The first thing that hits her at the airport is the aroma of coffee.

The sweeping sense of it the way the aroma soothes all the senses strong and rich streaking heat through the wet tingle of nerves and energy and sweat she finds on her forehead before flying.

Coffee nerves energy Ellie thinks. She slows to match her long strides with Shaya’s measured steps. Nerves. That’s for sure. And I’m not even flying.

She swallows. Nerves happen when you’re about to meet the daughter you haven’t seen in four years.

It’s barely morning outside sky a numb gray the night’s chill lingering on the breeze. But inside the airport is teeming. Ellie feels it again the tangle of nerves over the rumble and whip of so many people and suitcases moving moving moving. Something heavy locks in her chest. She takes a breath and the feeling brushes against her lungs coarse like a rope.

“Relax Ellie ” Shaya murmurs. “This is good. Great. Rochel’s coming with the whole family! Just relax.”

Ellie wants to wring her hands close her eyes sigh hard. She smiles. “Yeah.”

Two teenagers in sweats lumber past. A woman with bleached hair and watery eyes pushes a cheap plastic stroller a few rowdy kids in braids hanging off her pants. Ellie purses her lips. Rowdy kids are never a good sign.

Especially not when they’re your own.

The thought makes her grimace. She knows… she knows she hates when parents allow their children to walk all over them. When a mother is not strong for her children.

When Rochel is not strong for her children.

She sighs and for a moment the earthy smell of coffee mingles with the scent of dust and long-ago apple tea the one her mother would have after a good cry. She hears the clink of spoon against Mami’s chipped mug.

Shaya nods toward a screen hanging across the arrivals terminal. “I’m going to see if they’ve landed.”

He’s edgy too Ellie realizes. Guilt leaves an acrid trail in her stomach. Yes Rochel’s parenting was painful to watch but heavens she’s learned her lesson. A strong-worded comment on a windy Pesach morning and it’s been four years since Rochel came home.

Four years.

A bar mitzvah on the other side of the family finally lured her back from Eretz Yisrael. Before Ellie had called Rochel to ask if she wanted to stay with them she’d spent a full hour doing deep breathing exercises until she felt reasonably assured that she could stay collected.

Ellie clenches her fists around the leather strap of her shoulder bag. I’m not going to let this happen again. I’m not saying a word to Rochel even if it kills me.

Shaya comes back with the news that the plane landed, thank goodness, and they wedge themselves into the small crowd of people at the gate, waiting. Ellie closes her eyes for a shiver of a moment, aching, suddenly, to see Rochel already, her clear green eyes and dimples, her auburn-streaked dark brown sheitel the exact shade of her own. Ellie wears her wig pulled back softly in a clip, but Rochel likes hers loose and flowing.

It had always been like that. What Ellie did one way, Rochel did the other. Not in a nasty way, no way. Rochel is sweet and kind and precious like a pearl; she crumbles in the face of conflict. But oh, they are different. Really, Ellie reflects guiltily, it had been a relief to marry her off. She turns to look at Shaya, who is rather… buzzing, eagerness flapping all about him like a puppy tail. Ellie smiles.

But when she sees Rochel, she feels her heart wrap into a hard ball. Rochel is gorgeous, her liquid eyes and sweet chin distinct even from a distance. She is also heavy. A lot heavier than she was the last time Ellie saw her. She looks tired, no surprise after such a long flight, pushing a Maclaren piled with carry-ons with one hand, holding four-year-old Aliza with the other while six-year-old Ashi pulls at her skirt and whines. Her husband and two oldest sons bring up the rear, lugging suitcases.

Ellie brushes a hand to her chest — what is it? Heartburn? — then smiles broadly. Oh, Rochel, her honey girl, all these beautiful children, how she loves them — Rochel, why don’t you stand up for yourself? For your children?

I will not. Say. Anything.

Ellie swallows, love and heartache cinders in her chest. She inhales, hoping for the coffee aroma, but it’s gone.

There is something about the heat that turns Ellie off. The cloying thickness drifting vapor-like through the throngs of mommies and daddies and squealing kids and self-absorbed couples. It settles over her chest and arms, spreading up over her eyes like a lead towel. Rochel has her sleeves rolled up, her freckles rather glittering in the sun. She always loved the summer, Ellie remembers.

They pass a humongous bear-shaped sign, tacked to the wooden gates. “Oooh, the bears! I want to see the bears, I want to see the bears!” Ashi cries, jumping up and down. Up and down, up and down.

Menachem looks up from foraging in Rochel’s oversized bag. “Later, first I wanna see the lions. We’re almost there.”

Ashi stops walking and stamps an angry little foot. “We’re not almost there.”

“Yuh-huh, we are. It even says so, on the map. Look!” He waves the crumpled paper an inch from Ashi’s nose. Ashi tries to grab it, but Menachem is faster. Hands, feet, tears; Ellie turns away and searches her bag for tissues she pretends she can’t find, while the boys pounce on each other, their mother, the shredded map, and Rochel issuing dire threats, frazzled and red-faced.

Ellie discovers a pack of tissues just as a sullen sort of truce is reached and everyone is walking again.

“Kids,” Rochel sighs, chuckling but self-conscious. She casts a fleeting glance at her mother. Ellie catches it, this plea for mom’s assurance. It makes her sad, to realize that a day at the zoo with Rochel and her gang is so difficult for her.

A cheery jingle filters through the leafy overhead, twink-twink-twink-twunk-twink. Ellie smiles, recognizing the timeless tinkle of the ice cream truck even before the dusty, white paradise-on-wheels rumbles into view. When she turns, she finds scores of little people skipping down the road, sun-browned little arms reaching up, pointing at the list full of luscious names. Butter Pecan. Banana Split. Cotton Candy.

Ellie watches. A little boy with a mop of blond curls accepts a sugar cone piled with strawberry and vanilla, chocolate sprinkles.

Ellie looks at Rochel, at the kids, a hodgepodge of pink cheeks and dimples and crinkly bags of chips. I love these people. “Kids!” She calls. “Who wants ice cream?”

They turn to her with puppy eyes. Rochel laughs. Something loosens behind Ellie’s ribs. “Here’s the list of kosher flavors,” She points to a small sign tacked towards the bottom of the truck. The truck jingles, children squeal, the vague smell of smoky hotdogs drifts from the stand in the distance; Ellie presses crisp dollar bills into sweaty little palms and feels good.

“I’m taking chocolate. Only chocolate,” announces Menachem. “Colors are for little kids. And vanilla is for babies.”

Ashi glares at him from over the tip of his vanilla cone. “Is not.”

Aliza ignores him. “I want strawberry, Bubby.”

Rochel smiles. “My kids know exactly what they like.” She pauses, mock frowns, eyes the truck hungrily. “Trouble is, so does their mom.”

Ellie laughs. “I don’t remember the last time I had ice cream. Maybe I’m old.”

Rochel looks sheepish; her eyes tell tales of cardboard pints full of creamy frozen sweets tucked away in her freezer. “Well,” she says and exhales in a whoosh, “I want ice cream.”

Ellie purses her lips. I will not say anything.

“I know I shouldn’t… but I’m so hot. And tired. And I’m off my diet anyway ’til we get back home.” Rochel frowns.

The kids lick their ice cream cones, peer up at their mother.

Ellie feels her cheeks flush, shame and anger and fear, and she turns away. If you’re going to show zero self-control and have this ice cream, must you do it in front of your kids? Must you exhibit your weakness for them to see?

She chews her lower lip, busies herself with her phone. Ellie was in her twenties when her mother was diagnosed with a severe bout of pneumonia. Not so major, not to worry, the doctor had said, but three months later she was gone. The doctor had tried to comfort, explain, but Ellie knew; Mami just wasn’t a fighter. She never was.

Her phone is slippery in her sweaty fingers; she squints at the screen in the glaring sun and thinks of their tiny kitchen, stuffy with all the fires going, cherry compote, thick bean soup rich with white pepper. Mami, sitting at the scratched Formica table, smiling and patting heads, clutching tissues in her thick fingers, red-eyed. Ellie remembers gazing into her eyes once; pools of soft gray flecked with fear.

Fear. Ellie loved her so much that her chest ached. But her mother was weak. Shamefully weak. She could never catch life’s curveballs with grace.

She looks up to find Rochel still vacillating at the truck, her kids still watching. It isn’t only now, it’s the mornings when Aliza tantrums to have her mother dress her. Shabbos afternoons when Ashi begs Rochel for one more story and one more and one more. Last night when Rochel wanted to go out with her husband but the kids weren’t keen on it. Ellie wants to scream. Don’t do this to your kids, give them a strong mother. Don’t do this.

She watches Rochel reach into her purse, hand the ice-cream guy a five-dollar bill. “Mmm, this is good,” she says, coming back with her cone.

Ellie forces herself to smile, but her eyes are ice. Rochel colors.

I didn’t say anything! Ellie thinks. Rochel finishes her cone, subdued, while Ellie tries not to focus on the tiny prick of awful welling in her stomach. The sun is brilliant above them, but when Ellie glances at Rochel, her freckles aren’t glittering.

Aliza stands on tiptoes and twirls in front of the hallway mirror, fingers fussing with her black curls.

Ellie never cared for Rochel’s sense of fashion, it was too gaudy, she felt. But now, watching Aliza preen by the mirror in a green dress stitched with white eyelet flowers, the boys stiff in their gray suits, she has to admit they look adorable.

She will tell Rochel, just as soon as she comes downstairs. Tonight is bar mitzvah night and her daughter had done a fabulous job outfitting them.

She finds Rochel at the top of the staircase, in slenderizing black chiffon. The auburn highlights in her dark sheitel glint in the hallway lamps. “You look beautiful,” Ellie says, feeling tender. She meets Rochel’s eyes. “What? What happened?”

“My ring. My diamond ring.” She closes her eyes. “It’s gone.”

Ellie looks up sharply. “When did you see it last?”

“I wore it all day. I must have lost it outside. I don’t know… how something like this can happen. How does a diamond ring fall off your finger?”

“Or get removed delicately from your finger,” Ellie says grimly.

Rochel’s hand flutters to her heart. “No. No way. This is… a diamond. But not just a diamond. It’s from Meyer, it’s—” She stops and swallows, tears glinting in the corner of her eyes. She trails down the stairs. “I looked everywhere. It’s not in the house.”

Hearing her voice, Aliza and Ashi scamper into the hallway. “You look so pretty, Ma,” Ashi says, admiringly, while Aliza inspects her from head to toe. Rochel pats his cheek with a shaky hand.

“What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Her voice pitches, she clasps her hands together. “I can’t lose this… I must have this ring, oh goodness, what am I going to do?!”

The children stare. Ellie feels herself go numb. Not in front of the kids. Not in front of the kids, Rochel, please.

Rochel leans against the wall and closes her eyes. When she opens them, they are wet. “Where’s Meyer? He went to get the car 20 minutes ago! Why isn’t he back yet?”

“Rochel, we’ll do what we can to find it. I don’t hold out much hope, but we’ll try. Try to calm down, enjoy the bar mitzvah.” Ellie clears the roughness from her throat, but her heart slams.

Rochel gives a mirthless laugh, bordered with hysteria. Hastily, Ellie shepherds the kids into the kitchen for lemonade drinks; colorless, so it won’t ruin their clothes, but sweet enough to keep them away from the living room where their mother is losing it. When Meyer shows up, she puts on the new Uncle Moishy so they won’t hear Rochel cry. She watches the kids, enthralled with the color and movement on the screen, and her heart splinters, seething and broken.

Doesn’t Rochel know how hard she worked to give her a strong mother? A mother who doesn’t fall apart? She had put herself through school with a toddler and a newborn, so that she would have a good job. For years, there had been no cake, no chocolate, certainly no ice cream. And she never cried before her children, never. She wanted to be a put-together, successful woman for her kids, all for her kids. Doesn’t Rochel know?

Ellie turns up the volume and refills cups with lemonade until Meyer ducks into the kitchen to collect the kids — time to get going.

When they’re gone, Ellie sits heavily in a chair. She wants coffee, so bad, but caffeine at this hour? No. She fills a glass with ice-cold water instead. She holds the chilled glass to her forehead.

I will not say anything, she thinks, again, but she’s tired now, so tired, exhaustion leaking through her ribs, trickling down to her toes. Who knows? Who said silence is the best thing?

Because it is! Ellie! This, in Shaya’s voice.

Ellie closes her eyes, tilts her head to rest over the back of the chair, covers her face with her hands. They feel chapped and warm on her cheeks, vaguely reminiscent of berry-scented dish soap. Must she stand by and watch as her grandchildren try to grow, and become vulnerable in the feeble grip of ineffectual parenting?

In the shadows, she sees a wisp of a girl in a washed-out gingham dress, crouching beneath the kitchen table wide-eyed. The hot crush in her stomach subsides, hardens cold. Were her own days of fear not enough, of watching Mami fold before the demands and cruelties of life, of boxes full of crumpled tissues and dreams?

One thing Ellie learned over the years is that the right way is not always the easy way. She jumps up, the chair scraping against the kitchen tiles. The noise doesn’t make her flinch. And I never just take the easy way out.

Still, just because she had made up her mind to do things right, it didn’t mean it suddenly became easy.

Hour later, Ellie tosses in the darkness, feeling sweaty and bothered despite the cool gust from the air conditioner. It rumbles too loud in the silence of the night, broken by a cat’s distant screech. She stuffs her pillow over her face and tries to stop thinking. She is not one of those who can just carry on with no sleep. This nocturnal thing is not good for her, not good at all.

In the dimness of her mind, images and words swoop and tangle. It’s my duty as a mother to help my daughter. To help my grandchildren.

Sure it is, but then Rochel won’t come for another four years. Good?

I can speak delicately. I can tell her what’s on my heart.

No, you can’t. You can’t… talk, about Mami, about everything. You’ll break down. Completely.

Ellie sits up, shivering. In the mirror opposite her bed, she stares at herself, mysterious and dark in the shaft of light the streetlamps throw across the room. I need to talk to Rochel. I must.

Corrosive energy jangles inside her. She throws her silk robe around her shoulders and crawls down for a drink.

“Something went bump! How that bump made us jump—”

Ellie pauses at the top of the staircase. Rochel? She checks her watch. Four fifty-three. She slips down the steps, soundless.

“—make that cat go away, tell that cat in the hat, you do not want to play!”

Rochel is on the couch, Ashi leaning sideways on her arm, his red pajama-clad feet dangling over the side of the couch. She looks up, notices Ellie, smiles. “Ashi was afraid, he said he heard noises from the living room.” Rochel explains, “So we came down here and looked around and we saw that nobody is here. Right, Ashi?”

Ashi nods, solemn and gorgeous, achingly cute in the sleepy spell of night.

“So now we’re reading a bit and then we’re going back to sleep.”

“Oh, wow,” Ellie says, dumbly. She wants to say something, to ask. Why? Why don’t you just explain that there are no bogeymen, the doors are locked, and back to bed? How was the bar mitzvah? Aren’t you tired? But Rochel and Ashi are smiling at each other and there’s a fluid kind of magic there Ellie can’t touch. So she nods and ducks into the kitchen, her chest burning.

“…and Thing One and Thing Two, they ran up, they ran down! On the string of one kite, we saw Mother’s new gown!”

She stares. There’s something so effortless about them, peace glowing on Rochel’s cheeks, drifting down on them like snowflakes. She feels a strange tightness in her chest. When Rochel closes the book, Ashi reaches up, wraps his scrawny hands around his mother’s neck, and offers a sloppy kiss.

Tears sting Ellie’s eyes and she wonders why. Because you never had this?

She hears Rochel approach and she hurries to the fridge, finds the seltzer.

“He went to sleep, baruch Hashem,” Rochel sighs lightly, coming into the kitchen. She reaches for a cup. “The bar mitzvah was beautiful. And so exhausting.”

“Your kids… really love you, Rochel,” Ellie says, turning from the fridge.

Rochel blinks. Then she nods, happy.

Maybe now’s your chance to talk to her. Ellie feels cold. Rochel is relaxed now. She holds out the bottle of seltzer.

Rochel accepts, looking thoughtful. She opens her mouth to say something. But as Ellie watches, she fills her cup, drinks slowly, and turns to leave.

Suddenly, Ellie needs to know. What did Rochel want to say? “What,” She says. “What were you going to say?”

Rochel pauses in the doorway. Her green eyes are soft. “Well,” she says, slowly, “I know I’m not always as firm as I should be. But I feel like, if I can be myself in front of my kids, then so can they. If I can’t let my guard down, then… neither will they.”

Ellie swallows, coals in her throat, nods. She waits for Rochel to go before dropping into a chair.

Rochel isn’t right, not completely, Ellie thinks, fear thickening in her head like a dense cloud. But she is right, too. It’s true. You know that, Ellie.

She hugs her elbows, fingers rolling up and down the pale blue silk of her sleeves. If you don’t let your guard down… The girl in faded gingham peeks from the curtains. Believe me when I say this, Rochel, everything I did was for my children. I wanted better for you.

In agonizing slow-motion, she sees Ashi, reaching up, scrawny arms around Rochel’s neck, awkward kiss. Sweat clamps on her forehead. Did I miss something? Where did I go wrong?

She pauses to swallow tears, notes that half the bottle of seltzer is gone. Could she ever have that with her kids?

Of course not, it’s too late. You were wrong and the game is over.

She wakes up the next morning feeling raw inside, cracked and sore all over. She dresses, trying to stuff her mind; skirt, shoes, earrings. Bed, door.

Downstairs, she finds Rochel on the porch swing, Aliza and Ashi running in circles around her. She pauses in the doorway, wondering if she should escape back to the kitchen, when Rochel looks up.

She forces words through her mouth. “You’re a great mother, Rochel,” Ellie says. Her hands are clammy. She clasps them together so they won’t shake. “You’re giving your children… something I never gave you.”

Before Rochel can respond, she turns and slips back into the kitchen.

She stands by the sink. Her fingers clench over the rim of the counter. Her back tingles from Rochel’s eyes, searching eyes, gazing at her, wondering. She wants to flee, excuse herself, hurry up to the safety of her locked bedroom.

But she just presses her cheek into her palm and cries. She is aware that her daughter is watching her, and still, she cries.

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 553)