She stopped, a bit embarrassed at her outburst. Chaim just continued speaking as if she had said nothing at all

C

haim had come home from Shacharis perturbed about something. He got busy with his coffee and Shaindy asked if she could prepare breakfast for him. He looked distracted, and she repeated the question.

“Heshy took the car?” he asked.

“Yes, the baby still has fever and he went with Gitty to Dr. Glauer, no one speaks Hebrew or Yiddish there, I guess. She couldn’t do it alone.”

“Ah, good, listen,” Chaim sat down suddenly at the table, slamming his coffee down on the table so that it sloshed. That was unlike him.

Shaindy read the cues and sat down across from him, even though she really wanted an egg with her coffee. Eishes chayil, she thought.

In his second uncharacteristic move of the morning, Chaim launched into his speech, with no introductions or small talk.

“Shaindy, you know, I don’t have a lot of zachen, I try to live and let be, or whatever the expression is. I like to sit and learn, and baruch Hashem, this is a dream to be able to sit and learn like a mensch for a few hours at a time, in Lakewood no less, with so many talmidei chachamim to speak to.”

Shaindy held back from saying anything. He still did two hours a day of kashrus consulting for one of the large organizations and she didn’t like it, even though the money was helpful, because she wanted to be able to say, “Chaim finally has his dream of sitting and learning all day,” and this little detail sort of ruined it.

She was proud of herself for showing this restraint, because he kept on talking.