Kate and I sat scrunched in the back of the family van, where I failed her yet another time. We were coming home from hiking Mount Carrigain, a moderate climb that took all day, and we’d completed it—Kate, who was my friend, and my family: Mom, Dad, and the boys—just before dark. The boys were asleep in the middle seat, their fingers in their mouths; Mom, too, nodded off occasionally, way up front, which was her tendency; that’s why Dad always drove.

We’d found walking sticks earlier that day along the trail that were real nice, with knots in just the right places. Kate weighed them in her hands, examining them, then handed me a stick and said, "You can have this one. I get the better one." She swatted a mosquito, then flicked back her hair. 

The wind rustled the tree leaves. I thought I heard a chickadee, calling its alarm song, "Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee!" but maybe I was imagining it. We were sixteen, by ourselves in the back of the van, and old enough to know better than to do what we were doing. Kate insisted that I hold her stick while she carved, and I did so. We worked by the light of a flashlight that we had propped between a couple of knapsacks, hers and mine.

"Hold it stiller!" she said. "I want to carve arrows into this stick!"

I held the stick tight. I was sweating. I felt dirty, contaminated. "The van is bumping," I said, exasperated. "Don’t you think—"

"Shut up and do as you’re told!" she said.

I held the stick tight, but the tighter I held, it seemed, the more I shook. I knew my father couldn’t see us in his rearview mirror, but Mom had eyes in the back of her head, as she put it, and I knew she was awake, because I heard her talking to my father:

"Norm who?"

"Norm Kapenski," my father replied. "Died in his sleep."

"He didn’t age well," my mother said sadly. "Do you want to stop for coffee? A shame."

"A shame," my father echoed. "No, I can do without."

"Kate will be upset if we stop," said my mother.

"Then we’d better not," said my father.

The van bumped. Kate said, "Stupid. You wiggled. Don’t do that. I want you to hold it perfectly still. I want you to hold your breath. Now. Hold your breath. That’s right. You love me, don’t you?"

I nodded, holding my breath.

"You’re not breathing, are you?"

I shook my head.

"Hold the stick down further!" she ordered, and I did so. Her Swiss Army knife glistened in the light of the flashlight. She worked furiously. She finished the tip of the arrow, and began to work on the shaft. Bits of wood fell onto the van floor, which we had covered with a blanket. The van kept its course steady. The arrow was just about finished. "Okay, you can breathe," Kate said. "I want your opinion. And it better be good."

"Oh, Kate," I began, "the arrow is simply marvelous!"

"What else?"

"It is beautiful. It shows your artistic talent."

"What does the arrow symbolize?" she demanded.

"The arrow symbolizes desire and destitution," I responded.

"Wrong!" said Kate. "How can you be so stupid! This arrow symbolizes our friendship, that we’re friends forever."

"Friends forever," I echoed.

The van turned a corner. Kate’s knife went straight into her palm.

She didn’t cry out. She didn’t seem surprised. I couldn’t tell how deep the cut was, given that the light was so dim. It didn’t bleed much, not at first. "Hold your hand up," I said. "I’ll tell Mom. They have a First Aid kit."

She pouted. "Don’t be dumb. I’ll be fine. Don’t tell them. I don’t want a stupid Band-Aid. I don’t want your parents to know what we were doing, after all." Blood began to drip from the cut, toward Kate’s sleeve. She began to cry. 

"Direct pressure," I said.

She placed two fingers on the cut, and held them there. Her arm shook. She said, "This cut is secret. This cut is special. This cut has meaning. This cut symbolizes your failure. How you’ve failed me as a friend. How your whole family has failed me. See how I hurt. I am very hurt. You’d better make it better. You owe me at least that. You are my friend."

I had a vision just then; I thought of our family dog, Joffa. I pictured Joffa gazing at me with her big doggy eyes, wanting something from me, wanting it very badly, and at the same time not knowing exactly what she wanted. I imagined giving her a little pat; she bringing her head up to rub against my hand, and sitting there, pushing up against my hand, wanting more, and more and more.

I took Kate’s hand and held it. I took off my bandanna. I placed it over her cut, and applied pressure.  Kate’s hand seemed so soft, so fragile and delicate, not the hand that, only moments before, had firmly held a wooden walking stick.  

"I am your friend," I said, and, getting up on my knees beside her, I held her hand to my cheek, and kissed it, again and again. "My friend," I said, knowing that if I wept, I must suppress my tears.

So this doll, this Raggedy Ann, was going to be Kate. And I would practice on her, just as Mary had instructed in her letter to me. I would tell her how I felt. I would let out my feelings. I would let go of all that pent-up anger. It would help me, Mary had written, even if I didn’t have the courage to say these things out loud, because it would help me recognize my feelings. Or at least that’s what Mary said. I didn’t understand it. What was there to recognize? I was happy, wasn’t I? I was always happy. Wasn’t that enough of a feeling? I wanted out, too. And I was desperate. Those, too, were feelings. Oh, how confusing life was!

There was a knock on my bedroom door. "What is it?" I called out. I could tell it was my father even before he said anything. I could hear it in the knock and by the way he breathed in before he spoke. "Julie," he said, "time for supper."

"I’m coming, Dad," I said. "Just a sec." 

He opened the door. I rushed to hide the doll. 

"Your mother really wants you to come soon," he said. "It’s Shabbos."

"Yeah, okay."

Once the door was safely closed again, I brought Raggedy Ann out from her hiding place under my pillow, noticing the tear in her arm. I grabbed her by her intact arm and brought her to my full-length mirror. "See?" I said to her in my mind. "See who you are? See what you do to me? To the one you call your ‘best friend’?" I lifted my shirtsleeve, revealing bruise marks on my shoulder. "Want to see more? Eh? I lifted the bottom of my shirt, and then my bra. "See those black and blue marks on my boobs? See them? You did that. You. You pinched me on my breast. Hard." I lowered my bra.

I paced with the doll now, back and forth, back and forth, nearly tripping over the mess in my room. I had not yet said a word aloud. My teeth grit, my hands seized, even my feet tensed, yet I could not utter a sound. Why was I mute?

"Julie, suppertime!" My mother, calling from downstairs.

"Yes, mother! In a minute!"

I took three quick, deep breaths. I held the Raggedy Ann doll high above me, then decided that I didn’t like Kate above me, so I lowered the doll to my own level. I wondered if I should pity the doll for her broken parts, her torn limbs, her half-smile. Surely, she needed mending, didn’t she? My feelings! My feelings! What were they?

I would say it. I would say "Fuck you."

"F—fuck you," I muttered, and then in one motion I swept up the poor doll in my arms, and held her tightly, and embraced her, and with a rush in my chest, blurted out, "Oh god I love you, I love you, I love you, with all my heart I love you!" and I wept, and fell to my bed, and held the doll to my bosom as if she were a lover, and lay there, moaning and feeling as if I would die, holding this doll that I had loved as a small child, and still did very much love, as my parents and brothers ate supper downstairs, broke the challah bread, and blessed the Sabbath candles.