Leora’s eyes widened when she saw the bags of Sheyan takeout in Dini’s hands.

“Ohmigosh, Chinese! Yum! Wow, that’s sooo incredible of you!”

Hah! Dini smirked at the scornful Ayala in her brain — or maybe at her own inadequate self. Some problems really can be solved by throwing money at them. What’s so wrong with that?

“Hope it’s enough,” Dini said, as she placed the fourth bag on the table. She turned to Leora. “How’s it going?”

Case management was really Ayala’s department, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t ask Leora a simple question, to remind her that Dini wasn’t just another volunteer making dinner.

Leora’s mouth twisted. “Well, we broke the news last night to our families. Not fun.”

“Oh, no. That must’ve been so hard.” Dini couldn’t even imagine having such a conversation with her parents. “How’d they take it?”

Leora gave a short laugh. “How do you think they took it? But I’m glad we waited until we spoke it out first with Liat; her advice was really spot-on.”

Dini’s eyes crinkled. “Liat?”

Leora looked surprised. “The social worker I met with yesterday. Sorry, Ayala seemed to know her, so I just assumed you did, too.”

“Ayala’s the one who deals with all the official medical stuff,” Dini mumbled. “I handle the, you know, volunteering end.”

Eliana’s face sneered in her head. You arrange meals for people who had a baby? That’s so sweet.

“And also the financial assistance, right?” Leora’s face brightened. “I spoke to my boss about taking a leave of absence, and he said he understood if I needed it. So now I need to see if I can make it work. How much assistance do you offer?”

Dini’s stomach dropped. Go on, tell her it was a mistake. That you’d thought there were funds available but it turned out there weren’t.

She looked up at the young woman’s eager face. “Um, it, uh, depends on different factors. Like, your income, how many people in your family.”

Coward. But how could she disappoint this young woman whose life was falling apart?

“Got it, that makes sense. So I guess you’ll let me know soon?”

Dini made an equivocal gesture with her head that could have been taken for a nod.

Leora continued, “Thanks. And I also need to find out how much I get in Bituach Leumi benefits.”

Wait a second. “Bituach Leumi benefits?”

“Yeah, I hadn’t realized we’re entitled to that until we spoke with Liat and Ayala yesterday! We didn’t really discuss details. Liat said that would be for a different meeting. But it sounded like the government gives something substantial. Baruch Hashem, we decided two years ago to make official aliyah.”

Dini’s heart raced. Just how much did Bituach Leumi provide? Maybe Chesed Tzirel’s private assistance wasn’t necessary?

“Can you first find out the extent of their help?” Dini asked carefully. “Because, obviously, that will impact the extent of our grant.” Her fingernails dug into her palm. Was it possible that she’d dig herself out of this mess on a bureaucratic technicality?

Disappointment momentarily flitted over Leora’s face, but she quickly said, “Oh, of course. I — I’ll find that out and get back to you.”

Ayala put her paint brush down, stretched her arms out wide, and rolled her shoulders back and forth. She grinned up at Bracha.

“You know how you can carry a burden around and not even realize how much it’s weighing on you until it suddenly rolls off?”

Bracha laughed. “Ayala, you’re positively giddy! You should have quit your job long ago! Do you know that when you agreed to come with me to this paint night, I literally fell off my chair?”

Ayala raised her eyebrow. “Not literally.”

“Yes, I did. I slid off the couch onto the floor and shouted, ‘Yoo hoo!’ Ask my kids — they thought it was so funny, they did it, too.”

Ayala grinned at her fondly. Could she ever in a million years be so uninhibited?

“Anyway, nu?” Bracha continued. She gave a critical look at the canvas in front of her and applied a thick pink brushstroke to her tree. “Did you do it? Did you officially give notice?”

Ayala nodded. “I told Rikki this morning.”

She’d been strangely disappointed by the anticlimax of the conversation. She’d carefully planned out what she would say, how she would explain how much she’d enjoyed working there, but that for various life reasons it was time to move on. Ayala wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d expected: A vehement protest that she can’t possibly leave? That her clients would be devastated, that the clinic would barely function without her?

But the director had accepted the news calmly, had said something nice about being sorry to see her go, and wished her well. And Ayala had walked out of her office feeling distinctly underappreciated. Had she overestimated the difference she was making in other people’s lives through her speech therapy work? No wonder all her loved ones had advised her to quit her job and take Dini’s salary offer; why had she resisted so strongly?

Bracha waved her paintbrush in the air, so that pink droplets splattered on her sky. “Did she threaten to chain you to your therapy room to prevent your leaving?”

Ayala frowned. “No, not quite.”

Then she saw Bracha’s eyes twinkling. “Wait, are you making fun of me?”

Her friend laughed. “Even the great Ayala Wexler isn’t irreplaceable, you know. What did you expect?”

Ayala felt her face grow warm. Was it her own blind arrogance that assumed she was indispensable in whatever avenue she helped people?

The painting instructor told them to add color to their skies and Ayala obediently dabbed a spot of orange in the corner. She wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to come with Bracha tonight, except perhaps to prove to herself the quality-of-life benefits she would enjoy from quitting her job.

She made a face. Where did quality of life end and waste of time begin?

Her phone rang, and she was almost happy to see Leora Schwartz’s name pop up. “Sorry, gotta take this,” she said to Bracha. “Feel free to continue my painting.”

She strode out of the room and let herself out the front door of the hostess’s home, to speak more freely outside.

“Hi, Leora. I kept thinking about you today. How did your conversation with your parents go?”

Ayala paced up and down the street as Leora gave her a blow-by-blow account. When she first started assisting with medical cases, she was fascinated to discover that, for many of her constituents, she took on the role not just of advisor but of best friend. By now she simply saw it as yet another gratifying part of her job — that women in pain would share with her what they often felt uncomfortable sharing with their own close family and friends.

“Anyway,” Leora continued, “I’m calling with a question. Dini was here tonight to drop off dinner, and she told me I needed to find out the exact benefits I’ll be getting from Bituach Leumi. Do you know?”

Ayala stopped walking. Dini said that? What did Dini have to do with Bituach Leumi benefits? Had she just been trying to sound knowledgeable?

Don’t be snooty, she told herself. “Well, Liat said she’d discuss this next time,” she said slowly. “But generally speaking, you’re entitled to a monthly allowance that covers household help like cleaning and childcare. It’s usually around four thousand shekels, plus an additional fifteen hundred shekels per child under 18.”

“Cleaning help, that would be nice,” Leora said. “What about money to make up for missed work? Do they give some kind of unemployment benefits for disability?”

“If the patient himself is employed, then he’s entitled to disability benefits to cover his missed work time. But since your husband is in kollel, that wouldn’t apply. As a spouse, you’re entitled to take all of your sick days allowance now in one lump, up to sixty days, as long as you’ve been working at your job for over a year.” She paused. “No, wait, that doesn’t apply to you, either. Don’t you work at an American job?”

“Yeah, I do.” Leora sighed. “So, it sounds like I’d be getting around eight thousand shekels a month. That will for sure be helpful, but it definitely won’t cover all our expenses if I take a leave of absence. It won’t even cover rent.” She paused. “Thanks, I’ll tell this to Dini. I hope your fund will be able to make up the difference in our lost income, because I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few months if I also need to work full-time.”

“Fund?” Ayala asked blankly.

“Yes, Dini told me about the financial assistance you provide so I can take an unpaid work leave to care for my husband. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt. Neither of our parents have the money to help us, and I had no idea how I was going to make it through the next few months.”

“We’re so happy to help,” she murmured, even as her insides were roiling.

Dini must have raised much more money than she’d thought if they were already creating funds to provide financial assistance. But why was Dini doing all this behind her back?

She needed to get to the bottom of this.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 867)