Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry (Uso, shidarezakura), from an untitled series of flowers and birds (1834), Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎

Rifka

It had only been a week since cancer took my mother. It had bloomed inside her ovaries and slowly withered her to ashes. I felt lost, like a car without a steering wheel rolling blindly with no direction.

“Rifka, come help me in the kitchen,” Ms. Schwartz called out to me. She became friends with my mother when I was in her Hebrew class four years ago and had since become a staple at our home during holidays and Friday night Shabbat dinners. When my mother was diagnosed, she took it upon herself to take care of us and was here almost every day.

I wanted her to go home.

Begrudgingly, I moved through people leaning against the countertop or standing by the doorway. There were friends drinking wine, cousins eating appetizers, laughter trickling in from down the hall. 

I wanted them to leave too.

“Here,” she said upon my entering. “Take these lox to the table, we’re out.”

She handed me the ceramic plate decorated with thinly sliced salmon. Her eyes held a note of worry as she gazed at me, but she said nothing. Everyone had been looking at me that way for the past two years. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t bring my mother back. 

When she had been diagnosed right before Passover two years ago, my parents sat my sister Rachel and me down in the nice sitting room. I knew it was serious because we hardly ever used that room. It was for the pristine white couches, antique coffee table, and guests. I was twelve. I didn’t fully understand everything about cancer, but I knew my mother would die. 

They assured us she would be fine, she had excellent doctors, and the treatment would be thorough. 

“I’ll just buy some wigs and see what it’s like to be an orthodox Jew for once!” she joked. 

I set the lox down on the table next to the rest of the food. Bagels, cream cheese, tomatoes, capers, tuna salad, deviled eggs, and pickled beets had been sitting out for a couple hours now. It was starting to smell like sharp, musty feet. 

Gross, I thought to myself. I just wanted a bacon cheeseburger.

“Sacrilege!” I could hear Ms. Schwartz’s voice in my head and rolled my eyes at the thought. My parents never kept kosher, despite my mother being raised in a home that did. I thanked her silently for that; the thought threatened to unleash feelings I had carefully kept at bay all morning.

I looked over at my dad sitting in the living room with my uncle. His eyes were glazed over like they had been for the past week. He was high. My mother had smoked marijuana during her treatment to help with the side effects. They told us it was her medicine. It seemed to help her pain, but to me, it took her away. She had been my North Star, full of energy and laughter, but the drugs turned her into a silhouette, existing deep within a fog I was unable to penetrate. My dad said he never touched the stuff until last week. I didn’t believe him.

He turned his head to me then, as if sensing my thoughts. We met eyes and he motioned for me to come join him. When I sat down the stench hit me.

“You smell like weed,” I whispered in his ear.

“Oops,” he said with a smile. “Do you want some?” he asked and handed his cup to me. There was a translucent brown liquid inside that smelled like battery acid. Whisky. 

“Dad, I’m fourteen.”

“Your mom just died.” I nodded my head. I had tried wine before on Shabbat and at Passover seder. I took a gulp. The liquid scorched my throat, and I coughed hard. Vomit threatened to unleash itself onto my Mary Janes. 

“Girl can’t hold her liquor!” my dad said to my uncle Ben who was already laughing. 

“I was already going out and getting wasted at her age,” he replied.

I shoved the cup back into my dad’s hands and padded quickly across the room, my steps echoing off the wooden floors like a steady fall of rain. My mother would never have allowed me to drink whisky, much less make fun of me afterward. I rushed up the wooden staircase, my Mary Janes slipping off as tears clouded my vision. She had bought them a size too big so they would fit me by the funeral. 

I slammed my door, the “keep out” sign ricocheting against it in the hallway as I crumbled onto my fuzzy purple rug. I had begged my mom to buy it for me for Chanukah three years ago. It seemed so insignificant now. So dumb. I would trade this meaningless cheap rug for her life if I could. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but wring my hands in my boring brown hair on my stupid rug in my too-big Mary Janes and cry. 

I rubbed my face with one hand and grabbed my phone off my bed with the other. I saw that my best friend Sage had texted.

how’s everything going?

terrible 

i’m so sorry i wish i could be there

me too

“Rifka?. . .Are you ok?” My little sister’s voice came floating toward me moments later. I wiped my eyes again.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. A heavy silence wafted between us. She shut the door and sat next to me.

“I miss her too,” she said quietly. Thick air floated between us for a few seconds, maybe minutes, I couldn’t tell anymore. Time felt like a made-up thing people tell children in bedtime stories. I couldn’t seem to hold on to it or decipher its length. “Do you want some tea? I could boil some water for you,” she finally asked.

“You shouldn’t be taking care of me.” 

“Mom said we have to take care of each other now.” Her brown eyes, the same dark shade as mine, reflected the pain I felt swimming in my own. 

“Ok,” I said and wiped my face again for good measure. I took her hand in mine and led the way back into the sea of people.

Once we reached the kitchen, she grabbed my mother’s copper tea kettle and filled it in the sink. Our mother always made tea for us when we were sick or sad. 

“Do you want some too?” I asked her.

“Ok.” 

“What kind?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

My cousin Isaac was showing his sister something on his phone in front of the pantry door. I sighed and prayed silently that everyone would go home soon. 

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Oh, my bad,” Isaac said and pushed his sister out of the way.

I rolled my eyes and opened the pantry door. Upon the layered shelves of the walk-in pantry, next to the whole grain oatmeal, stood various glass jars containing my mother’s tea collection: nettle for allergies, licorice root for a sore throat, ashwagandha for sleep, kava for stress, and chamomile for calm. My dad used to call her a witch. She would laugh and say she was a good witch, a healing witch. I almost smiled at the fading memory. She used to say she was grateful for modern medicine but only if it was necessary. Herbs could heal just about anything short of antibiotics and surgery. I believed her until she got cancer. 

Once our chamomile tea was steeping in our mugs, Rachel suggested we go outside, and I agreed. The late October heat felt like better company than sympathetic eyes and prying questions. We quietly snuck through the sliding glass door onto the patio and set our mugs down on the wicker table. Rachel immediately plopped into one of the matching cushioned chairs, sliding her feet underneath her crisscross style. I was about to sit too when I heard a shuffle of rocks and a giggle come from the side of the house. I rolled my eyes and heaved a sigh. It was probably Isaac and his sister again. I had caught them out here smoking a joint during Passover dinner when all the kids were supposed to be searching for the afikomen. I scooted my chair out of the way and stomped around the corner of the house, getting ready to tell them off when I halted so fast, I almost fell over.

My dad’s face was smashed up against Ms. Schwartz’s, their hands roaming. 

I silently backed around the corner and pressed against the wall. 

“What the fuck?” I wasn’t sure if I said that aloud or not. I wasn’t sure if I should look again or not. My breath felt disjointed like I couldn’t get enough of it into my lungs. 

“Rifka, are you ok?” I turned toward my sister. She had started getting out of her chair.

“Go inside!” I whispered as I pushed her toward the door. The pit in my stomach was cracking open. I pushed her again, and this time went with her. I slid the glass door shut as quietly as possible and locked it. They could figure out how to get back inside on their own, I didn’t care. 

“Rifka, what?”

“I have to go,” I cut Rachel off. “Don’t go outside.” I moved quickly through the clumps of people. I couldn’t think. I had to get as far away as possible.

“Rifka!” my sister yelled after me. I passed through the front door and started running. A fire was consuming me with a rage that had been lying dormant for what felt like centuries. I hated him. I hated Ms. Schwartz. I hated my mother for dying. 

I ran past the stucco-covered houses in various shades of beige. Past children on tricycles, and saguaro cacti basking in the afternoon sun. I ran until the blacktop reverberated through my knees, and blisters began forming where my Mary Janes met my skin. I only stopped when I reached the end of the neighborhood where the houses lined the barren desert. Gasping air into my lungs I gazed out at the vastness of it. Succulents and cacti littered the dirt like paint splatters on an amateur painting. I wasn’t supposed to go into the desert without an adult and a trail. There were lurking creatures: scorpions, rattlesnakes, and Gila monsters. I stepped off the pavement. Whatever was waiting for me out here couldn’t be nearly as bad as what I had left behind. 

I walked far out enough that I could still see the houses, but also feel the wilderness surrounding me. A small rock formation about my height sat a few feet ahead, so I moved toward it. I climbed on top and sat. It took me a minute to catch my breath. Sweat dripped down my temples, and I found myself wishing I had water. At least I was far away. . .but now what? I needed a distraction. I reached for my phone in my back pocket on instinct and realized this dress didn’t have pockets, I had left it at the house. 

Great. 

I reached my arms out over my crossed legs. Alone, that’s how I felt out here. But not the kind of alone I felt back at the house. There I felt like I could be surrounded by people, but still be the only one in the room. I was unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Here I was alone, but part of something, part of nature, part of the world. I just existed, like the rock, or the cacti. 

The sound of cars zipped by in the distance and the flat smell of dirt filled my nose with each breath. A lizard crawled across the rock by my foot, and I had the urge to stomp on it but stopped myself. I didn’t want to kill it; I was just angry. 

§

I stayed on the rock until the sun began to fade, and choirs of crickets filled the empty spaces between saguaros. 

“Hey,” Rachel’s voice jolted me out of my haze.

“How did you find me?” I asked as she climbed up the rock to sit next to me.

“You left your phone, so I figured you weren’t far. I walked around the neighborhood for a while till I saw you out here. Everyone’s looking for you.”

“Good.”

“They’re worried.”

“Good.” 

“You’re such a jerk sometimes,” she muttered almost inaudibly.

“And you’re a suck-up, so we’re even,” I spat back. She looked at me with narrowed eyes but didn’t say anything. 

I turned back around to stare out at the desert. A moment later, I felt her crawl onto the rock with me. We sat in silence, watching the vibrant orange and pink streaks caress the sky.

“Do you remember when we used to come out here as kids?” She finally asked.

“Yeah.”

“You were obsessed with collecting the shiny rocks.” 

“I made you hold them,” I smirked.

“And mom would get upset and say, I didn’t work for you.”

“‘You girls are supposed to be having fun!’” my mother’s words fell out of my mouth and we both smiled lightly at the memory. 

“What happened back there?” she asked tentatively. I didn’t look back at her. I just sat for a minute, gazing out in front of me.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I just freaked for a minute.”

“Do you wanna talk abou—”

“No.” We were quiet again.

“Everything’s going to be different now,” she said a moment later.

“Yeah,” I replied. “It is.” 

We stayed on the rock until I spotted a coyote staring at me from a couple car lengths away. I stood up and screamed at it waving my hands frantically to scare it off. It worked, but I knew we had to go. We jumped off and began trekking back through the desert. My feet hurt. I hadn’t realized how bad the blisters were around my heels and the corners of my toes. With every step, searing pain leeched through me, but I couldn’t take my shoes off. The blacktop would be like a burning stove. 

We didn’t speak on the long walk home. As we reached the sidewalk in front of my house, I noted that most of the familiar cars belonging to family and friends had dissipated. My Uncle Ben’s car was still here, which meant so were Isaac and his sister Anna, but at least that wretched woman was gone. I didn’t even want to think her name. Her stupid name. I took a deep breath. There was no way around it.

“We’re back,” Rachel called out as we entered the house. Our dad was asleep in his easy chair in the family room. He didn’t wake at our entrance.

“I’ll let everyone know we found her,” Uncle Ben’s voice floated in as he entered the entryway. Found me. Like I had been lost. 

---

Originally from Phoenix, YVETTE ADAMS felt drawn to California and moved shortly after graduating with her BA from the University of Arizona. After several years as a successful singer-songwriter, she completed her MFA in Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach in May of 2024. During the program, she was awarded Literary Women’s Featured Emerging Writer and attended the festival in March. This is her first publication. 

Return to Online Exclusives