“One of her sayings was, ‘Quien quere a’ la rosa, non mire al espino.’”
Although Caroline guessed that rosa meant “rose,” she otherwise had no idea what any of it meant.
“It means ‘If you love a rose, you must ignore the thorns,’” Ima explained.
Frowning, Caroline considered the matter. The idea of Lara being a rose seemed a little much, but okay. Suppose that her sister was, in fact, a rose. Caroline certainly loved her. But why should she have to ignore the rose’s thorns—all the things about Lara that made her angry and exasperated and everything else?
“Thanks, Ima,” Caroline typed. “That is very interesting. But I do not think that saying is true.”
“Why not?” her mother asked.
Caroline thought about it. Finally, she answered. “When a rose pricks me, I can’t ignore its thorns.”
Ima rubbed her eyes. “I understand you feel that way now, but you won’t always. You two will get past this.”
“Maybe,” Caroline said. I hope so, she added silently.
As Ima left, Caroline returned to her letter. Somehow, she managed to fill up three whole paragraphs describing how very sorry she felt.
She signed the letter in her prettiest handwriting.
Hopefully that would be enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
EVENT: Nothing in particular.
QUESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION: What’s the right way to say I’m sorry?
During the next week, Lara made it her mission in life to apologize as frequently and fervently as she possibly could. She apologized in speech. She apologized in writing. She even attempted an apology drawing, although that turned out so hideous that it needed to go straight into the trash. None of it seemed to affect Caroline in the slightest.
Her luck was a little better with her brothers. Benny, while not exactly happy with her these days, at least responded to her hellos and how-are-yous most of the time. Noah still refused to speak with her, but he’d stopped scowling. Well, mostly. It was something, Lara told herself.
Dad was Dad. He didn’t say a single word about what Lara had done, and she didn’t dare bring the subject up herself. But a distinct feeling of uncomfortable-ness lingered between them, and so she found herself searching for any excuse to avoid her father. It was rather lonely. But it at least helped fend off the constant feelings of guilt.
Lara was beginning to think that perhaps the real mystery was how any family ever stayed together, when one mistake could so easily tear them all apart.
By the time erev Yom Kippur came around, the general mood in the Finkel house was approaching an all-time low. For the first time she could remember, Lara welcomed the prospect of spending a few hours in services at synagogue. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with Caroline’s quiet anger or Dad’s emptiness or Ima’s coldness.
Everything was not normal. Lara felt thoroughly tired of trying to pretend that it was. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend to be happy on Yom Kippur.
The drive to synagogue was full of heavy silence. Finally, Ima spoke. “You girls have a choice. Would you like to go to the children’s service with Benny, or the adult service with your father and me?”
“The adult service,” Lara said immediately.
In truth, the children’s service was probably—okay, definitely—going to be more fun. Even so, since Lara did not consider herself a child, she would not attend the children’s service. She assumed that Caroline felt the same way.
Next to her in the back seat, Caroline clattered away on her tablet.
“The children’s service,” she said.
Lara’s stomach twisted in a most unpleasant way. She could not help but interpret her sister’s decision as a personal insult.
As the service began, Lara tried to put all Caroline-related thoughts firmly to the side. She stood up when the rabbi said to stand, and read along with the words in both Hebrew and English. Trying to figure out how much of the Hebrew she could read without looking at the English transliterations was a game of sorts, and one that Lara was quite good at.
When it came time for the Al Chet prayer—the special prayer for Yom Kippur—she recited the list of wrongdoings along with everyone else.
“For the sin we have committed before You by a haughty demeanor.”
Lara winced. Had she been haughty? Probably.
“For the sin we have committed before You by the prattle of our lips.”
Another wince. That one definitely applied to Lara.
“For the sin we have committed before You with proud looks.”
Proud looks? Now that was just unfair! Honestly, it was almost as though this entire prayer had been written just to make her feel bad.
“For all these wrongs, we atone,” the congregation chanted.
There! Lara had said the words. She’d tried to apologize to her family members approximately a bajillion times over the past week and a half. And now she’d atoned officially. That had to be enough, right?
A violin began to play. It started as a murmur of low notes, barely loud enough for Lara to hear from her spot in the twenty-third row. The instrument sang, reaching higher and higher notes. It was as clear as any member of the choir. A piano plunked along steadily in the background. Together, the music they made was the only sound in the entire sanctuary. Even the baby in the second row had stopped wailing. There was nothing aside from the song, slow and haunting.
It shook Lara to the core.
A few minutes, or perhaps a few hours into the song, the cantor chimed in. Lara recognized the song from other Yom Kippur services—“Kol Nidre”—though she could not say what a single word meant. At that moment it did not matter.
“. . . sah-lach-tee kid’vorecha,” the cantor concluded.
The spell lingered after the cantor’s voice broke off, after the final note from the violin reverberated around the room. Lara stared at the words of her prayer book. Music rarely moved her, and prayer more rarely still. And yet there was
