Clothes were part of it, and my mother was more than happy to take me shopping, to buy me everything I’d seen in Mademoiselle and Seventeen and Sassy: high-waisted acid-washed jeans, Henley shirts, a pair of shortalls with suspenders that crisscrossed in the back, and even cropped T-shirts that showed a few inches of my belly when I stretched. “Don’t show your father these,” she’d said, wearing her usual worried look as she paid, and I’d hugged her and promised that I wouldn’t and told her that she was the best mom in the world. When I started school, the new kids saw a confident, smiling girl with tanned arms and legs and shiny, curly hair; a girl who, as far as they knew, had never been sick. Every morning, I spent half an hour on my hair, using anti-frizz serum and mousse and a curling iron to make it look like Elizabeth Berkley’s on Saved by the Bell. I wore it down, or in ponytails, with pink high-tops on my feet and my shirts always buttoned, or with collars that came up high, so that nobody saw my scar.
By Halloween I had a whole new group of friends, the popular girls and the boys who hung around them. Marissa was funny, with a dirty mouth, and she’d already kissed three boys and gone to second base with one of them. Kara’s parents were divorced and her mother had a boyfriend and Kara had the house to herself every afternoon. Kelsey was quiet and smart, but so pretty that she was a member of the popular crowd without even trying, and Britt had been Kelsey’s best friend since first grade, even though I wondered whether Kelsey had picked her because she was so ordinary-looking that she made Kelsey look even better, like a plain gold band showing off a diamond. There were boys in our orbit, not boyfriends, but boys who liked us, Derek and Marcus and Josh S. and Josh M., and now all of them were sitting there, staring at my mother, who was sobbing so hard that she couldn’t even get out the words she’d written down.
My dad stepped up beside her and put his arm around her waist. He whispered something that I couldn’t hear, but my mother shook her head and leaned so close to the microphone that her voice boomed out, making people flinch. I could hear the high-pitched whine from Uncle Si’s hearing aid as she said, “I don’t know why God chose for our daughter to be sick and to struggle, to have a condition she’ll be dealing with all of her life, but I think it’s made Rachel not just beautiful but strong, and appreciative of every day that’s been given to her, and I know . . .” She pulled back, shoulders shaking. I shot Jonah a desperate look, and he rolled his eyes back at me, as if to say I can’t believe this, either. It felt good to have my brother on my side, even though he’d been furious at me that morning, probably remembering his bar mitzvah, and how I’d been in the hospital the week before his big day and my mom had been so distracted that she’d forgotten to bring in his suit for alterations and Nana had ended up pinning his cuffs the morning of the service while Jonah had stood with his lips pressed together trying to act like it didn’t bother him and like he wasn’t going to cry.
“I know it’s not for us to question God,” said my mother in her wobbly voice. “And I know that every day with Rachel has been a gift, and I pray that we all have many, many more.” And then, when I was convinced that it couldn’t get any worse, now that she’d made my friends think that I was basically one of those bald, scrawny kids on the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s commercials, or like Alice, my hospital friend, my mother threw her arms around me and buried her face in my hair, holding me so tightly that I couldn’t move, could barely even breathe until Rabbi Silver and my father together had gently pried her away and led her, still crying, back to her seat.
Music was blaring through the walls of the bridal room, Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.” My friends were probably all dancing, their shoes off, wearing the monogrammed RACHEL socks that we’d bought as one of the party favors. I sat on the couch, still in my blue dress, thinking that I could just stay in here until the party was over. I’d say I didn’t feel good. After my mother’s speech, it was a guarantee that everyone would believe me.
“Rachel?” The door opened and Nana came inside, stepping carefully over the pile of my clothes.
“Well,” she said, “that was quite a performance!” I made a noise that wasn’t quite a giggle without uncovering my eyes. Nana came and sat beside me and I let myself lean into her, smelling dusting powder and Ivoire perfume.
Nana was my mother’s mother, but so different from my mom that sometimes I couldn’t believe they were even related. Nana lived in an over-fifty-five community just fifteen minutes away from us, a development full of man-made lakes and identical houses clustered around a golf course, but she was hardly ever there. She used her home like a changing room where she’d stop between trips to do her laundry and spend a week or two visiting friends. Then she’d repack her bags and take off again. “I have wanderlust,” she’d say, and she went everywhere, sometimes with tour groups from the synagogue, sometimes by herself. She’d take cruises to Alaska, tours through Israel and Europe and Japan. Once, she’d gone on safari in Africa, dressed in crisp khaki pants and ballet flats. She’d send postcards of the Wailing Wall and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, and bring home pictures of jaguars and lions, and laugh as she told us how every shadow through the canvas wall of her tent looked like a big cat but would turn out to be just a tour guide or one of her fellow travelers. She’d promised me that when I finished high school, I could choose a destination and she’d take me with her, anywhere I wanted to go.