Mama, slowed by the weight of the baby and her own weakness from giving birth, to get to the hospital and return. Several hours maybe; a day at most.

Night came and still Mama didn’t appear. “Do you want to read?” Saul asked. I shook my head. Although I would have liked to be alone with him, I was too tired and sad to manage the walk. “I’ll be close by if you need me,” he said, his voice heavy with concern as I climbed into bed. Of course, he could not comfort me here.

After he walked away, I lay alone in bed on my side of the chamber, the space beside me now cold. Mama’s words rattled around over and over again in my head: I’ll come back to you, I swear. Her intentions seemed clear—deliver the baby safely to the hospital, then return swiftly to me. I wanted to believe her. But so much could have gone wrong.

I replayed in my mind the moment my mother left. I thought, too, back to that day in the ghetto when the German police had come and I’d hidden in the trunk. Mama, thinking I’d been taken, had been ready to jump and end her own life. Then, she would have sooner died than lived without me. Now she’d willingly left me behind. What had changed?

The baby, of course, was what had changed. Still, I could not resent my sister. In fact, I longed for her, too. I missed the tiny baby who had lain between us in bed for months in Mama’s belly and then for just a few nights outside. For a moment I had a sister and then she was gone. Once I had not wanted her at all. But she had come and I loved her and the loss was cavernous and vast. I had not imagined that the absence of something so tiny could feel so immense.

I slept with my arms flung over the emptiness where Mama usually lay. I half expected her to slip in beside me during the night and warm me with her tiny frame as she always did. I tossed restlessly, dreaming that she had come back, still holding my sister. “I just couldn’t leave her,” she said, passing the baby to me once more.

When I awoke, it was morning and Mama had not returned. But the dream was so real, I could almost see her beside me and feel the baby warm in my arms. Then the cold dampness jarred my bones. I lay still, overwhelmed by the wholeness of my loss. First Papa, then my mother and sister. My family had been taken from me piece by piece until there was simply nothing more left. My heart screamed.

The second day after Mama was gone stretched long. After breakfast, I retreated to our bed and curled up into a ball. “What are you doing?” Bubbe scolded when several hours had passed and I lay in bed still. “This is not what your mother would have expected of you.” She did not force me to get up, though. Instead, she brought me meals when it was time, potato mash for lunch and again for dinner. I tried to eat a little, but the thick starchy mixture stuck in my throat.

Saul came to comfort me several times throughout the day, bringing me water and a bit of food. He suggested a walk, but did not push when I declined. As the day wore on and I still did not get up, his concern grew. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

Turn back time. Bring my mother and sister back. For all of his good intentions, he was powerless to help. I shook my head sadly. “There’s nothing.”

Nighttime fell. Mama should have been back by now. Something had happened. I needed to go after her. But even if I could make it onto the street, I had no idea where to find her. She had surely reached the hospital where she was taking my sister by now, if all had gone well. Where she had gone after, though, and why she had not returned were mysteries.

Three days without Mama became four and then five. I stayed in my corner of the chamber for the most part, venturing away only for food or when it was my turn to fetch water. The days seemed endless. Mama had insisted on a routine in the sewer, at least before