“I hear,” Yechiel said. But he couldn’t hear all the things she wouldn’t say, about Yitzchok’s temper, Yitzchok’s snide comments, Yitzchok’s withering looks that made her feel like a cockroach in her own home.
Henny was on her third round of dishes when realization hit her.
I have no one.
Yehuda and Rochel Leah were on their way back to Lakewood, probably on the Verrazano by now. But she’d never really had Yehuda anyway. The only boy, he had been Yitzchok’s from the moment he was born. Baruch Hashem, he had the brains to make Yitzchok proud. And the sense of duty to be a good son, to come for Pesach this first fraught Yom Tov without Yitzchok there. Rochel Leah was a good girl too, stopping in at her parents for a meal here and there but spending most of Yom Tov in Flatbush so the fresh almanah would have a house filled with happy sounds and Yom Tov spirit.
Though in all honesty, the table wouldn’t have been empty. She could always count on Judy to show up. Poor Judy; no family, no friends, no one to remind her to check her blood sugar and to cook her special diabetic foods. And Mr. Spielsinger, who surely relived his own Mitzrayim every Pesach. Not that his kids in Tel Aviv cared what kind of trauma their father had gone through in Siberia. They were busy making big money. Such a rachmanus he was, living all alone. At least Hashem had placed him two doors away from her, so Yehuda could pick him up on the way home from shul and Henny could make sure he had a hot meal.
So the table wouldn’t have been empty, but still. Yom Tov is for family. Good thing Yehuda came.
Create a free account to keep reading.
