So there were no middles today, but there were “sides.” Around the edges of the pans there were some half-birds. But Ima spread cream even on those and layered them, and then she topped them with swirls of nougat and gold flakes.

“We’ll send these to Nechami,” she said. “Tovi, go to the freezer, please, the one on the left, and bring me a small box of cakes. And some mousses, too.”

The left-hand freezer is where we put all the miniatures that got a bit squished. We call them the squooshies. They taste just as good, “but when I’m getting paid for every piece, I can’t send those to my customers,” Ima always says. And then there are the little cups of mousse where the layers got mixed together a bit, or some mousse got smeared on the rim. Those are the smooshies. We have those for dessert on Shabbos.

“Why are you sending these to Nechami?” I wondered.

“First of all, because she’s my sister-in-law,” Ima said. “And second, because she’s been helping Abba out with a technical issue. Abba’s planning to go to there again tomorrow, and it would be nice if we sent something along.”

Chaimke had gone to bed after realizing there were no middles. So I stayed up and helped Ima pack up her order for the Greens. And then we prepared a box for my Aunt Nechami, filling it with “sides,” “squooshies,” and “smooshies.”

I looked at them. “I’m not sure that he’ll be nice,” I said.

“Who?” Ima asked.

“The boy who’ll want to marry me. Look at all these smooshies and squooshies. They’re just as delicious as all the perfect ones in the other freezer. They’re just as sweet, and they’re made of all the same expensive ingredients — but nobody wants them at their simchah. And nobody will pay a shekel for them.”

I talked calmly, as if I really were talking about cakes that got slightly squished, and not about a girl missing an ear.

“Tovi.” Ima clicked the box shut. “What you’re saying is true about cakes. But it’s not a good analogy! Girls aren’t cakes, and no matter what people say, shidduchim aren’t a ‘market.’ Somewhere, in some yeshivah ketanah, maybe in Bnei Brak, maybe right here in Beit Shemesh, a wonderful boy is sitting and learning. He has a kind heart and good middos, his parents have raised him well, he has chassidishe bren and he’s refined, and he has no idea what a sweet girl is going to become his kallah six or seven years from now. He doesn’t even think about it, because he knows it was already decided in Shamayim before he was even born….”

“He probably has diabetes or something,” I grumbled. That’s how it always is in the stories.

Ima sighed. “Those jokes of Dudi’s,” she said. “We never liked them. Yes, you used to laugh at them, but look at what it’s done to you. Now you’ve gotten it into your head that you have a problem.”

“Really, Ima?” I couldn’t believe she thought Dudi’s jokes were the problem. “Do you think I ever needed Dudi’s jokes to realize something so obvious?”

That only made Ima double down. “Who knows what got into your head because of him,” she repeated. I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to get sidetracked into an argument about Dudi.

“But anyway, Tovi, b’ezras Hashem you’re going to get a biological implant, and then you’ll say goodbye to your special hairband and your hearing aid. In high school you’ll have new friends who won’t even know about… how you were before.”

“But the Kupat Cholim said they won’t pay for the surgery,” I blurted, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to know.

“How do you know that?” Ima asked, shooting a suspicious glance at me. Then she sighed. “What’s going to be when you can hear with both ears, Tova’le? Abba and I will have to go underground when we want to talk in private. But in any case, the money isn’t for you to worry about. The surgery is going to happen, b’ezras Hashem, and it’s going to be done by Dr. Barclay in California, just like we’ve been planning all along.”

She said it with that look she gets when she says, “I’ll see this through if I have to walk all the way to Haifa.” I kept quiet, because I didn’t want to be chutzpahdig and tell her it wouldn’t do her any good to walk all the way to Haifa, because nobody would pay her for it.

• ••

Shua told Nechami to lie down and rest; he would pick up Yossi from playgroup so she could relax after getting so shaken up. But Nechami can’t relax. She’s so depleted, she falls abruptly asleep, but in her dream she’s flitting about in the street. She’s homeless. Ruti has taken her place in the house. Between her wanderings, other dream fragments push their jagged edges in. Shua abandons her, leaving her in a gloomy hospital ward with dull white walls.

The insult is too much to bear. Even when she wakes up and knows it was only a dream, she feels deeply wounded. How could you leave me? Your wife, who gave you children and raised them?

“I didn’t leave you!” Shua is shocked at the idea. He came in quietly to put on his shoes and heard her crying out from that gray zone between sleep and lucidity.

And what if… what if I were to fall apart like her? She doesn’t dare ask. You wouldn’t leave even then? You wouldn’t walk away from the rubble and start a new life?

She doesn’t ask him. She just lets her tears drip onto the pillow.

“You know what, Nechami, I think you should rest some more,” he says. “You really don’t look well. Sari is watching the kids. I’ll be back at seven to give them supper.”

Her throat is dry. She’s glad the phone isn’t ringing. She forgets that she left her despised cell phone downstairs in the office, and somebody’s misplaced the cordless landline phone; they haven’t seen it for two days. So of course no one is bothering her with telemarketing calls or solicitations — they have no way of reaching her, no matter how badly they want to.

In her mind’s eye, she sees Neve Chamtzitzim. She’s been there two or three times. Five-story buildings, four apartments on each floor. Lots of women scratching out a bare living. Between six and seven in the morning, the buses are full of yungeleit’s wives going to work. They come back at four and run to pick up their kids. The salary they earn from hours of toil pays for a few square feet of roof over their heads, some bread and cheese and a few pairs of tights.

Suddenly one of them collapses. After her third baby in as many years, she can’t do it anymore, working eight-hour days and sleeping fragmented five-hour nights. The other women keep marching, but she stays behind in a heap.

Nechami doesn’t try to imagine the exact details of the breakdown. Did it happen in the street, was there some pre-existing illness, was she grieving over something? Did she break down crying, did she scream in anguish, or did she just slip into catatonic silence? What difference does it make, anyway? Nechami only sees a sensitive soul that was crushed under her burden and dropped out. And nobody saw it coming.

One crumbled tile falls out, and the gap she leaves in the tessellated pattern soon closes. Now another woman stands in that kitchen in Neve Chamtzitzim, cooking rice. And on a little street in Jerusalem, the pitiful shards of a broken vessel wander into a home that’s whole and wholesome, and she imagines she’s in an alternate universe where she has a life.

Nechami jumps out of bed. Enough of this. She reaches for the cordless phone; it’s not on its cradle. Where’s her cell phone? Oh, right — she left it downstairs. She sends Yehudit down to retrieve it. She’ll call Chaya. With her sister, she can treat the whole thing as a joke. They’ll just laugh about it, without going into all its depth and breadth. Can you believe it — I forgot I’d left my hoodie and slippers by the door, and some poor crazy lady came and put them on, and said she was me. For a moment I almost believed her, because she was wearing house clothes just like mine. Ha-ha-ha, it was so weird. And after that, I couldn’t bring myself to eat those chicken nuggets… And Chaya will say, “That’s what happens to people who set up all their lunch ingredients before they go to work in the morning.”

But Chaya, the perfect one to share this with, to help her turn it into just one of those crazy things, doesn’t answer her cell phone. Nechami tries the home number, and her sister’s not available there, either. She ends up telling the whole story to her mother.

“But how did this woman get into your house?” Ima demands, protective and indignant as a mother hen. “Did she know the code somehow?”

“The door was a bit ajar,” Nechami replies, trying to keep it vague.

“What, you mean you didn’t lock it?”

“Shua left the house after me,” she says, cornered. “He gets… you know, a bit absentminded sometimes when he’s preoccupied with learning.”

“All right, but you leave doors open sometimes too,” her mother hastens to remind her. “Remember when you were here after Sari was born, and you came home late from a wedding, and the door was left unlocked the whole night?”

“Ima, it’s fine, I wasn’t blaming anyone.” She wants to get back to the original topic, which is, “Where is Chaya?”

Suddenly Ima’s voice drops to a low, secretive mutter. “We weren’t going to tell the marrieds yet, but Chaya said you’re her only sister, not a ‘married.’ ”

Nechami’s heart jumps. “What weren’t you going to tell? Where is she?”

“At my friend Yocheved, in her living room.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Talking.”

“With whom?”

“With the Shpinder boy.” The phone line is practically glowing with Ima’s happiness. “She’s wearing the black velvet dress that we bought at the end-of-season sale at Yukrati, and she looks beautiful. Abba and I will be going over in a little while to bring her home.”

But… what? Why? How? And who? The questions are all beating about in her brain at once. So you decided to jump in, little sister. You’re ready to face the deep water. Welcome to the real world… to a life with substance.

“She tried to call you, but your home phone went to voice mail, and you weren’t answering your cell.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 861)