Say what you want, Mike, but when a girl doesn’t put on a sheitel for the Shabbos seudah, that says something

Toby’s phone pings, startling her as she sets two placemats on the island. She squints at the screen.

Hi Ma, must talk to you about Bay. she’s struggling. Are you inviting them for Shabbos?

Mimi. Her giant heart combined with her love to control things make her a bit of a meddler. Chip off the old block… although Toby’s learned to take her urgent text messages with a grain of salt. She rolls her eyes, remembering when Mimi had been in her ninth month and texted BABY!! And when Toby had rushed over there, she’d explained that she’d just meant she was so excited at the idea of meeting her baby soon.

Yes, Mimi is a drama queen, but she also has keen instincts. Maybe she’s right… but no. Toby takes a deep breath and then exhales.

She remembers what a wreck she’d been for the first few weeks after Bayla’s wedding. “You need to take a step back,” Aryeh had said, after she’d woken him up three nights in a row, fretting about their baby daughter’s choice in a husband. “Mike is a wonderful boy with sterling middos. Leave them to it, Tobes. I’m serious. Just… focus on you, okay? Please?”

And Aryeh had so rarely insisted on anything that she’d felt compelled to follow his lead.  She’d thrown herself into classes and projects, anything to distract herself from the incessant worry. Aryeh had started coming home for lunch in the middle of the day, and slowly, to Toby’s surprise and Aryeh’s delight, Toby realized that being a more hands-off mother suited her just fine.

And those weekly Sunday night dates she’d insisted on over the years had paid off; she and Aryeh weren’t one of those couples wading through silence after years of passing each other by.

She resolutely pushes the phone away.

“I’ve always wanted to join an exercise class,” she explains to Aryeh now, as he putters at the stove. “It’s not even that I was too busy, it’s just that I wasn’t comfortable being in a spin class or doing water aerobics with other women who might be my children’s teachers or doctors.”

Aryeh smiles and flips the omelet he’s frying. Three minutes later, he swivels around, placing a loaded plate in front of her. “Your luncheon, madam.”

She looks down at the plate. A perfectly circular omelet, a tomato fanned out, and a red pepper sliced up, drizzled with olive oil.

“Aryeh! This looks delicious.” She smiles at him. Why do the last 40 years suddenly seem like a blur? Almost as if they never happened, and she and Aryeh are young, full of promise and commitment…