Make Him Proud
“Really? You want to spend time with me? Or you just need to report back to Daddy?”
“So you’ll call us when you land, okay, Heshy?” Bernie gripped the wheel tightly. Ruchy was checking her lipstick one final time before they turned off the highway into JFK.
“Before or after the seatbelt sign goes off? Both, maybe. And then you want me to call again when I find my luggage? And again when I get to Yerushalayim?”
“Heshy.” It was a warning. Bernie scanned the signs. There it was; Terminal 4.
“Okay, Daddy, don’t worry. I’ll call you. Ma, cheer up! I’m not going to the gulag.” Heshy flashed his winning smile.
Bernie sighed. That kid had his mother in the palm of his hand.
“I’m letting you two off here.” Bernie nodded toward the curb. “You start checking in, I’ll park the car and find you.”
Ruchy was looking for her sunglasses. Sunglasses on an October night. Ridiculous. Especially because they would be seeing Heshy in about a month, if Nechama’s baby arrived on time. Bernie watched Ruchy and Heshy wrest the suitcases to the curb, then drove off to the parking lot.
Inside the terminal he found the two of them schmoozing with that easy banter he had never managed to master. Ruchy and her sunshine boy, the surprise redhead who danced through life with a spontaneity that delighted his mother and confounded his father. This whole idea of waltzing into Yerushalayim without even having a dirah set up, he’d never heard of such a thing.
The security and baggage checks went faster than he remembered and soon it was time to say goodbye. Ruchy was sniffing.
“Listen, Heshy,” Bernie leaned over. “I have two options for you for Friday night. You want to start off right. So there’s Reb Nachum — Nechama and Yechiel are actually going there this week, you can just go with them. I’ll check with him tomorrow during our chavrusashaft. Or if you want a real Yerushalmi experience, I can set something up with Reb Shayale Eisenbach — you know, the one with the kollel in Batei Ungarin, he juggled the glasses at Nechama’s wedding…”
Heshy shrugged. “It’s only Wednesday, Daddy,” he said. “I’ll figure it out when I’m there, okay?”
“By the time you land it will be late Thursday. And you have to get yourself a dirah.” Bernie’s eyebrows drew together. “At least your Shabbos meal you can plan before.”
Heshy hitched his backpack up onto his shoulders and sighed. “Okay, Daddy, so I’ll go with Nechama and Yechiel.”
“Good.”
“Bye, Ma.” He ducked into Ruchy’s arms, for just a second. “I’ll call you, don’t worry.”
Ruchy swallowed hard, hugged him harder. The sunglasses quivered.
“Bye, Daddy, see you soon.”
“Bye, Heshy, learn well.”
Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.
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