“Say something else,” Yaffa’le retorted. “We had a horrible day today at the office. A sick kid’s parents are suing us — they claim we went beyond what they agreed to in our campaign. Letters from lawyers, a whole balagan. The censors from two publications had problems with one of our ads, and there was a whole storm about that. Tzippy is driving me crazy, it just doesn’t stop. I go to pick up Avital, and I get there late, and the poor baby is standing there in a dark daycare center with a young assistant morah who tells me in an embarrassed whisper that I have to pay a penalty for coming late. I can’t even hear what she’s saying because Tzippy’s yelling at me on the phone the whole time. I come home with Avital and find out that yesterday’s soup is spoiled, the ceiling is leaking, and Elisheva from the bank is calling to say we’re in overdraft…”

“And those are only the small problems,” says Dudi.

Her eyes fly open with alarm. “What? What else happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, not to us — Gedalya’s problem.”

“What is going on with them?”

“He’s still not managing to get funding. There’s no insurance that covers this procedure. The kehillah’s fund offered him three thousand shekels and meals for the days Shifra will be away. They say they’ve got much worse cases, people with life-threatening conditions, and they don’t have enough for them, either.”

“Okay. That’s big problem number one.”

“Problem number two is going to upset you,” Dudi said cautiously.

“Naturally. Problems aren’t supposed to make you feel great!”

“My parents don’t know what to do about Chaya’s apartment,” he went on. “For the amount they’ve managed to put together, after all the scrimping and saving and the gemach and the guarantors, they can’t seem to find any place fit for human habitation.”

“And I’m supposed to sympathize,” Yaffa’le says quietly. He knows that cynical gesture of hers, that slight turn of the head. Avital, in the meantime, is systematically scattering all her toys around the living room. She’s merely obeying the Second Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy of the universe always increases. “Refresh my memory, please — what help and how much did we get? What sort of apartment do we live in?”

•••

Odelia Gunter is always courteous. She never yells; her voice is always well modulated. “Rav Nuskov is begging us. You just have to make those changes for us tonight, Nechami. They have a meeting first thing tomorrow morning with the main donor for this building.”

“We sent them all the files already, weeks ago.” Nechami glances at the mess in the kitchen, wondering where to start, or if it’s better just to sprawl on the couch and do nothing for a while, instead of scrubbing egg stains off the counter.

Yes. The couch seems like a good choice. She’s heading in that direction, throwing a few empty paper cups in the trash on the way, when Yossi excitedly informs her, “I have paint in my nose.”

“That’s nice,” she tells him. She’s listening to Odelia Gunter. Yes, she realizes it’s lifnim mishuras hadin. They know they approved the sketches she sent, but they still need the corrections made, and it has to be tonight. The donor is flying back to Canada tomorrow. Wait — how did Yossi get hold of the finger paint?

Out of the corner of her eye she sees him and Yehudit finger-painting on the floor tiles, scribbling dark circles. Well, never mind, it’s washable. She’ll clean it up later, or ask Bentzi to give the floor a quick rinse tonight.

Odelia is explaining something about the interior division of the building, and saying they’ve already sent Nechami the updated sketches. Wait, that isn’t finger paint! Finger paint isn’t that thick, and the red wouldn’t turn that muddy brown color when smeared on the floor.

“Yossi, your nose is bleeding!” she cries.

“Nose bleedin’,” he says, nodding agreeably, and goes on finger-painting with both busy hands.

He looks like a survivor of a terrorist attack, and Nechami grabs his sweet face and looks for a tissue. There’s none to be found — why was she expecting to find a tissue in this house?

“Sari, bring me some toilet paper, quick,” she calls.

“We’re out of toilet paper,” Sari informs her.

“How could we be out of it? Just yesterday I saw there were four rolls left.”

“Yes, but Yehudit was playing in the bathroom cabinet, and they fell into the bath. So we threw them out so you wouldn’t feel bad.”

“Get me a paper towel,” Nechami snaps. Another red trail is trickling from Yossi’s nose. She knows that he’s very sensitive to the dryness that comes in the winter, when the heat is on for most of the day. This isn’t his first nosebleed, but it’s a big one.

“We’re out of paper towels, too. Remember, Chanochi told you this morning we should put it on the list?”

Nechami has two options. She can send Sari to borrow tissues from a neighbor, or she can ruin a towel. She looks around for her worst towel, the ugly yellow one. She’s still not sure which side gave it to them when they got married — she and Shua like to blame each other for it.

Yossi’s face and hands are washed now. Next in order of urgency is a shopping trip. Nechami ponders the question of who to take with her.

“It’s like that riddle about the man who has a wolf, a sheep, and a cabbage,” she tells her sister-in-law, her mobile phone between ear and shoulder. “He has a little boat with room for only one passenger. Yehudit, put your coat on! He can’t leave the sheep with the cabbage, because she’ll eat it. And he can’t leave the wolf with the sheep. Sari, go get Yossi’s coat, please. B’kitzur, Yehudit and Yossi can’t stay home alone, they’re too little. Sari is afraid to stay with Yossi, because there might be another power outage like there was yesterday.”

She’s breathing more heavily now, as she bumps the stroller down the stairs. At least it’s not raining. At the supermarket, she loads the stroller basket with tissues of all kinds. She needs fabric softener, too. Tomatoes for tonight’s supper. Disposable pans. Cheese and leben. Onions. The stroller basket is full, and the canopy is weighed down. The kids are fighting over who gets to scan the next item.

Her phone rings. It’s Shua. “I’m home. Where is everybody?”

“Sari, let him! He’s a baby!” Nechami says.

“I’m not a baby,” Yossi says indignantly. “Gimme!”

“We’re at the supermarket,” Nechami tells Shua. “There was nothing in the house, unless you count the mess as something. I had to do a quick shopping trip.”

“You could have told me, I would’ve stopped on my way home.”

You would’ve bought the pink fabric softener that I don’t like, and the scratchy tissues, she doesn’t say. “Never mind, I’m already finishing here.”

“Maybe I’ll make supper for the kids meanwhile?” he offers.

She takes a tray of eggs and puts it in Sari’s hands. “Hold this, please. There’s no more room in the stroller. Why didn’t I take a shopping cart? Because I didn’t feel like fumbling around for a five-shekel coin to unlock it, that’s why. What, Shua? Supper? That’s a great idea, but there are no ingredients in the house. Yehudit, get a package of pitas.”

She has to get to the post office to pick up a package. She has to go and exchange that cordless phone she bought — it’s already starting to stutter. Sari needs uniform blouses. And she has to make an appointment for Beri at the optometrist and go with him. Nechami puts her phone down on the pile of grocery items on top of the stroller, and at that very moment, Yossi decides he wants a clearer view, and reaches up to push back the canopy….

“Yossi, no-o-o-o!”

Too late. He releases the canopy and gapes, astonished, at the shower of items flying around him. Plop! Thwack! Crash!

“Ima, your phone is bwoken,” Yehudit observes. “Look, that piece flew under the fweezer.”

•••

Nechami sits down on the couch with a sigh, grocery bags all around her. She has to get down to the office. She has to get to sleep at a normal hour. She has too many has-tos. Shua finds the eggs and tomatoes, halves the pitas and spreads them with cheese, and gets the little ones seated at the kitchen table. His time is limited; he has to get back to the beis medrash soon. She opens her mouth, and she closes it.

“What?” he asks.

“I… I’m very tired. I slept only three hours last night, and I didn’t get a chance to rest today. I have some urgent work to do in the office, and after that I promised Chaya I’d go out with her.”

You can’t hint with men, Anat from Gunter’s office always says. You have to tell them straight out.

But Nechami holds back. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t hint. Inwardly, she screams please, get them into the bath! Put them to bed!

He laughs. “Some women have a yetzer hara to ask their husbands for help. Your yetzer hara is unique — it tells you not to ask for anything. Am I right?”

He’s right.

And then she asks. Nicely.

Maybe the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn’t always hold sway. Maybe the disorder in the universe doesn’t always have to increase. Sometimes, with an output of new energy, things begin to fall into place.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 874)