Recap: Hope and Bonnie enjoy Shabbos at the Jacobsons. Rivkah’s favorite brother Avraham is home. Bonnie lets Hope tuck her into bed.
That Saturday night, Mrs. Bowers went out with her friends. Diana was upstairs with her friend, and she called down to me: “You need to take care of Bonnie.”
I was writing a letter to my parents. I took the letter upstairs and sat in the playroom where Bonnie was playing. I continued to work on the letter. I didn’t want to lie, but I wanted them to know I was okay. I couldn’t say anything glowing about the Bowers family, but I mentioned Bonnie.
Bonnie was playing with her dollhouse. “You feel sick.” Bonnie cradled a doll in her arms. “Your head hurts.”
“Me, too,” she said. “My head hurts.”
I was concentrating on my letter and what else to share. I wanted to mention Rivkah and Friday night at her house. I glanced up. Bonnie was lying on the floor.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.
She coughed a deep cough.
My neck muscles tightened. I felt her forehead. She was flaming hot.
“You better get to bed,” I said.
I carried her to her room and tucked her in. She had a very high fever. My hands burned from holding her.
I went upstairs. I stood in front of Diana’s door, debating what to do. The fever could be dangerous. We needed to call Mrs. Bowers. I knew Diana would not want me to disturb her. Still, this was an emergency. I knocked lightly.
“Who is it?” Diana’s voice sounded annoyed.
“It’s Hope.”
She didn’t open the door. “What do you want?” Her emphasis on you made me feel sorry I had knocked.
“Bonnie is sick,” I said to the closed door.
“So, what should I do about it? Go away. I’m busy.” I heard giggling voices.
I sighed and trudged back down to Bonnie’s bedroom on the first floor.
I peeked inside. She was gasping for breath, punctuated by a deep cough. I’d stay close in case she needed me.
She began coughing a deep barking cough. In between coughs, she whimpered, calling for her father. I rushed over and lifted her into my lap. The deep barks continued.
I carried her into the living room. Diana was there watching television. Her friends had all gone home.
“Do you have an emergency number for the pediatrician?” I asked.
Bonnie was gasping for air and barking.
“She looks blue.” Diana’s face registered alarm. “No, what should we do?”
“Can you call your mother? Do you know where she is?”
“Yes.”
She hurried to the phone.
“This is croup,” I said aloud. I remembered I’d had croup when I was little. I tried to remember what Sarah did for me. It was Sarah who helped me.
Diana came back into the living room. “My mother wasn’t there.”
She gasped. “Look. She can’t breathe. She’s gonna die.”
“Diana, go into the bathroom and turn on the hot water in the shower. Close all the windows. Get the room steamy.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She was so frightened she actually obeyed me. I prayed this would work.
I clutched Bonnie in my arms. Her breathing was more and more shallow. I rushed into the bathroom.
“Call 911,” I yelled over my shoulder.
I sat with her for what felt like forever. “Come on, Bonnie, cough up the phlegm. Keep coughing.”
Her eyes were rolling back in her head.
My whole body was shaking. ”No, keep coughing,” I yelled.
Slowly, slowly, a dot of color returned to her cheeks. Then, suddenly, she coughed a deep cough and a lot of phlegm came up. Her breathing started to sound less raspy.
I wrapped her in a blanket and brought her downstairs. “Please make some hot tea,” I instructed Diana. The police came, as well as an ambulance. The medics came inside and examined Bonnie. “She’ll be all right,” they said.
They complimented me on my actions.
I was still shaking.
The medics packed up and Diana walked them to the door. As she closed the door, she turned to me. There was a beat. “Thank you for what you did.”
She had genuine admiration in her eyes.
I was surprised.
“I’m glad I was able to do it,” I said.
I sat near Bonnie until she drifted off to sleep, and then I sat up a long time, writing in my journal about what had happened. I thought of what Rivkah would have said: “You have to thank Hashem. You had a miracle. Who knows if maybe you had to be in this house at this time just for this reason?”
Maybe, I mused. I was glad I was able to do what I had done, but I wished I could be back home with my parents or at least with them in Maine.
When Mrs. Bowers came home, I was already downstairs and so I never bothered to tell her what had happened to Bonnie. I didn’t think she would care anyway.
…
The rest of the week bundled along at a slow, steady pace. I worked at the Five and Dime store and I took Bonnie to the park. I saw Rivkah at the park, and she invited us again for Shabbos.
Mr. Bowers came home on Thursday. I was home when someone knocked on the door. I was in the hallway, so I answered the door. A man stepped inside and asked to see Mr. Bowers. I noticed his Southern drawl. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.
He met Mr. Bowers in the den. The playroom is right next to the den, so while I was watching Bonnie, I heard their conversation.
“Are you interested in merging your store with my chain?” Mr. Bowers asked.
“Care for a cigarette?” the man asked.
“No, thanks. My Five and Dime store is bringing in a high profit.”
“Yes, I looked at the numbers.” The man lowered his voice. “You ever let Blacks in your store?”
“This is Pennsylvania. We have laws, sir,” Mr. Bowers said. I heard the edge in his voice.
“We don’t want that in our business. You know what I mean. There was a man selling houses – a man with a big company. We had to run him out of our town. Selling to Blacks. Can you imagine?”
I gasped. Was he talking about my father?
“We’re looking for that man.” He lowered his voice so much that I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I felt a chill run up and down my spine.
A few minutes later, Mr. Bowers was walking the man to the door. “Yes, thank you for coming,” he said. I heard a tightness in his voice.
“We’ll talk,” the man responded.
The smell of cigarette smoke filled the air.
Mr. Bowers came into the den and asked me to come to his office.
He was frowning. “Hope, that man who came to see me just now is a wicked person. I have to warn you. That man who was here is part of the Ku Klux Klan. He hinted at it when I was speaking to him. He’s dangerous. I will never do business with someone like him. I didn’t realize who he was. Hope,” he lowered his voice, “he told me they are looking for you. They want to use you to get to your father.”
I felt my stomach plummet to my toes.
“Is this the reason your parents took off for Maine and left you here? You don’t have to answer. It’s obvious. Look, I am not going to tell anyone.” I assumed he meant particularly his wife, though he didn’t say it. She would never harbor someone who was in danger and might endanger her.
“You have to go to the beauty salon down Main Street, past the Five and Dime. Have them cut your hair short. Then go to Rabbi Jacobson and ask him how to change your name to a Hebrew name. We need to do this right away.”
This was my opportunity to ask Mr. Bowers about my older sibling. He was hardly ever home and now I had his attention.
“Sir, thank you so much for helping me like this. May I ask you something? Do you know anything else about my older sibling?”
“I have a photo.” He reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out an album. He quickly turned the pages and stopped at one page and turned it towards me. “That’s my wife Violet and me and your parents, and there’s your older sister, Alyson.”
I stared at the little girl. She looked around six or seven years old with pale blonde hair. She looked so familiar and then it hit me. She was the same girl who was in the photo I’d found in our attic. That was Alyson at an older age. Alyson. I had an older sister, Alyson. So where was she? What happened to her? Why didn’t my parents ever tell me about her?
“Thank you for showing me this. I didn’t know about her. Do you know where she is?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we lost touch after that photo was taken.”
He sighed and closed the album. “You must hurry now.” He handed me four dollars and I rushed out the door. Cutting my hair was not something I’d ever done. I had always had wads and wads of unmanageable, brown, curly hair, but this was a matter of life and death. I would have to sacrifice my hair.
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of the newly released historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishers, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishers, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams, a novel (Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, and “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022).
