“This is very sticky dough,” she would tell Emily as she rolled it out. “It’s very difficult to work with this dough, because it’s so short. You see?” She dusted the rolling pin and board with more flour and rolled briskly, as if to tame the stiff pastry, which she then cut into circles with an overturned teacup, or filled with honeyed poppy seeds, or spread into a glass pan to bake a cake of luscious prunes, their sweetness undercut with lemon. Nothing too sweet. That was the secret. Gillian said as much to Emily in her “Sixteenth Birthday” letter. Don’t doctor recipes. More is less, and sugar will only get you so far.
Jess awoke Thanksgiving morning to find Lily holding Blue Bear by the side of her bed.
“Where’s my presents?”
“Emily has them.” Jess was so woozy with jet lag and cold medicine that she could scarcely open her eyes.
“Can I nail-polish you?”
“What?”
“Can I nail-polish you?”
“No.”
“Can I pretend-nail-polish you?”
“Fine.” Jess buried her head in her pillow and thrust out both hands for Lily.
“Wait, I have to …” Lily scampered off and Jess drifted to sleep again.
A moment later, Jess felt something cool and slippery on her fingernails. Lily was coloring each nail with marker. Jess hoped that this would take a while.
At least Emily had Jonathan. He would swoop down from Cambridge and take Emily away, while Jess was stuck in Canaan for the long weekend. In one of Jess’s birthday letters, Gillian had written, I hope that you’ll share whatever comes your way. It was funny to imagine Gillian writing this so many years ago, thinking about sharing toys and candy, and cutting Black-and-White cookies straight across, so that each half had some chocolate and some vanilla. Jess had no desire to split Jonathan down the middle, except when she was angry with him, but she did envy Emily the excuse to get away.
Downstairs, Emily was already dressed and toasting frozen waffles. Heidi was checking her e-mail at the kitchen table. Richard had gone running.
“Would you like a plate?” Emily asked when Jess plucked a pair of waffles from the toaster.
The house was crammed with toys, particularly plastic toys in a certain shade of pink, a bright bubblegum tint like a contagion in every room. Pink plastic chairs and pink doll strollers, pink easels, and a pink and white miniature kitchen. As Jess nibbled her waffles, she made one of her never-in-a-million-years vows. If and when she had a baby, never in a million years would her daughter touch plastic or play with baby dolls. Jess would not allow pink in her someday house, nor would her little girl wear that color. No! Overalls instead, and green checked shirts. Toy trucks, or, better yet, tiny solar-powered cars.
“Let’s go outside,” Jess told her little sisters. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
For the next hour, Jess spotted the girls on their cedar climbing structure, and caught Maya at the bottom of the slide. She hoisted the girls into a pair of baby swings, and struggled to stuff their snowsuited legs through the holes.
“Higher!” squealed Lily, as Jess pushed the girls, one with each hand.
Maya shrieked. Lily’s hood flew back, and she threw her head back as well and laughed. The chains were short, and they squeaked. Still, if Jess closed her eyes for a moment, she could remember the long arc of the rope swing, Leon’s hand on her back, her own flight into the air.
“Underdog!” screamed Lily.
Jess ducked under the swing to the other side.
The yard faced south, and a thousand twittering sparrows sunned themselves in the boxwood hedge that separated the property from the Weldon place. The huge garden there looked desolate, striped with winter shadows. But that was not a shadow. No, that was a man in a dark suit. The developer? He wore a round-brimmed black hat, a white shirt, a black frock coat. Shiny black dress shoes. The little man was trying to look casual, as if he’d just happened by.
“Me! Me!” shrieked Maya.
Jess kept her eyes on the trespasser next door. He knew that she was watching him. He decided to make the best of it and walked right up to the hedge, where he smiled and called, “Good morning!” The sparrows seemed divided about him. Some fluttered up in alarm, and others stayed in the hedge, chirping, as he called out, “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” said Jess, examining his face. His eyes were the rare pure blue found in the very young or very old. He had a russet beard and rosy cheeks and wore no gloves. He blew on his hands.
“Hello, let me introduce myself,” the man said in a welcoming way, just as if he were standing on his own land. “My name is Rabbi Shimon Zylberfenig, and I am the director of the Bialystok Center of Canaan.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Jess.”
“And these are your children?”
“My sisters,” said Jess. “I’m just visiting.”
“Very nice. Where are you from?”
“Berkeley.”
“I have family in Berkeley!”
Oh, this was too strange. Jess remembered Rabbi Helfgott. My brother-in-law lives in Canaan! My wife’s sister’s husband.
“Do you know Rabbi Helfgott? My brother-in-law,” said Rabbi Zylberfenig with some pride. “A very famous rabbi on the West Coast. You have perhaps heard of him?”
“I met him recently,” said Jess.
Rabbi Zylberfenig beamed at her.
“It’s a funny coincidence,” said Jess.
“There are no coincidences,” said Rabbi Zylberfenig quite seriously. “I hope you’ll come by us for Shabbes at our center here in Canaan. We are not yet so big and well established, but we are a very warm community, very welcoming. You’ll come for dinner?”
Rhythmically, Jess pushed her sisters on the squeaking swings. “I think I’ll probably need to stay here.”
“Bring the family,” Zylberfenig urged her. “We always have room for more. In fact, we are always interested in making room.”
“Is that why you’re looking at the property there?” Jess asked.
“Only browsing,” Zylberfenig said, as though he were standing at a magazine stand and not a boxwood hedge.
The girls were fussing. “Up!” Maya cried, by which she meant “down.”
“There are many possibilities,” the rabbi said.
Rabbi Zylberfenig’s wife was waiting on the other side of the old Weldon place. The rabbi had parked on Pleasant Street, and Chaya was sitting in their van.
“Two acres at least. Beautiful,” Shimon said as soon as he returned to Chaya. They sat together and looked out at the white house with its peeling paint. Their little ones slept in car seats in the back. The other four were home.
“I met a very interesting woman from Berkeley,” Shimon continued. “She knows Nachum.”
“Really?” Chaya was slender, bright-eyed, English. “Is she staying? Did you invite her for Shabbes?”
“Of course.”
“She’s coming?”
Shimon smiled. “Who knows? I hope. She’s visiting her family.”
“Invite them too.”
“I did. I told her please bring the family.” Shimon’s eyes were still fixed on the two acres. A pair of giant oaks stood in the front yard. “Just four hundred thousand,” he said.
Chaya tsked under her breath. She wondered if the place was overpriced, and if they’d get a variance, and if these neighbors would object to a Bialystok Center. Some did and some did not, and you could never predict. But the big question was, Where would they find the money?
“We would have room for expansion.” Shimon started the van and released the emergency brake.
“Renovating that house …,” Chaya began.
“We won’t renovate. Im yirtzeh Hashem, we’ll crush it down.” As Shimon eased down the hill, a loose apple rolled along the floor of the van.