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

had been blessed with more children. Or a granddaughter if my son Micah had lived to have children.” His voice cracked as he saw the full spectrum of his loss splayed before him. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here with us.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised and touched by his words.

“You must find little bits of light, things like this to help you go on,” he added as he straightened.

“But how?” Mama had given me hope, and my sister, too. Both of them were gone.

“Find the things that give you hope and cling to them. That is the only way we will make it through this war.”

That night, I waited eagerly until the others went to bed, wanting to go to the annex and read the book that Pan Rosenberg had given me. I hoped that if I escaped into the story, I might find a brief respite from my constant worry about Mama.

After a while, a shadow appeared over my bed. It was Saul. He held out his hand to me, indicating I should come with him. I picked up the book Pan Rosenberg had given me and carried it along. We set out in silence, fingers intertwined. Normally I found our quiet walks together soothing. But nothing could ease my panic about my mother.

“I have to go after my mother,” I said when we reached the annex and settled into our close reading space.

Saul shook his head. “Impossible. There is no way to find her. You have to stay and live. It is what she would have wanted.” His words were a refrain of his father’s earlier. “Anyway, I need you here.” I turned to him, surprised. “That sounds selfish, I know. I didn’t know how much I missed you until you were gone that night to find food. Without you to walk beside me, I was lost.” He touched my cheek. “This is love, Sadie.” I stared at him in stunned silence, wondering if perhaps this was all a dream. “I know that now. I’m only sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

Impulsively, I leaned toward him and our lips met. I expected him to pull away. Our being together was wrong. For Saul, because of his lost fiancée. For me, because I did not believe that I could possibly be a woman he could love under these circumstances, or maybe at all. I had just lost everything. How was it possible to feel so much sorrow and joy at the same time? But both of us were swept away, powerless to stop the feelings that had grown between us.

Several seconds later, we broke apart. “But how can we possibly?” I blurted out. “I’m not religious.”

“Does that matter here?” He smiled. I wanted to ask what would happen to us if we made it out. Neither of us dared speak of a future, though. The moment would have to be enough.

I moved closer, taking comfort in the warmth of his affection. But my thoughts quickly turned back to my mother. “I’m just so worried.”

“Your mother would never leave you for good,” he said. “Not by choice. Something must have stopped her from coming back.”

The notion was not a comforting one. “She could have been arrested or hurt or worse,” I fretted. I waited for him to argue with me, and reassure me that it hadn’t happened. But he could not. “I never should have let her go,” I berated myself.

“You couldn’t have stopped her.”

I nodded, acknowledging the truth of what he’d said. “I just feel so powerless. Trapped down here, I can’t do anything to help her.”

“Maybe your friend can help.”

Ella, I remembered suddenly. The previous Sunday, in my sadness and shock after Mama left, I had not gone to see her. I was surprised that Saul had suggested I go to her now. He did not trust Ella and, under normal circumstances, asking her for help was the last thing I would have thought he’d suggest. “You made me swear not to go to her.”

“Yes. I was worried about you and wished you hadn’t gone, but she’s the one person who might be able to help.”

I considered the suggestion. In my worry, I had not considered asking Ella for help. The last time I had seen Ella had been nearly two weeks earlier. I had missed our regular visit and I didn’t know if Ella had given up or stopped coming. But I would try.

It was only Wednesday, I realized. I would have to wait another four days to see Ella. The days between passed slowly. At last, on Sunday morning, I set out from the chamber while the others were still asleep. In the tunnel, I stopped again, seeing a shadow ahead. Someone blocking my path. Panic rose in me. Bubbe, I realized, taking in the hunched figure. I relaxed somewhat. I had not noticed that she was not in her bed.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“I was just going to fetch water,” she replied.

“I can do that for you.” I took the empty jug, puzzled. It was always the younger people, me or Saul, who went for the water. She could not have crawled through the forty, nor managed the weight of the jug when it was full. Why did she think she had to do it now?

“Thank you,” she said when I returned with the jug a minute later. It was heavy and I walked alongside her carrying it. “I want to make soup and I didn’t have enough water for five bowls.”

“Four,” I corrected gently. That we were one less without Mama was like a dagger in my heart.

“Yes, of course, four,” Bubbe agreed. There was a confusion that lingered in her eyes.

A realization came over me. “Bubbe, are you feeling okay?”

“Fine, fine,” she snapped. “I’m an old woman. I forget things. That’s to be expected.”

Uneasiness rose in me. Bubbe had seemed to change during our time in the sewer, growing angrier and sometimes not remembering