Even if Aunt Edith’s request was strange, Raffi thought, the timing was sort of perfect. He’d finished the school year three days earlier, handed in the marks and the summer-school recommendation list, cleaned out his desk in the teacher’s room and sat down for the annual review with the supervisor from the Ministry of Education.

The supervisors kept changing, a stream of patronizing, overeager bureaucrats whose official job it was to monitor the public school system and offer support, but who were really there to make sure that the teachers knew they were being watched so that whichever politician was in power could boast about having cleaned up our public schools.

Raffi had been doing this for long enough that he was given a certain measure of respect, but he still had to endure the fake compliments twice each year. “Nice, the average grade has stayed the same again, that’s impressive given the overall decline in the district, Mr. Strauss, it’s not a small accomplishment.” This usually came with an effusive nod, bobbing head and too-wide, toothy smile, followed closely by, “Just one small thing, Mr. Strauss, a few students complained about signs of anger in the classroom, which isn’t terrible, a classroom environment can be stressful, and three or four little flare-ups are completely normal.” The most recent supervisor, a skinny Indian gentleman named Mr. Patel, had frowned after he said this and added, “The important thing is to make sure, of course, to use anger constructively, no abusive remarks and certainly no physical interaction.”

Of course there were complaints! They gave every student a form to fill out at the end of the school year, and, for Heaven’s sake, there was a line that said COMPLAINTS___________. The students probably thought they had to fill it in, that it was mandatory, like using uppercase letters in your personal code for online banking.

Once Mr. Patel had Raffi squirming, he said, “There were some compliments as well, a young woman who said that she hated the idea of math before your class but with your ‘credit card program’ you changed everything, she really enjoyed it. I would love to hear about that program, Mr. Strauss.”

Raffi spoke about the fake credit cards he’d given each student on the first day, the conversations about interest and exchange rates and debt, while Mr. Patel pretended to write, after which they shook hands and Mr. Patel made a joke (What’s a math teacher’s favorite sum? Summer!) and Raffi stood up and rolled his eyes to the science teacher, Mr. Liu, who was next.

Summers were nice. Sarah was a dental hygienist with a flexible-enough schedule; once the children started daycamp, Raffi and Sarah could do little day trips, museums and walking tours, or tackle projects around the house. Nothing more spectacular, because, as he liked to tell Sarah, “I spend ten months teaching teenagers eight hours a day, all I want is quiet, I’m not looking for any action, thank you very much.”

Their neighbors the Grossbergs thought they should do a road trip, but he and Sarah agreed that those trips were never as glorious as others made them sound. It was all about pictures, and then you were stuck with an empty gas tank, impossibly high prices at these roadside tourist traps, and traffic at every exit.

The kids were difficult enough as it was, there was nothing magical about hearing them fight and kvetch for eight hours, nothing magical about New York cousins who he didn’t particularly enjoy, not their spoiled kids or exuberant announcements about restaurants they had to try or their worrying about who they would be meshadech with when their oldest kid was only eleven.

But here he was, driving his blue Accord out of Ottawa and down the 416, a road trip of his own. Flying to New York wasn’t an option; there would be too many boxes to bring back when he was done, so there was no other choice. It was a pity, really, that he was the one going: his siblings were more the type, but Daniel was an actuary in Chicago and Esther was a nurse out in California. He was the only one off from work, so he’d offered. (He hadn’t really offered, but they had a long back-and-forth via e-mail, and once it became clear that there was no respectable way out of it, and Daniel had written clearly that whatever expenses were involved would obviously be reimbursed after the sale went through — obviously! Esther had written as well — he took the high road and said sure, he’d do it.)

He had downloaded music and shiurim, even the investment podcast he’d never had time to listen to. He didn’t think it wise to overdose on caffeine, so he’d made sure to sleep eight hours before setting out just after Shacharis. He checked for his passport one more time as he approached the border.