“Where can we buy tickets?” Mom asks a bit too loudly.

“Over there,” someone in green points.

They push through, Aviva helping Mom walk, the weight falling onto her elbow, and she starts to sweat.

Mom’s already talking. “Can we buy tickets?”

The young volunteer looks at them. Blinks behind glasses. “Sorry, tickets are completely sold out.”

Mom shakes her head.

Aviva feels her own head start to spin.

“I need two tickets. For my daughter and me.”

“I understand, but—”

“What about disability seating? I can’t walk well. In fact, I’m very sick.”

Mom. In her head she’s screaming. She wants to sink through the floor. Why had she let herself do this?

“You know, this may be the very last show I’m ever able to go to. Would you want that on your conscience? Would you?”

Inanely, Aviva notes how Mom’s tone is very prim, how she enunciates each word.

The girl in glasses is flabbergasted. “I’m trying to help you, but they told me anyone who doesn’t have a ticket has to wait. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She blabbers, tapping another girl in green. “Can you help out here?”

The other girl rises from her seat, tall and slender, black hair falling into her eyes. She looks at Mom.

It’s Meira.

What’s Meira doing here?

Aviva looks away. Has Meira heard Mom’s tirade?

She has to look back. Meira’s face is flushed. “They called me in last minute,” Meira says quickly, not quite catching Aviva’s eye. “There was some emergency and they asked me to help with logistics.” She reaches under her keyboard and hands Mom two tickets.

She turns away and takes the computer’s mouse. Aviva’s face burns. She wants to slip through a crack in the crowd and disappear. But she can’t leave Mom alone. Mom, with her petulant ways, always pressing, pushing her luck. Why hadn’t she just bought tickets in advance?

Mom grins, waving the tickets. “I did it, I got the tickets.” She winks, as if to say, Leave it to me, I can manipulate anyone. Aviva knows without looking that all the ticket girls saw that.

“Let the show go on,” Mom says, and they walk into the darkened theater and Aviva wishes that she could stay here, under the cover of darkness, all night.

She slinks into the apartment late after dropping Mom off. Meira wouldn’t be there yet, would she? There must be endless things to wrap up.

The house is quiet. Racheli’s door is closed. Mom’s peevish voice rings in Aviva’s ears. The very last show I’m ever able to go to. Her throat is dry. She heads to the kitchen for a drink.

As she gulps water, the door clicks open. Meira. She’ll never see me the same way again, Aviva thinks. Contaminated by association.

“Aviva.” Meira’s voice cracks in the silent kitchen. “I didn’t know… I was just—”

Aviva cringes. Meira knows, now; a hundred pieces are falling into place. The unwilling Tuesdays, the limited time she spends with Mom, the fact that she’s moved out of Mom’s home….

She makes some noncommittal sound in the darkness, and moves quickly to her bedroom. What is there to say after that? My mom is a manipulator, a cheat. Now you know where I come from.

The next morning, Aviva hangs back in her room, afraid to meet Meira and Racheli over breakfast. Will they be whispering, gossiping, judging?

But when she finally leaves her room, only Racheli is still at the table. Aviva sits with her cornflakes, more quiet than usual, feeling raw and exposed.

“Have a good one!” Meira calls from near the front of the apartment. Aviva hears the door open and close behind her.

She missed Meira now, but she knows that she won’t be able to avoid her much longer.

Aviva wades through the day, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For what exactly, she doesn’t know.

Who cares? she tells herself, driving home from work. You have other things on your mind right now.

Like Ari Storch.

Their date on Monday had gone well. She’s meeting him again this evening.

A draft comes through the open window and she shivers and rolls it up. She already feels frigid, overexposed.

She parks in front of the apartment building, and the thought hits her just before she gets out: If the fear is like icicles everywhere, if she can’t handle her friends knowing, even some of it, then how, how could she even consider…?

At supper, she sits with the others. Meira’s seen, Meira knows, she can’t help thinking.

And?

And nothing. Meira’s blessedly normal.

“A schnitzel fried to perfection is a thing of beauty,” Meira says, bringing in the plates.

“Too beautiful to eat?” Aviva finds herself asking back.

“Ha.”

She chews, and realizes that she can breathe.

By the time she makes it to Abba’s house — so Abba can meet Ari when he comes to pick her up for their date — Aviva’s still feeling the relief of it, sweet relief, overlaying her fear.

If Meira has her back, then maybe, maybe.…

Abba hovers in the living room as she leaves with Ari.

Down the driveway, in the space between house and car, she feels strange and the doubts she’d held at bay come at her. So their previous date had gone well… what’s that in the scheme of everything? Why should anything be different now from last year?

But maybe it could be. G-d knows, the past year’s brought her to her knees.

They sit in the car and Ari starts to drive, a little too fast.

He’s nervous, too.

He laughs at himself as he adjusts his speed, and the curve of his face when he smiles is suddenly wonderfully familiar.

At the hotel lobby, Aviva melts into her chair as he starts to talk.

“It was nice to see your father.”

“Yeah, he really wanted to meet you.”

She tells him about Abba’s kids, treading a tad less carefully than usual.

When her phone rings, she blanches. She’d forgotten to silence it.

She doesn’t recognize the number on the screen.

“It could be about Mom,” she whispers. Ari knew some of the story from Leba and from what she’d outlined last time. He nods.

She answers.

“Hi, this is Malky speaking from Ezra Veyeshua, we wanted to offer you—”

She jabs the phone off. She knows what they want to offer.

“Sorry,” she says, “not important.”

Somehow that little faux pas is an icebreaker, and they get deep into conversation.

Her phone rings again. She sees that it’s them again and she shudders, stabs at the screen to turn her phone off completely.

“Whoa,” Ari says.

Part of her wants to tell him that it’s none of his business. Then she looks at him, earnest eyes, concern in his face.

She tells him bare bones. Ezra Veyeshua is creating a support group for relatives of terminally ill people.

And Ari says gently, thoughtfully, “I don’t know that you need to take them up on it if you don’t want to, but you seem pretty upset. What is it about this that’s getting to you so badly?”

She looks him in the eye, then looks down and tells him.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 912)