Sure enough, Suri is spitting mad. “Is it true?” she demands. “Are you skipping out on the anniversary getaway?”

T

he cholent isn’t going to cook.

Rivi is buried in a deposition that needs her full attention — egregious medical malpractice, and the hospital is denying fault altogether — but all she can think about is the cholent, sitting in a crockpot on the counter at home.

She put it up before she left this morning, yawning her way through the process like she does every Friday, and she’d just put the cover on the crockpot when there was a sudden cry from the twins’ room.

She ran upstairs and climbed into Blimi’s bed — heels, sheitel and all — and held her until she stopped whimpering and fallen back asleep. By then, she was worried about catching the train. She flew downstairs, raced into her car, and drove at an inappropriate speed to the station.

Fortunately, the roads were empty that early in the morning and she made it. And it’s only now, three hours later, when the doubt suddenly hits her. Had she hit the button to turn on the crockpot? Had Ezra noticed, a half hour later when he left for shul, that the crockpot had been off? Or will there be no cholent for Shabbos?

Maybe Gabe is still in the house. But he’s not picking up his phone. Gabe, Rivi is beginning to learn, is unused to having a phone on him at all times, and he forgets it in his guest room most days. He might be at Tatty’s house now, beginning to clean it out, but there’s no answer there, either.

This is a crisis. Rivi will get home too late to get the cholent sufficiently cooked before Shabbos. There will be no cholent for Shabbos. Meir will mope, Shimmy will whine, and Shira and Blimi, too young to know better, will just cry. Ezra will say these things happen and act as though it’s fine, but it won’t be. It will be yet another time that Rivi has failed to measure up.

She pulls out her phone again a few minutes later and wishes that she hadn’t. There’s a text from Suri, her least favorite sister-in-law, and a missed call. She calls her back, gritting her teeth in preparation.

Sure enough, Suri is spitting mad. “Is it true?” she demands. “Are you skipping out on the anniversary getaway?”