The Last Words We Said

by Leah Scheier

  “Do what?”

  “Turn yourself into a ghost.”

  His smile vanished. “But I am a ghost. And you’re trying to join me.”

  I plucked at the tattered edge of the blanket. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Write the story,” he said. “Write all of them. Stop using me as an excuse.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t have anything to write about.”

  “You sure about that?” he repeats.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Then you aren’t listening to your friends. They’ve been trying to tell you their stories forever.”

  Chapter 31

  “That’s quite a collection,” Rae remarks as I slide my manuscript onto the counter between us. It’s taken me three months, and I’m finally finished. Rae places a fresh-baked chai-latte muffin in front of me.

  I take a bite of it as she flips through the book.

  “You have a whole novel here,” she remarks. “What are you going to do with it?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. It’s enough for me if you read it and like it.”

  She doesn’t respond; she’s focused on the page in front of her.

  “Hey, no fair starting at the middle,” I say. I crane my neck to glance over her shoulder. “Why are you reading your part? You know how that goes.”

  She grunts and peels off a muffin top. “Yeah. I just wanted to check.”

  “Check what?”

  She looks up and shuts the manuscript. “My story—the one about vandalizing the van—it’s unfinished.”

  “I know. But this is all you told me. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions, remember?”

  She considers for a moment and glances hesitantly around the room.

  “Deenie isn’t here yet,” I say quietly. “And it’s okay, I know already. I know Danny interrupted you while you were marking up Rabbi Garner’s car.” She startles and I raise my hand. “If you read on, you’ll see that the rabbi’s story is about that day too. But he has no idea it was you. Neither does Deenie.”

  Rae looks away from me and begins to stack the muffins in a lopsided pyramid between us.

  “Rae, you can tell me, if you want,” I say. “I promise I’ll keep your secret, just like Danny did.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “You already know it was the rabbi. So what’s left to tell?”

  I laugh shortly. “Well, for starters—why would you do that? It obviously wasn’t random. Why did you pick his car?”

  Her hand shakes as she places the last muffin at the pinnacle, and the pyramid collapses suddenly, crumb topping scattering over the counter.

  “I was twelve,” she says finally. “It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “True,” I agree. “But why did you do it?”

  She sighs and picks absentmindedly at a cupcake liner, shredding it between her fingers. “You wouldn’t understand,” she says finally. “You’ve always been able to negotiate with your beliefs. Pick and choose. Find a comfortable space for yourself in this religion.”

  I don’t contradict her even though I want to. I’ve struggled with faith just like anyone else. But my story isn’t important now. Rae is finally telling hers, and I need to be open to hear her.

  “I could never do that,” she continues. “It was all or nothing for me. All good or all evil. There was no middle ground. How could there be? How could God be sometimes wrong?”

  She pauses, waiting for my reaction. She appears to expect a challenge. When I’m silent, she seems surprised—and a little pleased.

  “Maybe you remember that I was Rabbi Garner’s number-one fan, once upon a time?” she muses, smiling at the memory. “Went to every one of his after-school lectures. Sat at the front of the class. Hand always in the air.”

  I nod. “I do remember. And then you quit going. None of us could figure out why you stopped showing up. What happened?”

  She looks down, embarrassed. “I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. And I could never go back after that.”

  I don’t want to hear what she saw, and yet I’m dying to know. Something tells me that I’m going to regret hearing her next words, but I can’t help myself. “What was it? What did you see?” I ask her.

  “You can’t tell Deenie,” she says earnestly. “Promise. It will kill her.”

  “I swear. I won’t say a word.” She takes a deep breath, and I have the urge to take back my promise, tell her that she can keep her secret, whatever it is. If it’s a confession that will kill Deenie, I’m not sure I’m going to come out of it unscathed.

  “I saw Rabbi Garner in a coffee shop just off the highway. Up north, the exit after Dacula,” she begins. “I was on a family trip, and my parents pulled over so I could run in to use the bathroom. He was sitting with his back to me. At a booth in the corner.” She looks sorry for me, but I have no idea what she’s getting at.

  “So he was having coffee. So?”

  She shakes her head. “He wasn’t alone.”

  The penny drops. She doesn’t need to spell it out. But I’m ready to defend him before I’ve even absorbed what she’s trying to tell me.

  “You’re saying he was with a woman?” I exclaim. “So what? You don’t know who she was! How can you jump to conclusions? It could have been a cousin. Or an old congregant. Or—”

  “It wasn’t a relative, Ellie,” she says. “Relatives don’t kiss—”

  “You don’t know!” I interrupt heatedly. I can’t bear to hear this. “How can you be so sure?”

  The old fighting flame lights up her blue eyes. They blaze at me as she climbs to her feet. “I know what I saw, Ellie. And I knew in that moment that I could never listen to one more word about Torah or mitzvot from that man. From any man. But I also couldn’t tell anyone what I saw. Especially not Deenie. How could I tell my best friend that her father was a cheater?”

  We hear the closing door a second too late. There’s a little gasp from the next room, and we freeze in place. The light in Rae’s eyes flickers out as she looks past me.

  Deenie is standing in the shadows.

  No one speaks for a moment; Rae clears her throat over and over as I frantically replay the end of our conversation in my head. How much had Deenie heard? I wonder. What could we deny?

  Deenie speaks first, and her composure shocks me as much as her words. “It’s okay,” she tells us, advancing into the room. “I already know.”

  “You do?”

  She nods and slides in between us at the counter. Picks up a muffin and plucks the top off. Her attitude feels unreal; she’s impossibly calm, as if she’s practiced her reaction to this exposé and was now delivering a rehearsed act.

  I can hardly believe it. How could she be so accepting of the greatest transgression in the Torah? From her own father, of all people. The one whom we looked up to, the person with all the answers. Adultery was a sin that, according to the rabbis, one should die before committing. A revelation this awful should have blown her faith to bits.

  She answers our questions before we ask them. “I’ve known for years,” she tells us. “And I’ve made my peace with it.”

  She’s made her peace with it? How is that possible? Rae’s wordless, outraged splutter speaks for both us.

  “I don’t know what you think my father did,” Deenie continues evenly. “But I can tell you the truth, if you’re interested in hearing it.”

  We nod in unison. Rae slowly takes her seat again.

  “It was right before my bat mitzvah,” she begins. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rae nod. Their timelines match up, it seems. “I was hoping for a clue about my gift.” She smiles at the recollection. “I had my suspicions that they’d bought me the dress I’d been begging for, but I wasn’t sure. They were being very coy. So I decided to eavesdrop one night. I knew that it was wrong to spy on my parents.” She shrugs and shakes her head. “But I was only twelve, and I told myself that it was such a little sin. Anyway, I was more than punished for i
t in the end.”

  She pauses for a moment, and her eyes rest on the manuscript sitting beside me. “This stays between us, right?” she warns, placing her hand on the stack of papers. “My father’s story never gets told—do you understand?”

  “Obviously!” I say. “I would never do that.”

  She takes her hand off my manuscript. “You know that he wasn’t always religious, right?” she asks us. “That’s not a secret. He’s always been very open about his journey to Orthodoxy.”

  I nod. Some of my favorite Rabbi Garner stories were his religious firsts: his first Sabbath. His first week without bacon.

  “Five years ago, a girlfriend from his past got in touch with him,” Deenie continues. “She was going through a rough time, and she’d heard he was a member of the clergy. She said she was looking for advice. He agreed to see her in his office. For a brief appointment. It turned out to be a mistake. Because once he saw her, he didn’t know how to turn her away.”

  For the first time since beginning the story, Deenie seems uncomfortable. She lowers her head and crushes the muffin crumbs into the counter with her thumb.

  “It went too far,” she tells us in a low voice. “Not as far as you two seem to think. Not even close. They met several times. With each meeting, he found himself getting emotionally attached. Nothing physical happened, but the old feelings were still there—and it was getting harder to ignore. He knew he couldn’t keep telling himself that it was innocent, that their meetings were just counseling sessions. And yet he didn’t want to end it.”

  She sighs and looks up at our faces, as if she’s trying to read our reactions. I’m struggling to keep my expression understanding and nonjudgmental. But I’m scared to hear the rest of this story.

  “I heard all of this”—she continues—“my father’s confession to my mother, as I crouched over the open air vent in my bedroom.” She runs a hand over her forehead. “It was a lot for a twelve-year-old to take in. I could hardly stand it. My father was crying, begging my mother for forgiveness. ‘It’s over,’ he swore. ‘I asked her to meet me somewhere nobody knew us, and I told her I couldn’t continue being her counselor. That I should never have begun in the first place.’ ”

  Rae is shaking her head skeptically. I motion for her to be patient, but she can’t help herself. “But, that can’t be it,” she insists. “I know what I saw—”

  “You saw that she kissed him,” Deenie finishes. “I know. He confessed to that, too. That he did nothing to stop it. But then afterward, he stood up and walked away.”

  Rae doesn’t contradict her; she seems to consider the point for a moment. “So, then I was wrong?” she asks doubtfully. “You’re telling me I was wrong? Deenie, you don’t understand what this meant to me back then! It destroyed me. I was so, so angry. I thought that I’d spent years listening to a hypocrite. But you’re telling me I jumped to conclusions. He wasn’t actually a cheater?”

  Deenie’s eyes harden and her jaw tenses. “No, Rae, you were right. He was a cheater.”

  We’re both speechless for a moment. “But—but you just said—” Rae stammers.

  “Cheating doesn’t have to involve seedy motels and hidden credit card charges. In my father’s eyes he was a cheater. From the day he agreed to see her. From the moment that he started down a path that only led to one conclusion.”

  Rae rolls her eyes. “But it doesn’t count. He ended it before—”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Deenie says. “He once told me that the decision to place yourself in the way of temptation is just as bad as giving in to that temptation. That in some ways, the first sin is actually worse. When you make that choice, you’re still cool-headed. You aren’t swayed by emotion or desire. While you’re in the heat of the moment, there’s at least passion as an excuse. But when you make that initial decision, when you start down a path you know is wrong, you’ve passed the point of no return. And that’s what he’s been repenting for.”

  Rae shakes her head impatiently. “But he did turn back. He wasn’t the hypocrite I thought he was.”

  “So?” Deenie demands. “So what?” She seems angry at Rae’s understanding, as if she’d been expecting a condemnation from her friend and was disappointed to find forgiveness. “Why is everything so black-and-white to you? Why does everyone have to be either evil or good? Even if my father was everything you thought he was. Let’s say he was a serial adulterer.” Her face contorts in disgust. “Let’s say he’d committed every sin in the book. If he was a liar and a thief—or even a murderer—I’m asking you, so what? Why would that destroy your life or your beliefs? He’s just one man. He doesn’t define our religion. No man does!”

  “Well, to me he did—at least when I was twelve—”

  “You’re not twelve anymore! And if you want to reject our religion, or all religion, then that is your choice and I respect that. And I will love you no matter what.”

  Rae’s eyes fill up, and she shrinks back in her chair. “I love you too—” she whispers.

  “But don’t you dare blame your decisions on my father or on anyone else,” she interrupts. “They’re yours. So own them. You have no idea how lucky you are. I wish I could be as self-confident as you are. I wish I could be proud of my choices.”

  “Deenie, it’s okay,” I tell her, reaching out to take her hand. “Rae wasn’t blaming your father.”

  “She’s right, I wasn’t,” Rae says. “Back then I did. I don’t know, maybe I was just looking for an excuse. I’d been having doubts forever, and this just came to confirm them. And anyway, it doesn’t change anything now. I’m not planning to become a ‘born-again’ Jew or anything.”

  Deenie settles back on her stool and takes a deep breath. “It’s a great responsibility to be the leader of a community,” she says. “People look up to you. They expect you to be perfect. I’m sorry that seeing my father with that woman affected you so much. I wish you’d talked to me. I’ve always known that my dad is imperfect. I still respected and loved him—but I didn’t understand how he could know that something was wrong and yet be drawn to it anyway. It just didn’t make sense to me—until that New Year’s party.” She sighs and looks away. “I get it now.”

  Chapter 32

  I decide to introduce Nina to Deenie during winter break. As painful as my own guilt is, I’d managed to soften its impact with months of denial and imagination. I have to learn to deal with it now, and I’ve started relating to Nina as my helper, instead of the person standing between me and my fantasy. But Deenie has never imagined away her grief as I have. Instead she’s been drowning in it—for almost a year—and I’ve been standing on the edge watching.

  I can’t watch silently anymore. One afternoon I make an appointment to see Rabbi Garner for a consultation.

  He agrees with my suggestion immediately. “I wanted to take her to a therapist from the beginning,” he admits. “But Deenie was so resistant. I should have pushed harder, but I was afraid that doing so might backfire and she’d withdraw completely.”

  “I don’t think she was ready before,” I tell him. “But I believe she is now. I’ll talk to her.”

  “Thank you.” He hesitates for a moment and leans forward across his desk. “It’s more than grief over Danny, isn’t it? There’s something else there, something she doesn’t want to tell me. That’s what worries me.”

  I look away and focus on the heavy ledger on his desk. It’s hard to meet his eyes; I know too much—about his secret and his daughter’s knowledge of it, about the guilt that Deenie has been carrying forever. I know without asking that Deenie never told her father about her role on New Year’s Eve.

  I wish she had trusted her father with her burden; I think he, of all people, would understand her guilt. But if she isn’t ready to share it with him, I can’t betray her trust.

  “My therapist is pretty good,” I tell him. “Let me bring them together.”

  To my surprise, Deenie agrees to see her. I don’t even have to convince her.
I wonder if she’s suddenly open to the idea because she has nothing to hide from me now. I’ve listened to her story, and I haven’t rejected her. Instead, I want to get closer to her.

  The meeting with Nina is casual and relaxed. After a few minutes I leave them alone together and settle on the living room rocking chair where my mother used to sit during my sessions.

  The room is quiet and familiar. The curtains are drawn, and the lights are off, but I can make out the same old antiques and bric-a-brac, the dusty bookshelves crowded with ancient books. My mom stayed home to give Deenie and me some space, so it’s the first time I’ve been alone in this room.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been truly alone anywhere.

  “I miss you,” I say to the shadow in the corner.

  Danny emerges from the darkness and stands in the ray of sunlight breaking between the shades.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you anymore,” I tell him quietly. “I know that.”

  He doesn’t reply, and I rise from my chair to face him.

  “But I never got a chance to say goodbye,” I explain. “So I thought that maybe we can break the rules—just one last time.”

  There’s no judgment in his expression; he looks at me, waiting for me to continue.

  “I’m trying to do what you want—what you would have wanted. I’m listening now. To Deenie and Rae. I’m listening to your father.”

  He doesn’t respond, but I see gratitude in his eyes.

  “Your dad made an appointment for the ECT clinic,” I tell him. “It’s just an initial meeting; they call it an ‘intake and screening.’ I’m going to go with him. See what they have to say. And I’ll support him, whatever he decides.”

  He nods silently.

  “I’m listening to Nina, too, and to Ms. Baker. I finally chose a submission for the contest. Do you want to know which one I picked?”

  He nods his head.

  I glance down at my heavy knapsack. The manuscript is bulging from the open pocket. “Some of those are the stories you told me. But I chose one that I wrote myself. About the four of us.”