The doorbell rings. Ezra steps out of the kitchen. “Meir, we’re going to Maariv.”

“Now?” Meir looks confused. “But the next Maariv isn’t until nine fifteen—”

“Now.” Ezra strides toward the door, opening it as Meir scrambles to grab his hat and jacket. He stands aside so Rivi’s visitor can walk in, and with nothing more than a curt nod, he’s gone.

Behind the door is a gray-haired man in an unbuttoned polo, leaning heavily on a cane. This is Rivi’s big client? He looks like someone’s grandfather on his way to play chess with the other elderly men at Lenape Park.

Then he speaks, and Gabe’s assessment of him shifts immediately. “Riva, we have a situation.” His voice is clipped, his pale eyes keen, and the cane looks more like a prop than a real support.

Rivi is in a sheitel, changed at lightning speed to business attire, and she nods curtly to him. Gabe watches her from the stairs, Shimmy gaping beside him as Rivi leads Boyd to the dining room table. The house has been cleaned in a whirlwind of activity, toys tucked away and table cleared of homework. No — Shira is making a new mess in the living room, tossing magazines onto the floor as she hunts for her book, and Gabe hurries to retrieve her, glancing at the dining room.

Rivi has transformed, too. Her laptop is open and her face is smooth of all emotion; it’s impossible to tell that she’d just been fighting with her husband. She sits with her back straight but her shoulders loose, as though to project attentiveness and relaxation at once, and her eyes are as sharp as Boyd’s.

Lawyer Rivi. She seems stronger like this, more confident, and Gabe watches her with a tiny bit of wonder. That’s his older sister, eternally competent and respected, even when she’d been close to falling apart just minutes before.

“Marisha Callahan is in the hospital,” Boyd says. “A stroke. She’s in a medically induced coma.”

“Oh, no. What are the doctors saying?”

“Nothing helpful.” Boyd scowls, utterly unmoved by this mysterious woman’s stroke. “I’ve explained that she’s scheduled for a deposition on Monday, but they’ve been unhelpful.”

“Right.” Rivi types something on her laptop, then glances up, the sympathy wiped from her face. “She would have been a useful witness, but her records are still your company property. We can have Penina access it and depose her instead.”

“That won’t be as strong a case.”

“No, but we can work around it.”

Shira still hasn’t found her book. Gabe casts a worried glance at Rivi and Boyd, and takes Shira’s hand, leading her toward the other door of the living room. “We’ll find a different book upstairs,” he whispers.

“No!” Shira does not whisper. She wriggles free. “Mommy!” she calls, and she launches herself at Rivi, burrowing into her side. “Mommy, I need my book!”

Rivi looks startled, then alarmed, Lawyer Rivi melting away. “Shira, not now—”

“I need it!” Shira offers no explanation, no negotiation. She only glares at her mother with that innate three-year-old skill to find the most inconvenient time to be difficult. “I need it now!”

Gabe hurries forward. “I’m sorry,” he says to Rivi, then Boyd. “I’ve got her. Shira, how about we pick out another book and I’ll read it to you?” he proposes. “A second bedtime story.”

“Me, too!” Blimi protests from her vantage point in his arms.

“And you,” Gabe agrees.

Shira considers. “Can we read it in your room downstairs?”

“Absolutely.” Finally, Shira reaches her arms out to Gabe, and he scoops her up, the twins straining at his arms.

Boyd chuckles. “Look at this one. She’ll be an attorney one day. A real shark, I can tell.”

“You’re not wrong.” Rivi offers him a real smile, relaxing a hair.

Boyd’s gaze moves to Gabe, and Gabe twitches under the force of it. It feels as though he’s being scrutinized, his every movement subject to analysis. “This must be a brother. You have the same chin.”

“Yes.” Rivi looks startled. “This is Gabe. He’s… he’s been visiting from Brazil.” Gabe touches his chin, which he’s never thought much about. Rivi takes after Ima, with her dark hair, fine mouth, and olive-toned skin. She only resembles Abba through her dark eyes, while Gabe had gotten Ima’s green ones, and he’s much paler than her. Rarely has he thought that Rivi looks like him.

He tightens his grip on the twins, self-conscious under Boyd’s scrutiny. “I’ll get them back to bed. Sorry about the interruption.”

“Not at all, not at all.” Boyd smiles, grandfatherly again. “I can tell that you’re both good kids. I don’t doubt that you treated your father well.” A storm cloud descends over his eyes. “You’d never go off and leave your father behind.”

“Uh.” Gabe shoots a trapped look at Rivi, who has a fixed smile on her face.

“Can you imagine? I provide for my sons for their whole lives. I give them everything. And they still want more. The sheer greed, the ingratitude… children never appreciate how much their fathers do for them.” Boyd’s lip curls. “They just search for reasons why it wasn’t enough. You know this by now.”

Gabe shifts, uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t have kids.”

“Smart boy,” Boyd says approvingly, then shoots a glance at Shira and Blimi. “Thought you religious Jews have fifty apiece.” He’s jovial, his craggy face splitting into a mischievous grin. “I always say that it keeps you on the ball, all those kids. That’s why Riva here is the best in the business.”

“She definitely is,” Gabe agrees, making a hasty exit toward the basement. He stumbles a little on the stairs with both girls hanging on to him, but they manage to make it to the guest room.

Shimmy follows, and Gabe reads an inane book that he finds on the basement floor — the one Shira’s been searching for — and then a few pages of a comic book that Shimmy wants. The twins slip out in the middle of the second book, first Shira and then Blimi, and Gabe has to retrieve them apologetically from Rivi’s lap. He’s never seen them so clingy before, but they seem determined to be difficult.

Finally, they fall asleep in Gabe’s bed, and he carries them upstairs one at a time to tuck them in. Shimmy follows last, yawning through Shema, and Rivi’s house is finally quiet.

Gabe checks his watch. It’s almost 9:15. Rivi will appreciate him clearing out, too, so he nods to her and slips out the door, walking past the luxury car parked out front toward shul. He doesn’t always make it to Maariv, but he might as well today.

Ezra nods to him when he arrives, still curt and tense, and Meir offers him a tiny smile. As davening begins, the hostility seems to seep out of Ezra, and he’s back to his easygoing self when they finish. Only the slightest shadow remains in his eyes.

“Go ahead home,” he says to Meir, and Gabe dawdles beside him, uncertain of what to do now. Gabe is no expert at the people closest to him, and he’s still working on grasping the nuances of Rivi and Ezra. He likes Ezra — finds his warm, calm presence reassuring — but Rivi is struggling, and Gabe is not the person who comes in and fixes anything.

“Do you want to learn for a while?” Ezra is watching him, an unspoken plea on his face.

“Yeah, sure.” Maybe Gabe can’t solve any of their problems, but he can give Rivi some space before Ezra returns, and give Ezra something else to focus on. It’s something, and not something that might have occurred to him a few months ago. Penina would be proud.

They settle down with a Mishnah Berurah. Within moments, Ezra is in full rebbi mode, animated and challenging, and Gabe feels abruptly like he’s back in yeshivah, arguing with his rebbeim on minor points and pulling out more seforim to find proofs for his claims. It’s exhilarating.

Had he enjoyed it this much when he was a kid? His head had always been in the clouds, the rebbi’s words washing over him without sinking in. Ezra doesn’t allow that, pushes him further and argues back just as passionately.

He’d liked learning with a chavrusa, he recalls suddenly. He hadn’t always had good ones — he’d been a little too odd, matched with another social misfit more often than not — but when it had been good, it had been wonderful.

It’s half past ten when Ezra finally shuts his sefer, eyeing Gabe with satisfaction. “You’re always full of surprises. You’d think that you’d had a seder for the past five years.”

“I haven’t had a seder since mesivta,” Gabe admits. “Not a lot of space for it when you’re in the Gobi Desert. Or college. But I do like to learn. Not every day when I’m working—” He feels suddenly defensive, scrambling for excuses. “I mean, sometimes I’m out in the forest for days, and it’s not like I can pull out a Bava Metzia there—”

There’s no judgment in Ezra’s eyes, only interest, and Gabe takes a breath. “But I get in a little bit here and there. It’s different with a chavrusa.”

“In a good way?”

“I couldn’t spend my life doing it,” Gabe says hastily before Ezra gets any ideas. “But it’s a lot more intellectual than I remember.”

“Well, you hold your own.” Ezra claps his shoulder. “Let’s head back.”

He’s loose and cheerful as they walk back home. The learning has soothed his stress, and he chats with Gabe about school, about his afternoon seder, about what Meir reviewed with him after davening.

But as they turn onto the block, his arms stop swinging as lightly, and Gabe can see how his face seems to stiffen. The weight has returned to him, and Gabe suddenly dreads the way that Ezra and Rivi might explode when they’re back in the same room.

“She didn’t expect this tonight,” he feels obligated to say. “I think it was just as hard on her as it was on you.”

“She asked for it,” Ezra says coldly. “I warned her about this case, and she still—” He stops talking, his teeth gritting together.

There is no silver Aston Martin parked outside anymore. Meir has gone up to bed, and Rivi is fast asleep on the couch, her sheitel and business suit still on. She looks exhausted and worn out, and Gabe steals a glance at Ezra.

He stands very still, eyes fixed on Rivi. He looks ashamed, but stubborn.

To be continued… 

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 924)