I already knew though she didn’t know I knew.

“Mazel tov” my friend calls. “Our wedding’s on Sunday. And can you possibly take my daughter for the week?”

“Of course” I say. “I’ve been waiting for this for a year and a half.”

I knew because her daughter had already told my daughter that her mommy and tatty were getting married back again.

Talk about simchahs!

The photographer is one of the happiest photographers I’ve ever seen.

I mention it to a woman sitting at the table. She gives this big smile and says “He was also the photographer at the first wedding.”

The wedding’s held at someone’s home. You can tell right away this family is no stranger to making simchahs. The house is huge but not fancy or redecorated. It has that old-time warmth and comfort. Everything set up for chesed. Double-sized industrial oven. Couches no one’s afraid to sit on.

And when the dancing starts the hostess just reaches up and unscrews the parts of the chandelier.

An enthusiastic lady comes up and asks me and an old old friend standing next to me if we want to lift the kallah up in her chair.

We both answer simultaneously “We’re past lifting chairs.” But to make the kallah happy we pick up the empty chair and dance as if she’s in it.

Someone who happens to know my old friend and myself comes up to us. “How do you two know each other?” she asks surprised.

“Before we were even married” my friend explains “we were together in camp in the Catskills.”

We reminisce for a second on how we used to talk and dream on our long walks in the mountains about getting married. Who will he be? Where will he fall from?

The photographer’s busy taking the family portrait. I say “This time the children who only existed then in concept are actually now in the picture.”

We talk about our children who they are how they are. No judgments just understanding.

My friend’s look or tone is saying she’s a little disappointed in herself or maybe in how it all turned out .

“Look we set the foundations” I say “and sometimes the one who builds the building gets all covered in cement and dirt.”

She hears.

“We came. We put up the walls the floors the beams. Our children will polish the candlesticks.” I notice the candlesticks on the table with the new kesubah in a leather-bound holder next to them and the kallah sitting behind.

The kallah’s mother-in-law calls from America.

“Hi Mom” the kallah says to her mother-in-law. “Yes it’s beautiful ” she says her eyes shining.

“The fish is delicious” someone comments from across the table.

“The kallah’s favorite” an Israeli rebbetzin old-time neighbor from when Rachel the kallah was newly married says. “Rachel used to come to us often for Shabbos. They were alone in Israel with a bunch of little ones. We loved having them.

“She always complimented every single thing I served. I miss her” she shares openly. “When I told my daughters who are all married by now they cried.”

I didn’t exactly know what to say because of the Hebrew and the foreign pauses. Did she mean her daughters cried when they heard about the couple getting divorced or did they cry because they were getting remarried?

Both work I say to myself like the word shalom. One minute it means hello the next minute goodbye but its true meaning is peace.

“They should be blessed with shalom” I say knowing that you can’t lose with this sentence.

I turn back to my old friend. We pick up where we left off.

“So what do we call this story?” I ask. “If at first you don’t succeed try try again?

“Or ‘The Old Couch’?”

My friend looks at me sideways.

“You know the kind weather-worn — sags a little in the middle but nothing can replace it.”

Of course there’s a time when the old couch really doesn’t work anymore and it’s dangerous. When the springs pop out or a leg is wobbly. But not here we both agree. This story’s called “The Old Couch.”