His eyes say I am fragile, and he is scared to break me. I am not broken. There is nothing to be broken over at all

THURSDAY

WE are 40 minutes late. I can already hear my mother’s disappointment layering her voice like the carbon leaking out of our car and staining the sky bleak and gray. In retrospect, that is appropriate. In retrospect, it should have rained so hard we had to turn around and go home.

The clouds are heavy, and the air is slick with sweat. Shmuel eases on the brakes and makes the final turn onto Mommy’s street. He pulls up behind Asher’s car and parks but doesn’t turn off the ignition.

“Can we go home?” I ask. The seat belt stretches over my stomach.

He looks at me, switches from park to reverse. “We can leave right now,” he says. He maneuvers the car, so we are back on the street on the right side of the yellow lines.

“Stop, please. Stop.”

He pulls back in and laughs until he sees that I am not laughing. “I’ll be right here with you when we decide to go in,” he says instead.

I breathe. I remember telling Bracha earlier today to blow out the candles and smell the roses after Dovi took away her snack, so I do that; Shmuel opens the window to smoke and then I am breathing between the smoky air that is threatening to engulf and choke me... unless that’s my tears’ doing.

“I wish it had rained,” I tell him.

He nods, opens the car door, and stomps the butt of the cigarette under his heel. The humid air immediately surrounds me, clinging to me like grief.

I think grief has a smell and I think it has a color. Rina told me that grief is a chronic illness. Rina is an hour away, down the street from my kids, a call away from Miri burning the soup and Bracha throwing up and Dovi being Dovi. Lucky her.

“I get that. If it had rained, we could have turned around,” Shmuel says, here and now dragging me back down.

I bite my lip. “Exactly.” It doesn’t sound quite right, as half my breath stays locked behind my teeth with my tears. “Can you just go in, take the suitcases, choose a room and all? I need a minute.”

“Henny.” He starts, stops, and rearranges what he was about to say. “Of course, I’ll be right upstairs, take your time.” His eyes say I am fragile, and he is scared to break me. I am not broken. There is nothing to be broken over at all.