“I always thought Fridays are the day off here in Eretz Yisrael, the day you go out with your husband after a whole week of learning”

Tziporah drained the last dregs of coffee in her “#1 CPA” mug and looked at her list. “Send PDFs of Katz 2021 taxes to Maury for review,” it said. She saved the PDFs, sent them out, and put a checkmark on the list. Next: “Complete extension requests for Hollander, Heimowitz, Feld.”

That was annoying busywork. Should she start now, or pick up Momo from the babysitter first and try to get him in for a nap at home, so she’d have a solid chunk of time to work before picking up Miriam and Yehuda from their after-school programs? She decided to go get Momo.

“Hi, Chavi, how’s it going?” she asked the babysitter.

“Great, but Momo just fell asleep about twenty minutes ago. I tried to keep him awake until pickup, but he was desperate for a nap. I hope this doesn’t ruin your day.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Tziporah lied. She squeezed, then flexed her fingers. “Hopefully he’ll transfer to the stroller and keep sleeping there.”

Momo woke up, of course, when Tziporah lifted him out of the babysitter’s crib, but his eyelids fluttered closed soon after she strapped him into the stroller with his fuzzy gray blanket. The quick walk home finished the job, and he was fast asleep when she reached her building.

Standing in the entrance, she weighed her options. Should she risk waking him up again by switching him into his crib, or should she schlep the stroller up the three flights of stairs, and allow him to continue sleeping?

She needed the hour of quiet to work on those extension requests from the New York office — they usually expected her to have her to-do list completed by the time they logged in every morning. She decided to schlep the stroller up, and was midway up the first flight when she heard an unfamiliar voice.

“Hi, umm, do you need some help with that?”

That dark ponytail sheitel looked familiar. Where had she seen this girl?