It was easy to spout values like “chesed starts at home” when you didn’t have a distressed woman in the hospital begging you to come help her.
The ten-piece band was playing soft dinner music as the guests milled around the smorgasbord; Eliezer had informed Dini that both Shwekey and Shapiro would be singing later, with a few other big names making an appearance as well.
Dini had nodded, accepting the information as casually as it had been imparted, just like she took it as a matter of course that her sister-in-law had scoured southern New Jersey to find the ritziest wedding hall for her son’s bar mitzvah. It was a mindset that, growing up, had been as natural to her as breathing. The fact that she found it jarring now made her realize just how far she’d removed herself from her family by making her home across the world.
Still, she’d been convinced that this was a good thing. So why was she feeling so inadequate right now? Ma motioned for her to come over. She was speaking to a lady wearing the thickest diamond necklace Dini had ever seen.
Her mother took her hand. “Adele, this is my daughter, Dini Blumenfeld. You must know my mechutanim, Blumenfeld from the nursing home chain. Dini, you remember Adele.”
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