Three cases of chicken pox, all mild. A baby who’d fallen out of his high chair, classic toddler break. A case of strep throat, several stomach bugs, a fungal rash, and one over-anxious mother: it had been a typical and rather quiet morning in the office. Abe hadn’t scheduled any appointments for the afternoon; with any luck he’d get to the seudah early enough to really enjoy it.

He’d just pulled out his tuna sandwich — sweet Annie, she’d put two of her prune lekvar homemade hamantaschen into his lunch bag — when his intercom buzzed.

“Doctor Samuels in on the phone for you. He says it’s important.”

Abe’s thick eyebrows shot up. If it was Charlie Samuels on the line, could it be about…?

“Hi, Charlie. What’s the good word?”

When Mrs. Goldstein, Dr. Levine’s secretary, walked into his office, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand, she found the doctor sitting at his desk, staring at nothing, his lips a taut line of tension.

“Why did they come? Why did they have to come?” Perele Schwartz looked up from where she was ladling out portions of chicken soup. Her “sous-chef,” as Marjorie had begun calling herself, had completely forgotten her task of preparing the bowls of soup to be served.

“Marjorie, darling, the kreplach.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have a half-hysterical girl helping in the kitchen: Perele watched as Marjorie viciously threw a cooked carrot into a bowl, sending a fine spray of soup onto the counter.

She sighed, put down the ladle, and put her arms on Marjorie’s shoulders. “Why don’t you sit down here next to me. Eat some soup. Calm down.”

Marjorie sniffed, and a few tears ran down her face.

“You’re so good to me, Mrs. S.”

Perele spoke in her usual gentle tones. “You’re a good girl, Marjorie. And you have good parents, who love you.”

The sniffles grew louder; the remains of Marjorie’s Indian makeup ran down her face in rivulets of black and red.

“No. They don’t love me. They would love me if I would finish college, get a nice job, marry a nice boy, and live in a nice house with nice children, and nice neighbors who will envy my nice furniture. Then they would love me, like they love my brother.” She lifted her face, a ghastly mess of tear-soaked warpaint. “But I don’t want to be nice. I want to be me. I want to see the world. Change the world. And I want to have fun doing it.”

Silently, Perele walked over to a cabinet, pulled out a clean dish towel, and wet it in the sink with warm water. She ran it softly over Marjorie’s cheeks, uncovering a sprinkling of freckles as she cleaned up the younger woman’s face.

“Marjorie, you’re going to have fun. Right now. You’ll go out there into the dining room. You’ll sit next to your mother, and you’ll eat the roast chicken and those fantastic Swedish meatballs that you made. Imagine: you don’t only cook French cuisine, you can cook like the Swedes do, too! You’ll enjoy the singing. And after the main course you’ll carry out Mutty’s birthday cake, and your mother will be proud of you that you made such a gorgeous dessert.”

A deep sigh. “Okay, Mrs. S. I’ll do it for you. But really, I don’t think you know what it’s like, to live in a house without love.”

As Perele watched Marjorie walk slowly out to the dining room, she felt her own tears slide down her face.

Resolutely, she turned back to the counter and ladled out more chicken soup.

On the women’s side, things were not turning out as badly as Annie had feared. A bit of a cold fish, this Alice Burton, she thought, but polite. And to be honest, it was rather a relief to chat with the mother in measured, quiet tones about the freshness of the salmon and the unusually warm winter they were enjoying, rather than dealing with the daughter’s strident and demanding voice and personality.

Searching for something else to say, Annie turned to a topic guaranteed (at least, she hoped) to bring a smile to her still-somber guest. “My children are so excited about the World’s Fair,” she said. “They’re already begging me to buy tickets. I hear the theme is ‘Peace Through Understanding.’” Her eyes fell on Marjorie, sitting silently at her mother’s side, and a thought flashed through her, unspoken: They could use a little peace through understanding in this family.

Alice gave a small smile and the two chatted, still a little stiffly, about the upcoming fair, until Annie, having done her duty as hostess, turned to her left, where Malka, her foster daughter, was happily feasting on the meatballs and chicken. Annie put an affectionate arm over her shoulders, and they spoke about where Malka planned on giving birth.

“And of course, you’ll come to us after the birth, to rest up.”

“Thanks, Mama, it’s a little overwhelming, and it’ll be great to have Granny’s experience to help me out.”

Now here was a question Annie hadn’t thought of: What should Malka’s baby call her?

“Granny? No, Granny seems so… old. I don’t feel like a granny,” Annie laughed.

“And you don’t look like one, Mama,” Malka smiled.

“You know, I didn’t ever meet my grandparents,” Annie said, a little wistfully, “and I loved Dad’s mother, Bubbe. So I guess ‘Bubbe’ is what I’ll be. Takes a little getting used to.”

Malka’s husband, Yoel, stepped in, motioning to his wife. They spoke for a few minutes in a corner of the room, and Malka returned, a worried look on her face.

“Mama, Yoel says things are getting a little out of control there.”

Annie hadn’t been paying much attention to the men’s side, even though the mechitzah had been partially pulled away — both to give the men more space and air, and to allow the women the chance to watch the dancing. Now she peeked in.

Her eyes widened.

The scene looked more like something out of Achashveirosh’s wine parties than the quiet dining room of a respectable boarding house. At its center was — could it be? — Fred Burton, holding up an empty liquor bottle, jumping up and down and singing a song whose lyrics sounded something like Drink, Drink, Drink. Two yeshivah boys and, yes, it was Artie, were dancing with him, while Moe hovered nearby, again wearing that look that combined anxiety and laughter.

Papa and her own little ones were nowhere to be seen, but there was Mutty, sitting in a corner, idly drinking a cup of — could it be wine?

Suddenly the kitchen doors swung open. Marjorie walked out, carefully holding a gigantic three-layer frosted cake on a platter.

The dancing stopped. As Artie began to sing “Happy Birthday,” Fred Burton jumped towards his daughter. “Hello, Margie,” he roared.

And then, as everyone watched, he slid on a wet patch on the floor, banged heavily into his daughter, sending Marjorie — and the cake — flying into the air and landing in a welter of glass shards, sugar frosting, and screams.

During his medical training, Abe Levine had seen many unexpected and shocking events. But nothing had prepared him for the scene that awaited him as he ran into the hotel’s dining room.

Moe, Yoel, and a few yeshivah bochurim were grimly cleaning off the tables on the men’s side of the room, while Perele Schwartz and a few of the younger boarders took care of the women’s table. Mrs. Schwartz greeted him with some incomprehensible babble about Marjorie being taken away by her mother, who’d told her they would pick up Marjorie’s things another day, but that her daughter could not stay even one more minute here in this madhouse.

He hardly heard her words. He only had eyes for Annie, her face white and drawn, mopping up the pool of vomit that surrounded their son Mutty, who was lying in a stupor in a corner of the room.

As he walked towards her she looked up. Seeing her husband, Annie burst into tears. “Oh, Abe, it was so terrible. And they’ve taken Marjorie away, and she was crying so much, and Mutty got drunk, and….”

“My dear, sit down,” he said gently.

“I can’t,” Annie wailed. “We have to get this mess cleaned up. And look at Mutty!”

Abe bent down over his son, picked up his hand. “His pulse is fine. Don’t worry about him. It’s you I’m worried about.”

Annie turned back to her mop. “I’ll be okay, Abe. Just let me finish.”

“No.” It came out more harshly than he’d meant it to. “Annie,” he said, more quietly, “come upstairs. We have to talk.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 854)