Second Dance: Chapter 16

Chaim was sitting at the table with an open Chumash, but Shaindy could tell from the way he was tapping his fingers that he was getting a bit impatient.

The Staglers were planning to start the seudah at 12:15, which Shaindy thought was a bit Queensy. There was no reason to start after 11:30, she felt. Still, you don’t complain when you’re a guest.

And the later timing gave Heshy more time for his kiddush, which, it turned out, was being held right there, in the Brucker backyard. The minyan at the old rav had been jammed, as Heshy had hoped, and it seemed like the whole crowd had come here for the promised kiddush and Heshy’s homemade herring.

Shaindy looked out the kitchen window and allowed her mind to wander. When they had first seen the plans for this house, she had imagined peering out the window to this backyard and watching eineklach play, maybe the older ones reading in the corner under the trees that existed only in the plans but not yet in real life. If Chaim would ever become the rav, she had thought — not that she was counting on it, but you never know — the backyard would be a nice place for a women’s shiur too, maybe Pirkei Avos or something in the spring. She could make pink lemonade, nothing too elaborate. A shiur should never be about the refreshments, she believed.