The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family

by Sarah Kapit

  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 just something about this song, sung in this way, at this very moment. It felt . . . well, Lara did not quite know what she felt.

  More Hebrew chanting followed, but Lara did not read along in the prayer book. She stared ahead, as if the stained-glass windows of the sanctuary offered answers for what she ought to do next.

  “Tonight we begin a very difficult job,” the rabbi said. Lara squinted at the book, searching for the rabbi’s words somewhere on the pages.

  “FYI, this is the part where I begin my sermon,” she said. “These words aren’t in your books. And I’ll try not to take too long. I know it’s late and many of you aren’t going to be able to eat or drink for the next day. Plus, the whole parking situation is bad. I get it.”

  Soft laughter rippled throughout the room. Lara glanced at her watch, hoping that the rabbi’s sermon really was short, or at least short-ish. That probably wasn’t a very good thing to think on Yom Kippur. She just couldn’t help it.

  “So, every year we talk about atonement. Forgiveness. Doing better. And yet every year, we all fall a bit short. We all do things that we wish we could take back, if only we had the chance.”

  Lara could practically see the Rosh Hashanah dinner in her mind. She could feel the terrible words tumbling out of her mouth.

  “But of course, we can’t take things back. We can only try to atone. That’s the entire purpose of Yom Kippur. So how do we do that, exactly? Well, that’s where things get more complicated. I wish I could give you clear instructions, a recipe for how to get forgiveness. Unfortunately, no such magic recipes exist. Asking for forgiveness is hard work. And the person you’re asking for forgiveness from has absolutely no obligation to give it to you. However much you might want it.

  “We can ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, or on any other day. That’s definitely a start. But getting forgiveness— really, truly getting it—is much harder than that.

  “We need to show others why we deserve forgiveness. And that’s not something that can be done in a few words or a card. That requires ongoing action. It requires work. It requires us to think long and hard about the people we want to be.”

  More words came out of the rabbi’s mouth—words about responsibility for one’s actions. Showing empathy toward others. Willingness to change. After a while, it all kind of ran together in Lara’s mind. She could only concentrate on one thing.

  She had to get Caroline’s forgiveness. No. She needed to earn Caroline’s forgiveness.

  As the rabbi concluded her sermon and the choir broke into the final song, Lara began to form a plan. It wasn’t a perfect plan, to be sure. But she was going to give it her very best shot.

  * * *

  * * *

  Lara knew exactly what she had to say. She’d repeated the words in her head for the last ten minutes, while she and her parents struggled through the rather large crowd. When they finally emerged, Caroline was waiting at the synagogue entrance. Lara took a deep breath and prepared for the big moment.

  “I messed up. I shouldn’t have been mean to everyone, and I definitely shouldn’t have been mean to you,” she began. “I don’t entirely know how, but I want to make it up to you. I promise.”

  Caroline tapped her shoulder twice. It was her signal for “wait until my tablet is out and I can talk.” Lara did not want to wait. Not even a little bit. But she owed it to her sister to try.

  As soon as they arrived home, Caroline pointed toward the stairs. She wanted to talk. Lara didn’t try to hide the wide smile that broke out on her face.

  There were so many things she wanted to say, but Lara knew she should give Caroline the chance to speak first. She resisted the urge to peek at the screen as her sister tapped out her response.

  “Are you just apologizing to me because it’s Yom Kippur?” Caroline asked. Her computer voice pronounced the holiday incorrectly.

  “No!” Lara insisted. Then she thought about it. “Well, the rabbi’s sermon did make me think, but I’m not apologizing just because it’s Yom Kippur! Come on, Lina-Lin, you know I’ve apologized to you about a bajillion times since . . . you know. Since I said all of those horrible things. I know it’s not enough. But I want . . . I want to earn your forgiveness.”

  Caroline stared off into s
pace for a bit. Then she began tapping once more. “Yes. And I want to forgive you. Really, I do. I know I’m not perfect. I have made mistakes too.”

  Lara quirked one eyebrow upward. She suspected her sister was referring to the fake rat incident. Lara very much wanted to hear that whole story. Undoubtedly it was quite interesting. But now wasn’t the time. Now was the time to prove that she, Lara, was sorry. Super sorry. Super super sorry, even.

  “So, do you accept my apology?” Lara blurted out. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the most subtle approach. After a week and a half of begging for Caroline to give her even a few measly minutes to talk, Lara wasn’t terribly interested in taking the subtle approach.

  “I guess so,” Caroline said finally. “I probably didn’t have the right to be so mad at you in the first place. It was my fault that I did the rat prank. You were just telling the truth. I deserved it. Although Dad and everyone else didn’t.”

  “I know,” Lara said. “I wish . . . I wish I could make it better.”

  Caroline did not say anything to that. Lara drew in a shaky breath and repeated her question for the millionth time. “Can you try to forgive me? For what I said to you, not for anything else.”

  Much to Lara’s surprise, her sister’s reply was quick.

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY:

  THE CASCADE

  LOCATION: Bedroom, erev Yom Kippur

  EVENT: C. forgives me.

  QUESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION: Can everyone else forgive me too?

  Lara had thought that Caroline forgiving her—finally!—would mean a return to normal-ness. Or at least something close to normal-ness. Unfortunately, no such thing occurred.

  It wasn’t that Caroline was mean, exactly. Of course, even when they were officially fighting, Caroline hadn’t been mean. She’d just avoided Lara at every possible opportunity. But now that they’d made up, Caroline showed little inclination to do any of the usual Lara-and-Caroline–type things—a fact that frustrated Lara.

  Which was how she ended up spending Yom Kippur afternoon with Aviva, baking cupcakes. Well, Aviva did most of the actual baking. But Lara cracked eggs and stirred bowls at her cousin’s instructions. Quite generously, she didn’t even complain about Aviva being bossy.

  Since it was still Yom Kippur, Noah and the grown-ups were nowhere to be found. They were fasting and didn’t get to eat until sundown. Lara supposed all the cupcake smells were quite unpleasant to endure under the circumstances. Even if they would all be eating them later.

  Next year, Lara realized, she and Aviva would be thirteen. That meant they would fast too. It all seemed so odd and adult-like. Lara wasn’t at all sure she felt like an adult. Did adults make so very many mistakes?

  At least Dad’s absence from the kitchen meant that Lara could avoid the bad feelings that overcame her every time she saw him. She needed to apologize to him. She knew she did. If only she could figure out how.

  Right as Aviva started taking the cupcakes out of the oven, Caroline appeared. In no time she was enlisted into decoration duty. To no one’s surprise, her icing skills proved far superior to Lara’s and even Aviva’s.

  Lara relaxed ever so slightly. Maybe everything wasn’t quite back to the way it ought to be, but at least Caroline was okay being in her general proximity. That was a definite improvement over the previous ten days.

  “That’s a very nice tree,” Lara told her, admiring her sister’s cupcake.

  “It’s not a tree,” Caroline informed her.

  “Oh. What is it, then?”

  Caroline did not respond until she had completed the cupcake. Now that the zigzaggy lines of icing were setting, Lara couldn’t even guess what her sister had created.

  “Nothing in particular. It’s just a pretty pattern.”

  “Oh.”

  Since when did Caroline make drawings of nothing in particular? Probably around the same time she started playing pranks on people with her new friend. Lara tried to stop herself from frowning. But she could not stop herself from talking.

  “I thought you forgave me,” she blurted out in the midst of a rapidly failing attempt to make an icing-leaf.

  “I did.”

  Lara knew she should just let it go. But after ten days of waiting to have a real conversation with Caroline, she wasn’t in much of a letting-things-go mood.

  “Well then why aren’t you acting like it?”

  “How am I supposed to act? I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” Caroline said.

  “Yes, but . . . ugh. I don’t even know. Forget it.”

  Face uncomfortably hot, Lara concentrated on trying to salvage her now-lopsided leaf. Meanwhile, Caroline began a new cupcake without further comment. Lara could tell that Aviva was following all of it, but she didn’t say anything either. Thankfully.

  After they completed a full tray of cupcakes, Aviva got up and busied herself with cleaning the kitchen counters. She insisted on doing all of it herself because apparently Lara couldn’t be trusted to use a washcloth without disrupting the “system.”

  And still Caroline did not speak.

  Only the ping of Caroline’s phone interrupted the silence. When Caroline glanced at the screen, she made a not-happy face.

  “Who is it?” There was really only one person who ever texted Caroline, but Lara figured she should ask anyway.

  “Micah.”

  Lara frowned. She had plenty of things to say about Micah. Of course she did. Still, right now she needed to be a good sister and earn Caroline’s forgiveness. It was, perhaps, not the best time to unleash all of her Micah-related opinions. However justified those opinions might be.

  “Are you still friends with him after, well, everything?” Lara asked.

  Instead of answering the question, Caroline stared at her phone as though it might suddenly grow feet and start tap-dancing through the kitchen. She glanced at the screen but did not type a response for a good minute.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “At least, I think so. It’s complicated.”

  Well, Lara had plenty of ideas for how to un-complicate the whole situation. Dumping Micah as a friend would certainly un-complicate things, would it not? But even though part of her really, really wanted to tell Caroline she ought to do just that, she stopped herself.

  It was time to be advice-giving Lara, not opinion-giving Lara.

  “Well, do you want to keep being friends with him?” she asked.

  Caroline’s answer came quickly. “Yes. I do. At least, I think so. But I don’t want to keep doing mean things with him. I just want to text and sit with him at lunch and things like that.”

  “Then that’s what you need to tell him. And if he’s not okay with that, then good riddance to him.”

  There. Lara was pretty good at the whole advice-giving business, if she did say so herself.

  Yet Caroline still looked doubtful. “It’s not that easy. I’m not like you. I can’t just say what I want to say all the time. Even with my tablet.”

  Lara paused. Lately, her big mouth had caused catastrophe. Multiple catastrophes, in fact. Yet Caroline wanted to be more like her?

  Well, maybe that was something for Lara to work with. An opportunity. Lara summoned every bit of confidence she possessed. She did her best to ignore the whispers in the back of her mind that Caroline didn’t want her help. Would never, ever trust her again.

  Because Caroline had forgiven her. And she was going to prove that she deserved it.

  “Yes, you can. You can tell Micah exactly what you mean,” Lara told her sister. “And I’m going to help you do it.”

  Caroline’s face twitched, but then broke out into a smile. “All right then,” she said. “Give me your lessons in being bossy.”

  * * *

  * * *

  When Caroline returned to school after Yom Kippur, bright
orange dots raced through her mind’s canvas. No matter how she tried to force her thoughts into calm blues and greens, the awful orange kept coming back.

  Lara grinned at her before they parted ways. “You nailed bossiness lessons and you’re going to do great with that boy . . . I mean, with Micah.”

  Her sister was very clearly not a fan of Micah, but Caroline appreciated the effort nevertheless. She thanked Lara and went off to start her day. Throughout first period, Caroline kept replaying their bossiness lessons from the previous night.

  “You can be plenty bossy,” Lara had told her. “You tell ME what to do all the time!”

  At first Caroline had protested. With the two of them it was always Lara who led Lara-and-Caroline, as she knew perfectly well. Lara came up with the big plans, and then Caroline helped carry them out. That was just how things were. And yet . . . maybe things could change. Maybe they had already changed. After all, Caroline had befriended Micah and pulled off two admittedly ill-advised pranks before her sister even discovered it. Now she just needed to find a way out, while still somehow managing to keep Micah as a friend.

  She saw him for the first time in Experimental Art class. At the moment they were making sculptures out of recycled materials. Caroline still wasn’t sure what she really wanted to do for the assignment, but Micah was quite enthusiastically stacking towers of bottle caps.

  “I want to talk,” she told Micah. That was exactly as she’d planned.

  “Cool,” Micah replied. He added another cap to his stack, which was now teetering rather perilously in his work space.

  “Okay. Good,” Caroline said.

  Taking in a deep breath, she turned back to the tablet screen. There was so much she wanted to say. Lara would be able to find the rights words, she knew. She just needed to remember Lara’s bossiness lessons.

  She began to type.

  “I like being your friend. But I don’t like some of the things we’ve do—”

  Before Caroline could finish typing the word done, a stampede of unpleasant sounds came. From the spot right next to her.