“Sure, sweetie,” she said. “Sounds like a great idea! What kind of party is this? What kind of food do we need to make?”

“So, I have all these ideas. The food — for sure it has to be chalavi, I mean, none of my friends wants chicken for lunch, and I want to do waffles with ice cream for dessert. So, chalavi… mini pizzas, baked ziti, maybe a good Greek salad, iced coffee….”

“Okay,” Marissa said, trying not to calculate the price of all that cheese. She waited to hear more. There had to be more. This was Tamar.

Tamar didn’t disappoint. “Also, Ima, I was thinking — I want it to look nice. Like, really nice. You know how the Weisses have these gorgeous tablecloths, for their gemach? I’m going to ask to borrow one or two of them — I’m sure Mrs. Weiss will let — and then I’ll get paper goods to match. Maybe I’ll do a separate table for drinks, we can have some hot and some cold. And maybe some props. Mrs. Weiss has those in her gemach, too.”

Marissa raised an eyebrow. “For a get-together with friends? Isn’t that for… I don’t know, a kiddush, a bar mitzvah?”

Tamar nodded. “Well, it’s not just a get-together. It’s Chanukah. And we’re not babies. We’re at the point where we appreciate style. You know, the world isn’t going to end if this house actually looks gorgeous for once.”

Stay calm stay calm stay calm. Marissa kept her tone light, curious. “You know better than I do, Tamar, but really? Fancy tablecloths and props?”

Tamar’s chin jutted forward. “Ima, you don’t get it. You don’t know. It has to look right, okay?”

“Okay, okay, sweetie.” Marissa patted her daughter’s shoulder. She zipped up her jacket. “I have to go to work now. We’ll figure out the details. Don’t worry, it will be a really nice party.”

She headed downstairs and settled into their beat-up Corolla. Ten minutes later, she was out of the neighborhood and sitting in afternoon traffic, just as she’d feared. At least she had left herself 20 extra minutes to get to the hospital.

A CD was playing — one of those Karduner discs that Yaakov liked — but today Marissa found the soulful music annoying. She turned it off and sat, absorbing the silence, as the line of cars crept toward the turnoff ever so slowly, and tried to stay alert and awake amid the torpor.

The jangling of the phone jerked her back to full attention. It was Kimberly calling from New York. She jabbed at the dashboard and took the call. “Hello to my favorite sister! What’s doing? I’m so honored to be the first thing on your to-do list today!”

Kimberly laughed. “Sorry to break it to you, but you’re not first. I’m already on my way back from the gym. Just wanted to say hello and make sure you’re all still alive in that crazy country surrounded by bloodthirsty terrorists armed to the teeth.”

“It’s not really like that,” Marissa said. Oh good, the light was green. She inched her car forward. “The news always makes it sound worse than it is. Life goes on.”

“Maybe. I guess you can get used to anything. How’s work, how are all the preemies of Jerusalem doing under my sister’s golden hands? And how are Yaakov and the kids?”

“We’re all good,” Marissa said. The light was red again. Maybe next time she’d make the turnoff. “Yosef Shalom is starting to read, Elisheva is all into her dance group (how did you say “chug” in English? She had never figured that one out), Tamar is busy with her friends.”

“All girlfriends, right? No boys.” Kimberly’s voice was a bit sharp, and Marissa took a breath. Stay calm, don’t get ideological, keep it friendly and shallow.

“Yeah,” she said in as light a tone as she could muster. “That’s the system here.”

The first time Kimberly had realized that her own flesh and blood, her sister’s darling daughter, was going to be schooled in a primitive, segregated school system, she had unleashed a long, passionate sermon about how Marissa was depriving her own child of the benefits of modern society, and how in the world would this deprived young girl even know how to interact with her husband when the time came, and it was one thing to keep Shabbat but another thing to shut your children off from progress and education, and was she planning to put a burka on Tamar next.

Over the years, as Kimberly had risen through the ranks at her law firm, Marissa has been treated to multiple variations of the same sermon. She tried to tune it out, but something inside her always felt a little raw when her own sister accused her of handicapping Tamar.

“Do you think,” this time Kimberly’s voice was reflective, not the usual angry attack, “do you think that in a way, it makes the girls more secure, being in an all-girls class? Like, maybe they worry less about their clothing, their looks, without the boys there?”

Marissa was so surprised she didn’t notice the light had turned green until the angry honking spurred her to drive forward.

“I – I think so, yes,” she said, after safely executing the turn onto the highway. “For a lot of girls, it’s a big advantage. I think they learn better, too.”

“Hmm,” Kimberly mused. “Anyway, I really wanted to talk to you about something else — the bank needs us to come down and sign some papers, something about Mom’s estate.”

“Didn’t we take care of this last year, after the funeral?”

“Yeah, I thought so, too. But there’s more paperwork than we realized. I’m going to email you some forms, can you sign them and get them notarized and then send them back to New York?”

“Sure,” Marissa said. “Thanks so much for dealing with all this.”

“Well, I am the lawyer here. But you’re right, you owe me for this. It’s a real pain.”

“I do.” Marissa was turning into the hospital parking lot now. She scanned the rows of cars. “I’m at work now, maybe we’ll talk again later?”

“Sounds like a plan. Take good care of those babies.”

Marissa shut the ignition, clipped on her hospital name tag, and grabbed the bag with her sandwich and salad. She thought ruefully of the split pea soup simmering on the stove at home as she strode through the hospital entrance and headed toward the elevators.

Do you think they worry less about their clothing, their looks? Kimberly had asked.

Maybe some do, but not my daughter, she thought. My daughter, she’s obsessed with her clothing, her image, the tablecloth and props at this ridiculous party. She can’t stop worrying what everyone will think about her.

But now she was at work. Now she had to dissociate from all that angst and focus on the tiny little beings whose very existence depended on her careful care.

“Shalom!” She pasted a perky smile on her face as she entered the NICU and grabbed a uniform.

“Shalom,” Lali said from the front desk. Dark eyebrows furrowed, she took a quick look at the clock — thank Heaven it was only 2:45, despite all the traffic — and nodded at Marissa. “I’m giving you Room 3 today, intensive care. Maya’s finishing up there.”

“Sounds good.” Marissa pulled the NICU uniform over her clothing, tightened her mitpachat, and headed to Room 3. The Azoulai twins had graduated to the step-down unit, but the Jabarin baby was still there, crooked limbs semi-shrouded by the wires and oxygen mask attached to his tiny frame.

“Shalom, Maya. I’m taking this room next. Anything I need to know?”

Maya was cute, young, and clearly anxious to leave. “Hey, Marissa, how are you? So, the Weinstein baby had a good morning. No apnea at all. The doctor put her on antibiotics for an eye infection — you’ll have to deal with that in the evening. We have a new admission, born at 28 weeks. The name is Har-Even. He’s very fragile. Full oxygen. The parents are frantic — they’re very young, very scared. The ima is crying a lot. You’ll probably meet them.

“And then there’s the Jabarin baby.” Maya shrugged. “He’s not doing great. I don’t even know what to hope for, after that DNA report….”

Marissa sighed. The Jabarin baby had been diagnosed with Stuve-Wiedemann Syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that had only appeared twice before in their NICU. Neither of those babies had made it, and the staff wasn’t overly hopeful about this baby’s chances. “I just wish his mother would come.”

“Why?” Maya said bluntly. “She can’t save him. It’s easier for her this way, isn’t it?”

“Easier for her, yes,” Marissa conceded. “But he deserves to have a mother touch him. Every baby deserves to have a mother love him, no matter how flawed they are.”

Maya nodded. “You sound like a good ima.”

Marrisa felt her cheeks redden. She remembered that frantic tinge to Tamar’s voice as she insisted, “Ima, you don’t get it. It has to look right!”

She tried to be a good ima, she really did. So why, when it came to Tamar, did she always get it wrong?

To be continued….

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1041)