JJ wouldn’t have schmoozed anyway. He would have grilled him. Worse, he would have said no to the boy right off the bat

October 5, Thursday

When she’d done all the things she could possibly do, Michal found a hole of 20 minutes that needed to be plugged in order to stop the thinking, so she adjusted the plate of cookies on the coffee table and checked on Yossi reading in his bed upstairs, called Rikki who was hiding out at a friend’s house, wiped down the kitchen counters, and peeked in on Aily to tell her she looked beautiful and that the cream dress looked perfect. Then there were still five minutes, which isn’t too many minutes in the grand scheme of things, so she let herself think. And when the bell rang at 6 p.m. sharp, she was sure she’d ticked off all the boxes and called all the references and checked all the many things that needed to be checked about the boy behind the door, and she thought that JJ would be proud of how methodical she’d been for once, but that didn’t really help now anyway. Besides, she still hadn’t seen him, which is all she really needed to do in order to know if he was right for her daughter.

“Hi!”

Calm down Michal, you sound like a kindergarten teacher.

“Hi.” He smiled.

“Please come in. Aily will be down in a second.”

5’11” it said on the resume, although some references had said he was 6” and she knew not to trust them too much after that. He had the same grey eyes as his father, only flecked with fiery amber instead of opal. Though maybe his father’s eyes had fire when he was twenty-two as well. Then she stopped herself from going there and cleared her throat.

“Did you find the house okay?”

“Sure. Gotta love Waze.”

She smiled. “In the olden days we had to rely on our G-d-given sense of direction and the kindness of strangers if we got lost.”

He smiled back the way anyone his age would humor an ancient forty-year-old. “Sounds like an adventure.”

She was caught off guard by the silence that ensued because she’d done everything, the homemade cookies and all the silly research and now she’d even seen that there was laughter in the creases around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes there was something bright and alive and she knew that the boy in front of her was perfect for her daughter. Perfect. But the man who should be schmoozing him up was gone, and suddenly she was not sad, she was angry, which hurt in a whole different way.

“Can I get you a drink?”

JJ wouldn’t have schmoozed anyway. He would have grilled him. Worse, he would have said no to the boy right off the bat.

“Sure, thanks.”

Happy for the brief reprieve, she took the crystal pitcher of ice water and poured it into a glass, careful not to splash and to fill it to the adult line. You see? This was all it took to know. His face is open and kind and my goodness, wouldn’t it all have been easier if I’d just met him three days ago? Instead of… Her cheeks turned pink at the memory.

A gem, they’d said. And who wouldn’t want a gem for their daughter?

She held out the glass for him to take, but he shifted slightly on his feet and the grey in his eyes grew windy like a storm rolling in. She watched, equally fascinated and horrified as the boy stood frozen, grappling with something unseen.

“You’re the lady,” he said at last, without any trace of emotion.

“I’m…” The back of her mouth felt dry and she realized she’d taken a wrong step on the road to protection and that the yawning ravine beneath her was very large and very deep. The glass of water became impossibly heavy and she lowered it onto the mahogany table, and all the universe seemed to descend with it.