account_circle by Anna Sabat
Anna Sabat's work has appeared in Fiction, Crescent Review, and Recipes Remembered. She has been a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and a member of Daphne Merkin's private writing workshop. She is currently working on a collection of short stories, each of which has as its protagonist a daughter or granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. The pieces are set mainly in the New York City area from the 1950s through the present. A recurring theme throughout these pieces is the subtle but significant impact of the Holocaust, and by implication any horrific event, not only on the lives of survivors, but also on those of succeeding generations.

Macro-Fiction

The Silent Letter

Issue No. 231 ~ August, 2016

I squirmed in my chair, already halfway out of it by the time she got to me. With both arms extended, I accepted the first English language book I’d ever held. Taking delicate steps, as if I were cradling a porcelain baby doll, I tiptoed back to my desk. I set the book down carefully and opened the cover to an illustration of a light-haired, blue-eyed family with three children, Dick, Jane, and little Sally. They looked nothing like any family in my Brooklyn neighborhood. More like the ones that smiled down on us from the sun-dazzled billboards we passed on trips up to the Catskill Mountains.