Closing her eyes, she tried to visualize herself put-together, camera in hand, exiting the house, driving to the riverfront, speaking words, and breathing in scents….

She gagged.

Nope, not happening. She was going to stay here, on her couch, wrapped in her UGG throw. Maybe she could do couch-front shoots? Come to my home for a photoshoot, no need to travel far! Complimentary saltines and animal crackers while you wait. Sighing, she pulled out her phone. She needed to cancel this shoot. ASAP.

Chevy Feinberg was not amused. At all. Like one bit.

“Canceling?”

“I’m so sorry.” She pitched her voice lower, huskier. Let the woman think she had the flu.

“You’re sorry? I just paid for all my daughters to get their hair professionally blow-dried.” Omigosh, the guilt was like a living, breathing thing erupting in Estee’s chest.

“I’m just really really not feeling well,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry for the bother, and of course, we will reschedule as soon as I’m up to it.”

“We’ll see,” the woman said coldly and hung up.

Well, that was charming. At least she’d managed to make it through the conversation without crying.

She must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, the front door was opening and Yonah was tiptoeing in, a brown paper bag in his hand.

“Hey.” He smiled at her.

She tried to smooth her tichel, then gave it up as a lost cause.

“Bought yourself lunch?”

He looked down at the brown paper bag. “I wish this was lunch. I met your mother.”

“My mother?”

“Yup,” he said flatly, settling into the recliner. “Imagine my surprise when she handed me this beautiful bag of prenatal vitamins.”

Estee felt herself bypassing red and going straight for purple.

“Ahhhh.”

“Yes, ahhh. Estee, what on earth? I thought we had just agreed that we were not going to involve your mother in every intimate detail of our lives.”

She felt bad. He was right. But he also wasn’t.

“Yonah. This is the biggest thing that ever happened to me. And I feel gross, every single day. You’ve been great, but she’s my mother. I need her. Try to stretch a little.”

Wrong thing to say, apparently.

He got to his feet. “I’ll try,” he said coldly.

She watched him walk off to the dark, empty kitchen.

Stretch a little. Stretch a little! Was this not stretching? Suddenly, doing everything on his own, all the cleaning, laundry, shopping? Okay, maybe not cooking because, a) Estee couldn’t stand the smell, and b) well, he wasn’t actually cooking. But he was definitely faring for himself. Was that not stretching?

Did he also have to be happy that his mother-in-law knew their private business? Of course they were going to share with their parents first, before anyone else, just not… yet.

Also, he’d foolishly thought they’d be doing it together, side by side. That it would be their news, not just her news. Wasn’t that what happy couples did?

It was a long second seder, made even longer by the fact that he knew there was no hot dinner waiting for him. He drove by Kennedy. Keep your trendy food, he needed some Glatt Bite. Only after he took the bags filled with more food than one man could eat did he realize that Estee would not handle him eating all of this in the house. Okay, he’d go on the patio.

Whistling, he knocked on the door and walked in. “Est? I’m going to go out back to eat my b—”

He paused, blinking. His mother-in-law was perched on the couch, Estee’s head resting on her shoulder. She was fast asleep, and there were tear stains tracked on her face.

He stood there awkwardly.

She smiled at him calmly.

“Hi, Ma.”

“Hi, Yonah.”

“How’s she doing?” he asked softly.

“Tired,” his mother-in-law whispered back. “She really does much too much.”

He heard the unspoken reproach in her tone, and while he prided himself on being well-raised, it was all too much. His mother-in-law, knowing things, in their house, starvation….

So he turned around and headed back to the car. He would just eat there.

Estee squinted at the bill she was holding. Should she open it? Nah, what good could come from that? She laughed a little at this reasoning and then slid the envelope open.

Ohhhhh, boy. She felt weak. That couldn’t be right….

Yonah came up behind her and peered over her shoulder.

“Yowza!” he whistled. “That is not pretty.”

She bit her lip. No. No, it was not. She glanced at her email. A photoshoot inquiry was in her inbox, unopened. She needed to open it. She needed to do it. It didn’t matter how she felt. It didn’t matter how hard it was. She could not afford not to work. They couldn’t afford it.

She scrolled through the email for the contact info.

Tiffy Stern. She dialed, hands shaking. She’d better fix that before she tried to take photos.

“Hi, Tiffy?”

“Yes?”

“This is Estee from Estee’s Photoshop? I saw your inquiry, I’d love to schedule a shoot this week if that works for you.”

“Oh, I’m not interested anymore.” The woman’s voice grew heated. “My sister, Chevy Feinberg, told me you literally canceled on her the last second possible. I can’t do that. I work full-time. I need someone I can count on.”

And with that, she hung up.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1031)