“That’s after three days!” Honey retorts, her body jutting forward.

“Tell your mother she’s a tzadeikis,” she says to Honey, which is not the first time I’ve heard Mrs. Wine called a righteous woman. “And I don’t know who your mother is,” Aginéni says to me, “but I’m glad she has a daughter who likes to read books. Come back and visit sometime. With this one”—she nods to Honey—“or without.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “A Gut Yor, girls,” she rasps, wishing us Happy New Year in Yiddish.

“Shanah Tovah,” we say to the back of her housecoat, wishing her the same in Hebrew.

As we pass by her cane on our way out, I think it kind of looks like a shofar, the ram’s horn blown on Rosh Hashanah to awaken the congregation to repentance. I try to think of things I am sorry for, or that I want to do differently this year. Maybe I really could come back and visit Aginéni—I could bring her books. Everyone wants to be a better person, I think. Sometimes it’s just hard.

“I thought you were scared of her,” Honey says peevishly as soon as the screen door bangs shut behind us.

“I thought I was,” I say. Then I smile mischievously. “I thought you weren’t.”

“I’m not!” she scoffs. Then she smiles mischievously. “Don’t you give me that nahrishkeit!” She sprints down the porch steps and grabs the stroller.

“Vilde chaya!” I call, racing after her.

“Alte kaker!” she calls, waiting for me to catch up.

“Tra-la-la!” we sing at the same time, and then we run back to Honey’s house laughing all the way home.

On the day after Yom Kippur, we have a middle school assembly right after morning prayers.

“Succot is the festival of insecurity,” the speaker begins in a British accent, although Rabbi Adler introduced her as being from Israel. We only have school today and tomorrow before it closes for the eight days of Succot, and the auditorium is buzzing about who fasted on Yom Kippur, and what people ate to break their fasts, and plans for the festival next week.

“On Succot, we are celebrating and remembering when the Children of Israel lived in the desert on the way to the Promised Land—we lived in temporary huts, exposed to the elements,” she carries on calmly, despite the thrum of whispers and giggles. “We had no idea if we would get to the Promised Land—what it looked like, if we would be successful there, or if it even existed.”

She’s wearing a suit with an elegant silk scarf knotted at her neck and a smaller silk scarf holding back her dark brown hair. I study the way she speaks to her audience—looking around the room in a practiced and confident way.

“Succot is like the years of adolescence—like being a teenager.” She says the last part in a flawless American accent and then smiles as everyone laughs. She waits a beat before continuing, knowing that the whole auditorium is paying attention to her now. I see that Mr. Sandler—who, like the other general studies teachers, tends to mark assignments during Judaic Studies assemblies—has looked up, intrigued. I edge forward in my seat.