They both looked at Miri, and she grinned an impish little elf grin. It was a look Noelle had never seen, and she wondered, again, how much of Miriam was going to surface now that she was letting herself be.

She couldn’t wait.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Miriam

On Friday, Hannah threw a dress at Miriam and told her to get rabbi-ready.

“You live here now, you’re going to services,” she said, and then drove them to the synagogue in Lake Placid.

The longer she stayed at Carrigan’s, the less everything felt like nostalgia and more like things she was doing for the first time. Parts like this, where she was singing Melissa Etheridge at the top of her lungs in the passenger seat while Hannah drove too fast, weren’t new—they’d been doing it since they were too young to be driving. But heading out to shul, just the two of them, was new. For years, Miriam had been practicing her faith while removed from the rest of her life, two separate bubbles that never intersected. It tickled the part of her brain that still startled easily at any kind of real emotional connection, but she sat with the feeling instead of shooing it away.

Your roots are wide and strong, Miriam Blum, she reminded herself, and love is being offered you every day, by family that spreads out as wide as the ocean.

Rabbi Ruth led a beautiful service, and even if all the faces were new, hearing the Kabbalat Shabbat always felt like coming home. Miriam hadn’t really thought what it would mean to her, to live in a home surrounded by people for whom Judaism was central to their daily lives. It was one more way she was going to be able to find herself here, and she was overcome with gratitude.

They’d invited Ziva to services, but she’d demurred, saying the girls needed time together. Miriam wasn’t sure where her mom and G-d were currently standing, and certainly wasn’t going to inquire. That was a conversation for when their relationship was much further repaired.

When they got back to Carrigan’s, her mother was standing on the big front porch, beckoning her over insistently.

“Miri, come quick, look!” Her mom was pink-cheeked and bright-eyed. She pointed up, and there was the aurora borealis, huge and otherworldly and perfect. She clutched Miriam’s hand, hard, and sighed. “I’ve had an epiphany,” she said finally.

Miriam rolled her eyes at her mother’s need for dramatic pronouncement, but she did it with some affection now.

“That’s fitting, given the date,” Noelle said, putting her arm around Miriam’s shoulders. Miriam looked at her in confusion. “It’s January sixth? Epiphany? No?” Ziva and Miriam both shook their heads.

“What’s the epiphany, Mom?” Miriam asked, not sure she wanted to know. “Did the northern lights tell you what to do with your life?”