In the morning, she sleeps through her alarm. Ezra doesn’t comment when she emerges bleary-eyed into the kitchen and announces, “I’m working from home today,” as though it had been planned. She gets in his way when he packs up the girls, a cog in the machine out of place, and she finds herself apologizing over and over again, diminished and so tired.

The boys are already in the car when Ezra turns to her, Shira and Blimi hanging on to his hands. “Say bye to Mommy,” he tells the girls, pressing a smile onto his face like an iron-on patch, and the girls chorus it together.

Ezra hesitates, and Rivi is swept away with the sharp, desperate urge to tell him everything. To let a thousand fears and stressors out, to let him carry them with her. To have him look at her with the kind eyes that have always known her so well and say all the things she needs to hear. Your father wasn’t a thief. My family asks too much of you. You are enough for us.

You are not your father. She will not be a stranger to her children, wrapped in regrets and history and concealing her essence from them. She has his stubbornness, his thick skin, his reluctance to be exposed. She has so many of his worst traits, and she is terrified of becoming  like him, cut off from the people she cares about and incapable of reaching out.

But when Ezra meets her gaze, the words won’t emerge, and she only wants to shrivel up and hide. She nods to him, a distant farewell, and he leaves without a word to her.

Rivi works through the morning. Boyd has gotten his TRO for his sons — no new clients until the suit is resolved — and he’s very pleased. Her secretary reports that he’s sent over lunch for the whole office. It’s even kosher — real kosher, like you eat, Antonia texts, and Rivi sends a businesslike email with a note of appreciation at the top.

Gabe emerges with barely enough time to hit the latest zeman for Krias Shema, then settles down in the dining room to work. “Sorry. Have you been using the office?” Rivi hadn’t meant to take his spot.

Gabe waves it off. “I can work anywhere.”

“I’m sure.” She’s struck with the image of Gabe stretched out in the middle of the rainforest, a snake slithering over his foot and his computer on his lap. She stands still, watching him, and he looks up again.

“Rivi?”

“Remember when we used to spend days hiding in the basement?” She doesn’t know why she’s bringing it up. She is not conceding Gabe’s point.

Gabe’s lips press together tightly, as pale as his skin. “Don’t tell me you’re searching for narratives now.”

“I’m not. I’m saying — there are plenty of reasons why someone does something like that. Have you ever heard of preppers? They’re always ready for the worst. It’s like… a whole culture. It’s about survivalism, not crime.”

“Look, Rivi. I’m not asking you to take me seriously. I know you don’t.” There’s a sheen of hurt on his face. “I get that I’m still just your weird little brother with the overactive imagination.”

“It’s not that—”

“It’s a little that. And it’s fine.” It’s not fine, it’s another person drifting away, but Rivi remains frozen and terrified and defiant. Gabe looks her in the eye. “Leave me to do this myself, okay? I’ll keep you out of it.”

“Good.”

It doesn’t feel good. She locks her office door, paces back and forth, sits back down. Sends a text to Eliana, the only sister-in-law who likes her, and asks if she wants to get dinner together, as though it might fix the in-law drama. Stares at the vase from Abba’s house, sitting on her desk, and decides to bring it to Suri’s house as a peace offering. She doesn’t want to keep anything of Abba’s, anyway.

She runs her thumb along the delicate green stem molded along its side as she carries it out to the car, caught in a distant memory of stilted conversation and wavering zemiros, and she forces them from her mind and drives to Suri’s with single-minded focus.

Suri’s oldest opens the door, a carbon copy of her mother down to the raised eyebrows, and Rivi’s determination wavers.

“For your mother,” she says, forcing a plastic smile onto her face. “I saw it and thought she’d like it.”

“Okay. Thanks?” The girl takes it, looking very dubious.

Rivi’s already regretting her decision to part with the vase when she gets home. For all she knows, Suri is going to throw it out as soon as she finds out that it’s from Rivi.

Desperate for a distraction, she calls Penina. But Penina is less than reassuring about Abba. “I mean, we don’t know for sure, but it’s not impossible. In my business, I have access to people’s identities and their information. It might be easy for someone in a bad spot to be tempted. And your father worked a security job, right?”

“You think he was some kind of petty thief?”

Penina must hear the edge in her voice, because her tone shifts to soothing. “We really don’t know. It might not even be something incriminating. It’s possible he witnessed some crime and was put in a convoluted Witness Protection scheme. Maybe he got involved in the mob or something dangerous and had to hide. We just don’t know enough.”

“Right.” Rivi hangs up with an abrupt goodbye, stares at the blank phone screen for a full minute,  then returns to work.

The kids are pleased to see her when they return home, and she puts aside her work and settles on the floor with Shira and Blimi to build with Lego. “Higher!” Shira orders, “higher!”

“Why don’t we make it wider, too, so it’ll be sturdier?”

Shira frowns at her. “Higher,” she says again, and Rivi piles the Lego higher until the whole thing tips over and Blimi is crying.

Rivi pulls her onto her lap, rubs her back, and holds her tightly. Shira gives them both a hard look that implies you’re all weak and builds again, this time on her own.

“Mommy, can you help with my kriah?” That’s Shimmy, hopeful on the couch, and Rivi carries Blimi over to him, balancing her on her lap while she peers over at Shimmy’s kriah. Shimmy reads slowly, gets bored and distracted halfway through, and Blimi tugs at Rivi’s tichel, seeking her attention.

It should be perfect, surrounded by her kids for a rare evening at home, and she should be enjoying every second of it. But instead, she has a headache, and she feels irritable and frustrated with herself. Why isn’t she enjoying this? Why can’t she treasure the time she does manage to get with her kids?

What’s wrong with her?

She finishes with Shimmy and turns to dinner with singleminded focus. Fine. Maybe she isn’t the kind of mother who can play with her kids, but at least she can give them a fresh dinner. But the kids are too eager to be involved, getting in her way and rushing to get ingredients, and she steps on Blimi’s foot and burns the tuna patties.

This is a disaster, everything about today is terrible, and she’s trembling with pent-up frustration and despair by the time she gets the cheerful, yes, definitely! 7:30 works for you? from Eliana.

She stares at it. “Bedtime,” she says, her voice hoarse. “We have to do bedtime.” It’s earlier than the twins usually get to sleep on a weeknight, but they should go to sleep earlier, it’s only because of Rivi that they don’t—

A voice cuts through the fog in her mind. Ezra, watching her with building concern. “Rivi,” he says, and his voice is gentle in a way it hasn’t been toward her in days. “Why don’t you let me cover bedtime tonight? I’ll get a later minyan.”

“I have to — bedtime is important,” she says helplessly. It’s the one thing she tries to do every night, even if it has the twins sleeping late the next morning.

For once, Ezra isn’t looking at her with that pinched, unhappy face. His gaze is searching, and Rivi stares back miserably. “You’ve spent the whole night with the kids,” he says. “Go take some time to yourself, okay?”

“I have to… I have to get dinner with Eliana.” Rivi wrings her hands. “I asked her earlier, before I realized….” Before she’d realized how much work it would be to spend the night with the kids, but she can’t say that to Ezra.

But he softens like he knows. “Go,” he murmurs. “Enjoy. I’ll hold down the fort.”

It feels like a favor she doesn’t deserve, one she’ll have to repay later, and she internally berates herself for that as she drives out to the café where Eliana is waiting. Marriage isn’t a transaction. They haven’t been on good terms lately, but she’d still be there if Ezra needed her, and, of course, he’d do the same. Yet she feels like a failure on display tonight, without work to blame for her inadequacies.

She’s still exhausted and stressed when she gets to the café and sees Eliana beaming at her. “Rivi! I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I think that’s what happens when you’re persona non grata in the Greenberg family.”

Eliana’s eyes go wide. “That’s not true! Suri’s a little touchy, but everyone else likes you.” She chatters about a shopping trip with Ma and plans for Purim, which is still over a month away, and Rivi smiles vaguely and nods when she thinks it’s appropriate, her mind miles away from the conversation.

Eliana likes her, but Eliana hardly knows her. She’s more of an idea to Eliana, the woman who has it all.

The woman who feels as though it’s fading, bit by bit, but will never tell her.

It’s a relief when her phone rings and she sees Boyd’s name on the screen. “I’m sorry,” she says, cutting Eliana off. “I have to get this.”

She picks up.

“You weren’t in your office today,” Boyd observes with displeasure.

“I sent you a brief. I worked from home.” Is this falling apart, too? Rivi’s fingers are rigid against the phone, her heart pounding.

“Yes, Lenape Falls.” Boyd is cheerful now, as mercurial as February sunshine. “Well, no matter. Something’s come up. I’ll meet you there.”

“In Lenape Falls?” Rivi repeats slowly. “We don’t have an office here—”

“I don’t stand on ceremony. I can come to your home, if that’s more convenient.”

“My—” Rivi’s mouth is dry. “Yes, that should work.”

“Eight-thirty should be fine.” Boyd hangs up, and Rivi clutches the phone as though it’s a life raft, as she’s rapidly being tossed through the waves.

Eliana leans forward with cheerful interest. “That seemed intense.”

“I have to go,” Rivi says, panic rising in her throat. “I’m sorry. I have to… I’ll pick up the check,” she offers in a rush, and she leaves Eliana alone at the table, startled and dejected.

To be continued…  

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 923)