She regards Meira. “How’s it going with Daniel?”

“Funny you should ask,” Meira says. “I don’t know. Maybe good. But I’ve met him what, two times? It’s too early to tell.”

With Ari it’s not the number of dates; it’s everything that had come before, and everything that’s happening now.

“What about the guy you’re going out with?”

“I don’t know either,” Aviva says, but the corners of her mouth curl ever so slightly. “I feel like… I can be real with him. But there’s a… lot.” She gestures, indicating the hospital corridor behind them, but also the years, the history.

Meira nods.

“I can’t help thinking it’s too much and that he’ll break it off,” Aviva blurts.

Meira exhales, says nothing.

I need help, Aviva thinks.

She’d gone for therapy after seminary; that’s when she’d learned to make boundaries with Mom. But it had been a while, and so much has changed. Now Ezra v’Refuah wants to invite her to join a support group with a facilitator who can really help — and she’s pushing them away hard. Maybe she should let them in.

“Thanks for not saying he won’t,” Aviva says.

“It’s not easy,” Meira says. “I’m not going to pretend it is. It’s not for me, either.”

“Oh, I wish—” Aviva says.

She reaches for Meira’s hand in that corridor of beeps and bleeps and automated voices, and it all feels surreal — those orange and blue chairs, dawn blushing shyly through the sky in the windows behind them — that, squeezing Meira’s hand, Aviva thinks, who knows what can happen?

Just then, she’s summoned by the nurse. “You can see your mother now. We’ve admitted her. Her blood counts indicate an infection. She’s stable, but in her state, we want to keep an eye.”

Aviva gets up.

“I’ll be waiting,” Meira says.

Aviva tries to smile but it feels shaky on her face. She turns back at the end of the hall. Meira’s still there.

By the time she gets to Mom’s room, Mom’s asleep in the bed, looking pale against the white hospital-issue linen. Something clenches. Lately, Mom’s always framed against something: the green recliner, the sofa, now this bed.

She looks so small. Like Meira said, she’s in pain, of both body and mind. She’s had a hard time in this world, and that’s made her hard. Now she’s up against an illness bigger than her.

For once it’s not about Aviva and the pinch of guilt at not doing enough; she just feels the sadness of Mom’s situation. But, she realizes through her tears, she’s happy she’s here.

Right now, Mom’s asleep, breathing deeply, and it feels easy to keep the past out of this curtained space. It isn’t always, Aviva knows.

She smooths a crease in Mom’s blanket. When you share your story with someone else, hear their perspective, you could try it on for size. Maybe your past doesn’t have to define your future.

Mom stirs lightly under the blanket.

“I came, Mom.”

Her mother’s eyes open a crack.

“Oh,” she manages, before her eyes flutter closed again.

Aviva takes a paper from the small bedtable, writes Feel Good on it, then on a flight of whimsy sketches a bluebird, one of Mom’s favorites.

Two days later, after work, she slips into the brand-new yellow dress. Mom had been discharged in the morning; Yakov had texted her the update.

She gives herself the once-over in the mirror. Touch of glam on her lips, eyelids. Otherwise, she’s kept it natural. She buttons the last button of the dress; it closes like hope around her.

She’s waiting at the front door when her phone rings. Leba. “I’m not like a real shadchan, how does this even go? But I know it’s sounding good. Maybe you want to think about meeting his parents, have him meet yours officially? Your father and Kayla? I think that at this stage—”

Aviva’s mouth goes dry. Before she can respond, she sees Ari’s car drive up.

“Gotta go, he’s here,” she says to Leba. “We’ll talk later.”

As the car rolls to a stop she has a sense of foreboding, caustic like a lump in her throat.

Parents? Kayla?

As if Kayla was part of her real history. As if she could hide behind the pretense of the happy couple Abba and Kayla are. The next step means not just meeting those two, but also… Mom.

Somehow, she makes it into the car, the lump sitting in her throat all through the drive.

They get out at a large park and find some benches. In summer’s early evening, the sun hangs low, casting long shadows, a golden glow.

She sinks into the warmth. Can she just sit in this moment?

Ari clears his throat. “You know,” Ari says, sounding nervous, “I’ve been thinking….”

She tenses. He’s going to ask her to meet his parents.

As if conspiring to make it worse, her phone buzzes then. She’s silenced it but the buzzing is its own kind of noise. Quick glance. The organization. It’s Wednesday again, someone must be on top of this on Wednesdays.

“Do you want to get that?” Ari asks her. “Is everything okay?”

Is that how much she flinched when she glanced over to see who it was?

She looks at him a millisecond. The phone call’s just a distraction. He was going to ask about meeting their parents.

She finds her voice. Let her preempt him. Let her not get hurt. Maybe she just doesn’t have what it takes. Maybe there are just too many strikes against her. The lump in her throat is almost a sob.

“Look, I know it’s too much. A few nights ago, my mother was in the hospital and a friend came with me….” She’s blabbering; why is she talking about Meira now? “What I’m saying is, it’s too much. I’m dealing with too much, and I can’t do it.” She gulps air. “Maybe I got ahead of myself, thinking, uh, that this could work, but it’s too much, it’s not fair to you, maybe later….” She trails off, suddenly very cold.

Then, later, what?

She looks up, beyond him, at the pink-and-gold streaked horizon.

“And then what later?” he says quietly, echoing her thoughts. He looks off, eyes faraway, and then right at her. “I know it’s a lot. Maybe it’s even too much. But maybe it won’t be, if you let someone help you through it, be there with you.”
He takes a deep breath, then continues. “Aviva, last time, last year, I didn’t push because you told the shadchan you weren’t ready. Maybe I wasn’t, either.”

He talks on, to himself almost. “Since then, I’ve been out a few times, and no one ever measured up. I’m not saying you’re not dealing with big things, but I can see that you’re in a different place now, and maybe you can handle it if I….”

She hears birds, the pounding of the blood in her head.

The dusky air is thick. She’s been doing this alone for so long, pushing everyone away, afraid of what they would say and think if they got closer… but those who’ve pushed past her defenses haven’t fled in horror. Abba and Kayla. Meira. Ari? Maybe she doesn’t need to do this all by herself.

Aviva wraps trembly arms around herself. “Ari…” she says, and her smile says what words can’t. She knows there’s more she wants to do, needs to do. Can do.

“Ari,” she repeats, “Would you… how would you like to meet my mother?”

The End

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 914)