“...and Marjorie is so good with them, and I shouldn’t complain, but Perele, I miss my kids. My life”

March 1964

Sipping her cup of Maxwell House (“Good to the last drop!”), Marjorie leaned back on her chair and sang a little tune.

Boker tov, boker tov

Wake up, wake up, it’s almost eight!

Boker tov, boker tov

Wake up, wake up, or you’ll be late!

Modeh ani, modeh ani

Thank You Hashem, that’s what we say.

Modeh ani, modeh ani

Thank You, Hashem, for a great new day!

Their big brother Artie had written it for them, the twins explained on her first morning in the house. They’d giggled madly when they found out that Marjorie had no idea what the Hebrew words meant, but since Margie seemed to be fun, and had asked them what they wanted her to cook, and had been generous with bedtime treats the night before, they had good-naturedly explained the words boker tov and modeh ani. Since then, mornings in the Levine home began with Marjorie pulling up the blinds, singing Artie’s wake-up song, and, when necessary, throwing pillows on her sleeping charges.

Not a bad way to start the day, she mused, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. It certainly beat those awful clocks Mother and Father would put next to her bed, with alarms that growled at her in her dreams, snarling at her as she groaned into grumpy wakefulness. Most of them had ended up in pieces after Marjorie hurled them to the other side of the room, until her parents had grimly placed a huge and heavy Westclox alarm clock near her bed, one that was far too heavy to throw.

Thinking about her ongoing battle with the clocks, she realized that somehow, here in the Levine home, with just a tiny round-faced clock with an almost inaudible buzz on her night table, she had no problem getting up to get the children out of bed and ready for school.

Could it be that she was... happy?

She cast off the thought like someone waving away a butterfly that had accidentally lit upon her shoulder.