Amanda asked a question. Dudi listened, and then said to me in Hebrew, “She’s asking if you have friends.”

“Sure! I have lots of friends. And they all want to study for tests with me, and come to spend time with me, because it’s fun at our house. But don’t translate what I just said.”

“Why not?” Dudi asked.

“Because it might hurt her feelings. She thinks people don’t like her because of the way she looks, and because her family doesn’t have money. But if we tell her I have plenty of friends, it’ll make her feel bad — she’ll think there’s really something wrong with her.”

“Oy, Tovi, you’re so funny.”

Fortunately, just at that moment her name was called— “Amanda Lingerfeld” — and the girl went into the doctor’s room. There was another girl with us in the waiting room, a dark-skinned girl, and at first I couldn’t understand why she was even there. She had two nice, complete ears. I counted them — one, two. Her cheekbones were normal. She had a nose, a mouth, a whole face with every part in place. So why was she coming to Dr. Barclay?

I was so curious, I finally said to her in my sixth-grade English, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” she said, smiling at me.

“Why did you come here, to Dr. Barclay?”

She answered with a word I didn’t know.

Dudi translated it for me: “For a checkup.”

“A checkup for what?” I asked her.

The girl answered, and Dudi translated.

“She’s had her surgery already, Tovi,” he explained. “She had grade 2 microtia. The left ear that you see now is the final result of the surgery.”

My mouth stayed open for a few extra seconds, I was so amazed. You couldn’t tell that she had ever had a problem!

Then a redheaded girl with a tiny ear came over to me, asked politely if she could see my microtia, and wanted to know if I have Goldenhar Syndrome (I don’t). I took off my headband to show her, and she peered at the earless side of my head. By this time Abba was getting a little irritated that I was talking with all these kids from all over the world, and he actually asked me to stop. So I opened the book I’d brought with me (B’Ikvot HaAnusim, the serial from the paper that just came out as book), and I sat down to read.

•••

Today Chaya has to make a quick stop at the community center — they have a check ready for her, payment for that municipal project she did. She didn’t realize that the Stitch ‘n Social Club is in session. But now, as she passes the room, she sees a group of women grouped in a cozy circle, knitting and crocheting with cotton yarn. They’re busy making cute little dolls, blankets, and scarves.

Chaya keeps walking, but then she hears a familiar voice — Ruchama’s — holding forth loud and clear, and she peeks in through the slightly-open door. There’s Ima and her circle of friends, all of them over 60. All good-hearted women, some of them too much so. They don’t notice her, focused as they are on their craft and conversation.

Someone stands up — it’s Yocheved — puts down her crocheting, and steps out to the corridor for coffee. She’s surprised to see Chaya there.

“Will you join me for a hot drink?” she asks.

“That sounds great,” Chaya says, thinking of Yocheved’s intelligence, which a line graph would depict rising sharply above that of other women in the room. She hushes her thoughts. All those women deserve her respect, no matter their intelligence.

“So how are things with you, Chayushke?” Yocheved asks warmly.

“Everything’s good,” Chaya says, a big smile on her face.

“My, what a big smile you have!” Yocheved chirps in a Little Red Riding Hood voice.

That’s because I swallowed a wolf, Chaya refrains from saying. It’s not true anyway, she tells herself. The wolf is part of you. You didn’t swallow it, you were born that way.

“Yocheved, you know I can’t complain to you.”

“Of course you can. Ask my friends,” Yocheved says, and she laughs. She fills a cup with hot water and a spoonful of decaf, then adds low-fat milk. “Why do you think you can’t?”

“Because…” Because your Raphael makes my troubles look so trivial.

“Go ahead and complain, be my guest!” Yocheved says pleasantly.

“No… everything’s fine,” Chaya insists.

“Your mother tells us that your young husband is not only a budding talmid chacham, but he has his feet on the ground as well. She says he’s punctual and organized, and never forgets anything.”

“Yes, he’s good that way,” Chaya concedes.

“You remember the bag of clothes that got lost at Ohr HaTzafun?”

“I sure do.”

Years ago, Ima had flown to Europe for a cousin’s wedding. There had been a major sale in the Primark store over there, and she’d filled a big bag with summer clothes for all three of Nechami’s little boys.

“You don’t need to buy a thing,” she’d told Nechami happily. “I found outfits for every day, for Shabbos… beautiful sets.”

On the very day Ima came home, Chanochi had come down with pneumonia. In Nechami’s house, winter ailments were an all-year thing. Nechami was hardly leaving his bedside, and Shua had volunteered to go and pick up the clothes. On the way home, he’d passed by Ohr Hatzafun and remembered there was a shiur there on a topic he was really interested in. He’d gone in, met friends from kollel there, listened excitedly, and wandered out deep in thought. It was unclear at what point the huge bag, meant to constitute his children’s entire summer wardrobe, had disappeared.

Years later, Nechami would still look up at the laundry lines when she passed through that neighborhood, wondering if she might catch a glimpse of the cute matching sets from Primark that she never even gotten to see, except in pictures.

“Right, so it’s true that Moishy would never forget a bag of clothing,” Chaya says. “But… he’s different from Shua in other ways too. Shua never wanted anything from Nechami. He barely has any needs, and doesn’t ask for anything.”

“And your husband does have needs, and he does ask.”

“Yes.”

Yocheved takes a sip of what she calls coffee. She doesn’t know that real coffee is a whole different thing — it’s loaded with caffeine and finished off with full-fat milk and a little light cream. Once, Chaya had been telling Ima that coffee with slightly sweetened cream was an item that had to be on the menu in Gan Eden. And Gedalya, of course, had objected and pointed out that Gan Eden is a spiritual place, and there’s no gashmiyus there. Chaya had clarified her statement and said that she’d meant spiritual coffee, and Dudi had burst out laughing. Then Gedalya had quietly cornered Abba and Ima and implored them to make sure this “wayward youngster,” as he put it, wouldn’t corrupt their youngest daughter.

“But Moishy never imposes on me,” Chaya quickly clarifies. “He doesn’t try to force me into anything.”

Yocheved raises an eyebrow, then lowers it. “It’s okay for him to want, and it’s okay for you to want. People who want are people who are alive. Accept the conflict, Chaya’le. Accept it with love.” She pats Chaya on the shoulder.

Sometimes Ima’s friends aren’t so useless.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 906)