Recap: Evie finally meets her father. The visit is disappointing. Her father doesn’t even ask about her skating or show any interest in it. He shows her a picture of his new wife and his children. It’s not at all how she envisioned the visit would be.
I plopped on my bed. What just happened? What about my dream? He had a whole new family. Did he really care about me or my skating or anything about me?
Who has a father she hasn’t seen since she was four who doesn’t even know what grade you’re in or what you like to do?
Two tears rolled down my cheek.
Junie jumped onto my bed. She licked away the tears and licked my neck.
I held her close. She seemed to know how I was feeling.
I rubbed her tummy. “Junie, I love you.” Why hadn’t my father said those words to me?
My phone buzzed.
I saw it was Rikki calling.
“Hi, Evie, I don’t mean to interrupt. I know you’re with your father now, but something important came up.”
I swallowed. “It’s okay. He left. Can, can you come over? I need a friend right now.”
“I’ll be right there.”
A few minutes later, Rikki was knocking on my bedroom door.
“You okay?” she asked.
I shook my head.
I sat up and motioned for her to sit beside me. “I can’t believe what happened. He came and…well, it was awful. Not at all what I expected. I dreamed so many times he’d be cheering me on at the competition. I mean, I think part of what drove me to skate was meeting him and pleasing him with a gold medal. He didn’t even ask about my skating. Nothing. He showed me photos of his new family.” Now the tears streamed down my cheek.
Junie jumped into my lap.
“That sounds so hard and disappointing. I’m so sorry.”
“But you davened. I davened. Why didn’t it work? Why?”
“I’m so sorry. Things can change. It can still become good. Hashem heard our t’filos. We can’t know why things happen, but we know He hears all of our prayers.”
I sighed. “I don’t even know if I want to skate in the competition anymore. What’s the use of it?”
“You worked so hard, and you are an amazing skater.”
“Rikki, enough about me. What were you calling me about?”
Rikki reached over and rubbed Junie’s head. “It’s actually about Junie.”
“Junie?”
“Yeah, Herb called and told me that they traced something with that device we gave them – you know, that white box the vet found in Junie’s ear. Anyway, they tracked it, and it looks like Junie’s former owner was that man Muhamed Abdullah.”
I stood up. “Whoa! He was the one who hurt her so badly!”
The thought of someone hurting an innocent dog like Junie made my stomach churn. What cruelty – but then, that was what we were fighting.
Rikki seemed to read my thoughts. “Cruelty is what Jews have to fight. It’s the opposite of what Hashem wants from human beings in this world.”
“Have you heard from your mother at all?” I asked. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand.
“No, I just hope she’ll come home soon. We miss her so much. By the way, I wanted to invite you to come for the whole Shabbos this week.”
“Thanks. I’ll ask my mother.”
“That lady Sarit is coming again. I really wish she wasn’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like me to take such a strong dislike to someone. I shouldn’t even be talking about it, but I just don’t like when she comes. She’s been coming almost every night to learn with my father, and then she keeps following me around and asking me questions. I just don’t like her.”
“That sounds hard.” I thought about how I’d felt that way about Maggie, and then I found out her background, and my feelings changed.
“Maybe there’s something she had to go through that made her more challenging to get along with?”
“Maybe. My father says when you see a fault in someone else, you may need to look inside and see if you have that same fault. I’m trying to do that.”
Junie started sniffing around and then rubbed against my leg. “She wants to go out. Come with me. We’ll take her for a walk.”
Rikki and I headed out the door with Junie at our heels. “Don’t you want a leash?”
“No, she never goes far,” I said. I glimpsed the FBI black car in the distance. We strolled down the street. The sun was just setting, and there was the smell of rain in the air. We’d just reached the end of the block when lightning slashed a yellow zigzag.
I whistled to Junie. She was sniffing around ahead of us. “Come back, Junie. It’s gonna pour.”
A second later, the sky opened up and sheets of rain poured down. “Junie, come.” I motioned at her to follow. We ran back towards the house. There was a loud boom of thunder.
We made it back to my aunt’s front yard, laughing and soaked. I opened the front door and we stepped inside.
“Hey, where’s Junie?” I asked.
I rushed outside, whistling and calling. Junie was nowhere in sight.
“She must be scared of the thunder,” Rikki said.
“Junie!” I yelled into the night. The sound of pounding rain was my only answer. Boom! Another explosion of thunder.
Aunt Ruthie came into the hallway. “I’ll get you some towels.”
“Junie ran off,” I said. “She must be terrified of the loud noises. She didn’t come back with us.” My voice rose.
“Don’t worry. As soon as the storm subsides, she’ll head back. She knows the way.”
I hoped Aunt Ruthie was right, but I had a pit in my stomach and an awful premonition that she wasn’t coming back…
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of Captured (Menucha 2025), an historical fiction novel, Please Be Patient (Menucha 2024), Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishing 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers 2022) , A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishing 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) and Alaskan Gold ( 2023-2024).
