“Are you the Ayala Wexler? Like, the one who runs the organization for people going through medical emergencies?”
Give. Take. Give. Take.
Wham.
Ayala flinched as Sruli lobbed a red block directly at her nose.
“Oops, sorry!” his mother gasped, blushing. “Sruli, no throwing! Here, do you want a green block?”
Sruli and his mom resumed passing toy blocks back and forth, as Ayala jotted down notes on the evaluation form. Eye contact, check. Turn taking, check. Verbal requests, none whatsoever.
She saw the mom eyeing her anxiously as she wrote, silently begging her to determine that there was nothing terribly wrong with her son, that his language delay was perfectly correctible. Her heart went out to the mother. How frustrating it was when little people couldn’t simply express their needs, like rational human beings.
This one’s in print. Some of our best stories live in the magazine — subscribe to get Mishpacha every week.
