He stepped out the door, breathing in the fresh morning air, not yet too hot, and couldn’t help the goofy grin that broke out across his face. Life was good. He was going to be a father. A father! How amazing was that?

And he was on his way to chavrusa tumult, ready to conquer,  to buckle down for a geshmake zeman.

He was antsy. The first week had gone well, his chavrusas were fire, he shteiged hard, but now, he couldn’t help wondering how his boys were doing at Kol Habanim. He’d missed two calls from Rabbi Wagshal, but hadn’t called back. It was too much of a yetzer hara to drop everything and go play guitar with them.

He stretched and headed to the coffee room. How many coffees were too many coffees? Don’t answer that. Rubinstein and Rosner were sharing a box of rugelach. He sat down and helped himself to one.

“Nu, what’d everyone do bein hazmanim?” he asked.

Rubinstein raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t Neuwirth waiting for you?”

Rosner grinned. “I’m pretty sure I heard him on the phone with his mother, telling her to stop davening, he’s chavrusas with the next gadol hador.”

Rubinstein almost choked on his rugeleh.

Yonah yawned pointedly. “I’ll go back in a minute. Did you go to Florida in the end?”

He did feel bad to leave Neuwirth hanging, but he was tired. He needed a pick-me-up, and listening to his friends talk about the sort of trip that he’d had to cancel was giving him a vicarious adrenaline spike.

Estee was asleep when he got home. He decided to take a nap as well. The last thought he had before drifting off was that maybe he’d ask Rabbi Wagschal if there were any get-togethers on Motzei Shabbos. He really did miss the boys….

“Yons?”

Estee waited a moment.

“Yonah?”

She rolled her eyes at his lack of response and tried again. Maybe her least favorite thing in the world was waking up her husband. She absolutely detested it. He grunted and sat up, blinking in the dusky lighting.

“Wah time is it?”

“Five o’ clock,” she said, trying not to sound too annoyed. “Didn’t you want to get to second seder?”

He lay back down. “Think I’m gonna take this one off,” he said, voice muffled.

And maybe it was the nausea or the fatigue or just plain moodiness, but Estee snapped.

“It is soooo nice,” she said, voice rising, “that you can just ‘take this one off.’ You know who can never take time off? Women! It doesn’t matter if we’re feeling awful, it doesn’t matter if we’re exhausted, we’re meant to keep the house going, to stay on top of all the stuff, no matter how miserable we feel.   But please, by all means, take this seder off because you’re tired from… actually, I have no idea what you’re tired from. Maybe you need vitamins.”

She was losing it, time to reel it back in.

“Whatever. I’m ordering pizza.”

She shuffled out of the room, heart thumping, cheeks aflame.

The next morning was a study in cold war. Yonah wasn’t actually sure what had happened the evening before, except that Estee had been acting crazy and he had not been down for it. They hadn’t really spoken since Estee’s outburst. He’d slept until dinner time, got up, davened Minchah, ate three slices of pizza, and then headed to night seder, wishing it was enough for Estee and knowing it wasn’t.

But today was a new day.

He was just turning out of the driveway when a familiar black Honda Odyssey pulled to a stop next to him.

“Yonah! So glad I caught you.”

His mother-in-law beamed at him through the window.

“How are you? You definitely look like you have a bounce to your step… I’m late for an appointment but I wanted to drop these off ASAP. Can you give them to Estee?”

She stretched her hand through the car window.

C’mon, face muscles, he urged. Pull a smile! Just a little one.

“Sure, Ma! What a nice surprise.”

She laughed. “Not as nice as your surprise! Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem. So give those to Estee, okay? Have a great day, Yonah.”

He watched as she sped off. Then he peered into the paper bag she’d handed him, heart pounding, stomach sinking.

Prenatal vitamins.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1030)