Our seminary daughter came home to help – so why am I scrubbing on my own?

Ahh, midnight. That special hour when no one is talking to me, no one is awake, I should really go to sleep, but I end up staying up for an hour reveling in the silence. My time.

Curling up on the couch, I tuck the throw around me and crack open my laptop. I have zero interest in reading any emails from people or stores who want me or my money. If I squint, I can bypass all the work emails that I should be answering and go straight to Rivka Baila’s @sem email address. Midbar Yehuda!!!!! the subject line screams. I smile at the exclamation points, each one a little stick that says, “Hi, I’m in seminary, and I don’t use regular decibel levels.”

I click on the attachments. Rivka Baila with Etti Markowitz, her roommate. Rivka Baila with Henny Fisher, Rivka Baila with Etti again. I close my eyes, inserting myself mentally into the photo, surrounded by sand dunes and azure skies, the scent of summer wafting through my freezing living room.

March is still roaring like a lion in Flatbush, although it looks like in Eretz Yisrael it’s winding down like a lamb.

I click through the rest of the photos and then notice Rivka Baila’s hastily typed email: 3,000 girls waiting for computers! Love you! Wish I was seeing you soon 🙁

I sniff. I also wish I were seeing my eldest soon. I miss her every day. And not just because she’s my right-hand man, and I’ve had to relearn how to cut salads, pick up milk, and bathe the littles, but because she’s my best friend, and I miss having her around. Tickets are a fortune though, and half the reason Ari agreed to send her to sem in the end was because I’d promised him she’d be staying there for Pesach. No ticket, plus postponing the cost of a new wardrobe….

Stretching, I get to my feet, letting the laptop slide to the couch. Time for bed, a little sleep, and dreams of velvet mountains and perfect skies.

The morning starts off with a full-blown Leah panic attack. “I cannot find my math book. WHERE is my math notebook? If one of those loony heads used it to scribble in, I am going to SCREAM.”

I handle the situation with calm and grace (i.e., stuff the notebook in Leah’s hand with a glare and practically shove her out the door). I am not a morning person, but Leah makes me look like pure sunshine. Once the teens are out of the way, time to get the littles to their respective babysitters. I reminisce about the days when I could have called out to Rivka Baila for help before she left for her bus. I’m going to need to stare at those photos a few more times today.

The clinic is hopping today, all those winter viruses and runny noses, not to mention an oddly large number of dental emergencies. I scan insurance, fill out files, and enter names in a sort of organized frenzy. By the time lunchtime rolls around, I’m exhausted and ready to blow practically an hour’s worth of pay on a garden vegetable panini and white macadamia cookie from Breakfast House next door. My phone pings, but I’m too hungry to look at it. Only after it starts sounding like my alarm clock at 6:55, then 7, then 7:05, do I rummage through my bag.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” I breathe, very aware that I’m in public.