Kimberly Platt possessed the longest nose I’d ever encountered. I pictured a pair of quaint spectacles resting on it and suppressed a giggle as she shuffled through my workshop material.

She stacked the papers sharply and peered at me. “Material’s great, Debra. Very interesting.” She rubbed her nose. “But I’m sure you know what a successful panel takes. Good material, obviously, which you have. And presence.”

Which you don’t.

“Engage the audience, crack a joke maybe, invite questions. Presentation is everything. The goal is to get participants to sign up for this track. That’s what this school is paying us for.”

I nodded dumbly.

Back home, as I was unpacking my butcher order into the basement freezer, I turned to Yaakov’s dusty armchair.

“Presence, right. Wrong candidate, Kim. If you wanted a charismatic panelist, why did you invite me? You could’ve asked Jane or Oliver or even Samantha to do this. Our agency has plenty of talented artists. But no, you chose me. You know I hyperventilate when I need to address a crowd. Are you out to make my life miserable? Or were you afraid a charismatic person would overshadow you?”

I took a tentative step closer to the chair and lowered my voice. “Or do you recognize talent after all? Tell me, Kimberly. Do you think I have talent? Tell me, it would feel so good to hear it from you.”

The phone rang. I wagged a finger at the chair and answered the call.

“Debbie!”

It was Adina from down the block, the community chesed lady.

“How are you?” she squealed, as though I hadn’t bumped into her in the supermarket that morning.

“I’m good,” I said drily. “What’s up?”

Adina sighed dramatically. “I know how hard it must be on you. It’s almost a year now since Yaakov was niftar, right?”

My shoulders stiffened. “Right.”

She sighed again. “Wow, I still can’t get over it. He was such a good man, Yaakov, such a kind soul. We all davened so hard. Hashem’s ways, what do we know?”

Chesed project of the day. What an honor.

“So we were thinking,” she continued, still in that warm-fuzzy voice. “You know, the neighbors and I. We would love to do something in his memory. For his neshamah. And we had this idea, a shiur on Shabbos, maybe something on the parshah. Batsheva would be great at it. She’s a born lecturer.”

I mumbled something about calling her back and dropped the phone.

“Sit,” I ordered a still-smiling Adina.

She sat.

“Listen to me, and listen well.” I folded my arms and walked straight up to the chair. “Don’t you dare call Yaakov a kind soul. Ever.”

Adina blanched.

I snapped my fingers and she vanished.

“I wish you would come to us for Shabbos.”

Not that argument again. My kids wouldn’t relent, week after week. “You know the answer, Bracha. I like being home for Shabbos. You don’t have to send your kids if you don’t want to.”

“They’ll come, don’t worry, that’s not the issue.” A pause. “We just want you to come to us sometimes too.”

I didn’t admit how relieved I was that they’d come. I didn’t need it, of course. But… it was nice having the grandchildren over.

“We need to plan Tatty’s yahrtzeit seudah,” Bracha was saying.

I inhaled deeply. “There’s plenty of time.”

“It’s in three weeks.”

“Okay.”

“What do you think?” she asked. “Should we cook or cater?”

What did I think? I thought the men should give tikkun in shul and leave me out of it. But of course Bracha wouldn’t understand. My children were as clueless as all the Adinas in my life. I could take credit for that. It hadn’t been easy, pretending.

“Ma?” asked Bracha.

“I don’t know,” I said mildly. “Whatever.”

Bracha coughed. “Everything okay, Mommy?”

“Yes, yes. I’ll run out to do my Shabbos shopping now. Gavi eats salmon, right?”

“Yes.”

I hesitated for a moment after we hung up. Then I stood up.

I didn’t need anything from the basement, nothing from the freezer, nothing from my storage closets, but I headed downstairs anyway. My feet stamped on the stairs, pound, pound, down.

I stared down at the gray carpeted floor, breathing hard. Slowly, I lifted my eyes to face the chair. “Yaakov,” I whispered.

The radiator hissed. I quivered.

“They’re planning your yahrtzeit seudah,” I said blankly.

Deathly silence.

I tiptoed forward and made eye contact. “They don’t know, Yaakov,” I rasped. “They think I’m a lonely, grieving widow.” I lifted a shaking hand and pointed a finger accusingly. “Ha. There’s nothing to mourn. You know that. There never was anything, so what am I supposed to miss?”

Something buzzed.

I screamed.

Pulse racing madly, I ran up the stairs and slammed the basement door shut. I leaned against the door, panting. It was — only — the freezer. Relax. You’re not — five — years old. There’s no such thing — as — ghosts.

Slowly, my breathing regulated. I went to the fridge for a cup of juice. All the Shabbos food, including Gavi’s fish, sat neatly on the shelves. I drank.

The freezer’s buzz echoed in my ears. The house felt haunted. I had to get out.

In Costco, I snorted as I passed the produce section. I was done with buying 15 avocados that went bad before the second one was eaten. That had been Yaakov’s meshugas. Among many others.

I passed the paper goods section, selected a package of 360 Dixie paper cups and on second thought put it back. I drank one cup of coffee a day at home. What did I need a year’s worth of cups for?

What was I doing in Costco, anyway?

I left the store with empty hands.

“What are you doing here?” I shrieked.

Gavi jumped. “Um, reading?”

My heart thumped. Gavi was sitting in Yaakov’s armchair — in the empty chair — with a book on his lap. My adorable, innocent grandson. “Why don’t you… read upstairs? In the living room, maybe. It’s so… dingy down here, no?”

He looked at me strangely. “I’m comfortable here. It’s fine.”

“No, no, it’s not fine.” I shook my head forcefully. “It’s not fine at all, the light is blinking, see? And it’s chilly down here, and it smells of mold, which could be dangerous.”

Gavi sandwiched his hand in the open book and stood up. “Uh, sure, Bubby. Whatever. I’ll go upstairs. What time is Shalosh Seudos?”

“Six o’clock.”

I waited for his footsteps to fade before turning to the chair.

“What did you buy so many avocados for, Yaakov? You didn’t even like avocado. I was the only one who touched them. Such a meshugas.”

The chair seemed bored. I closed my eyes and inhaled.

“That’s how you were with your opinions. One day it was avocado. Another day it was your organic craze. You told me I would feel so much better if I did it, and I listened to you like a dunce. Our food bills doubled that year. But what did it matter to you? You never knew the value of a dollar.”

My eyes darted to the chair, then swiftly turned to the floor.

“Okay, let’s be honest,” I said bitterly. “It’s not the avocado.” I walked daringly toward the chair and sniffed. “It’s you. You — you kind soul.”

I paced in front of the chair, eyes trained on the carpeted floor.

“You lied to me,” I said, glaring. “I gave you everything. I was the chef and the bookkeeper and the custodian in our home, while you were in your office. Your whole life you were in your office. In your cool, modern office that you redecorated twice a year. In the office where you dreamed up get-rich-quick schemes and never earned a dime. You dreamed and I worked, that’s how it always was. I put up with pressure — with Kimberly, for goodness’ sake — to put bread on our table, while you were in your office. You never shouldered a responsibility in your life. You wouldn’t know what worry tasted like if it was forced down your throat.

“And what did you say when I confronted you? ‘Give it time, you’ll see, another little bit and you won’t have to work anymore.’ ”

I paced in front of the chair, shooting glares in its direction. “Kind soul,” I muttered.

I closed my eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. Okay, not thinking, you can’t think anymore, whatever. You tried, it wasn’t your fault. But it was, believe me, it was. You tried running a business, you failed, why didn’t you move on? Take a job like a man? But no, your pride would never let you do that.”

And suddenly, a thought blossomed in my brain. Ask him for a divorce.

I flinched. Where had that come from?

It’s what you always wanted, my mind whispered.

Was it?

I sucked in air. This was crazy. Yaakov was gone. What did I want from his life? Uh, death.

Closure.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Took a tiny step forward. Another. “I want—”

The fact was, I was free now. What difference did it make?

It did, it made a huge difference. I was an almanah now, the community’s chesed case. I was expected to mourn. I was expected to wallow in self-pity and feel lonely and needy. I was expected to honor my late husband’s memory and say beautiful things about him, between dramatic sighs, at every opportunity.

Because I never had the courage to ask.

Ask him. Ask him now.

“I want— I want a—  ”

My throat constricted.

The chair seemed to lean forward, waiting. My stomach twisted. “Never mind,” I mumbled.

We stared at each other edgily. “What? What are you looking at?” I spat. “I’ll make you a yahrtzeit seudah. We’ll go to your kever with a minyan. We’ll light candles.”

A faint squeak made me freeze. I waited, but nobody came downstairs. It was quiet again. I turned back to the chair and took a faltering step toward it. I reached for the armrests. Narrowing my eyes, I faced the nail heads on the cushioned backrest. “But I don’t feel like grieving. You hear?”

“Hey, Bubby, who are you talking to?”

My heart rammed into my ribcage. I spun around. Gavi was poking his head over the banister, looking at me like I’d sprouted purple hair.

“Me?” I wheezed. “I— I was just— looking for ice cream… in the freezer. I wasn’t… talking… to anyone.”

The funny thing about fear is that you can build it up for so long but then it just disappears.

There was nothing scary about the workshop. “Watch this,” I told my audience. “I’m drawing a filled square with a negative-space curved bar through the center. I’m angling the edge of the bar up. Now see this circle on the top right? Look.” I closed the dry-erase marker and hovered it over the blank center of the SMART board. “What do you see here?”

Several hesitant hands went up. I called on a girl with short black hair.

“A path to the circle?”

“Exactly!” I smiled warmly. “If you set the motion on a page correctly, you’re compelling the eye to follow the movement. And that is Continuation, one of the fundamental rules of Gestalt.”

How boring was that? I tried gauging their concentration levels. They seemed engaged. I hoped so, anyway.

I stole a glance at Kimberly. She wore a vague expression I couldn’t read. I shrugged and continued.

When the workshop was over, the girl with black hair approached me with a shy smile. “That was fascinating,” she said. “Mind if I ask a question?”

Before I knew what was happening, there was a crowd around my table, peppering me with questions. I started answering some of them, but then I stood up. “Why don’t you guys sign up for the track? You’ll love it.”

I got a tight, fake smile from Kimberly after that, with a nod and a curt, “Nice job.” That was Kimberly being generous. I felt my heart sinking, but then I stopped short. Why should I feel intimidated? I’d done okay, I was pretty sure of that.

I looked her straight in the eye, grinning smugly. I wasn’t afraid because I wasn’t seeing Kimberly. I saw an empty burgundy armchair, stuffing peeking out of the upholstery, and it wasn’t scary at all.

“Thanks for the opportunity, Kimberly. Wasn’t that amazing?” And I winked at her triumphantly.

Okay, so I was insulted. I’d waited for Bracha to ask how the workshop had gone and she hadn’t. I didn’t blame her. I remembered what it was like being a mother of seven children and working almost full-time. You needed a manager for keeping track of the kids’ bus schedules alone. Who could focus on other people’s lives? Still, it would’ve been nice had she asked, even absently, “How did it go, Ma?” I didn’t need her to take me out for dinner to celebrate. But to completely forget… Well, it hurt.

On the other hand, maybe I did need her to take me out for dinner. I opened the freezer door and closed it.

I was hungry. I was in the mood of a good steak. Maybe a bowl of soup with pita chips. Even chicken and potatoes would be nice.

But what? Defrost chicken, take out a pot, and cook? One portion? That made no sense.

Sometimes on Thursdays I tasted the kugel and had some deli and coleslaw with it. Then on Sunday there were Shabbos leftovers. But on a random Tuesday night, I usually settled for yogurt or cereal. Tops, frozen pizza.

“You must miss Yaakov terribly,” Adina told me at every opportunity, patting my shoulder ever so sympathetically.

No, I don’t miss Yaakov, get your hand off me.

But a warm meal at the end of the day… that would have been welcome.

I settled on a tuna sandwich as a modest celebration, then made it an early night.

I’d felt so confident after the workshop, I hadn’t seen this coming.

“It’s a board decision, nothing against you,” Kimberly said coolly. “We lost the Criswell account, and the loss trickles down. Nothing personal.”

I couldn’t ask her if my colleagues were also subject to this pay cut. It was below my dignity. But the gleam in her eye when she said “nothing personal” made me want to hurl something. Preferably a chair.

Sit her down, my brain pleaded. Give her a piece of your mind.

But Kimberly’s face blurred with the nail heads and burgundy upholstery, and she wouldn’t sit still. A force seemed to repel her from the seat, and my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth.

By the time I reached the basement, the chair looked impatient. “For goodness’ sake, would you sit down, Kimberly?” I screamed.

She wouldn’t. But someone else did.

I shivered. “Yaakov.”

He seemed to sigh. This was going too far. It was a joke, this whole — this whole chair thing. I was simply trying it for amusement’s sake. Seriously, my imagination needed to get in check.

But we were here now, thousands of people did this. Well, then.

“What are you doing here?” I asked impatiently.

His voice was muffled in my brain, but I threaded together his words. “Calm down, Debbie.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

“Relax.” His voice grated eerily. “Listen to me.”

“I don’t want to listen to you. Be quiet. Go away.”

“Do you really want me to go away?”

I sucked in some air. “You — you don’t know anything. You can’t understand, you never understood me. I’m furious and you tell me to relax. For goodness sake, you’re a chair! You don’t know anything.”

His voice was a hazy whirr. “So tell me.”

“Right,” I sneered.

The chair was still. Yaakov was quiet.

“So typical,” I hissed. “I’m burning mad, Kimberly just pressed all my buttons, and you won’t allow me the privilege to simply fume. Do you see what I mean? What kind of husband are you? Were you, whatever. Sometimes a woman just wants to scream.”

His ghostly hands fluttered in front of his face.

“And you know something? That’s exactly what I’m going to do right now.” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Ahhhhhh!”

An echo of something that sounded like a chuckle followed. I laughed. Okay, so I was a moron. Who cared?

I gritted my teeth. The chair appeared to sink lower. I looked at it closely. The armrests were full of scratches where Yaakov used to dig his nails into them. The grooves in the wood were gray with dust. I walked over and nudged some stuffing back through a fraying hole in the fabric.

“Well?” he prodded.

I turned away and covered my face. “She has it in for me,” I said quietly. “I do my job, my clients are happy, but Kimberly wants me to fail. It’s like a personal campaign, a war.”

Slowly, I turned to face the chair again. I couldn’t hear Yaakov’s voice now, but I read his thoughts. Why do you think she would do that?

I sighed. “She’s stuck-up and power hungry and can’t bear to see me succeed. She loves to remind me that she’s on a higher rung on the company ladder, although we both know it’s not by merit.”

Go on, I felt Yaakov prompt.

“She’s jealous,” I said simply.

Silence. I took a few cleansing breaths.

“I guess I should ask around and find out if what she said is true. If everyone got a cut, I’ll probably feel better.”

I sensed a smile spreading over Yaakov’s face.

“Yes, I think I’ll do that.” I looked down at my shoes. “I know I’m good at what I do. I have to learn not to let that woman make me doubt myself. She’s the one with the problem, not me.”

Timidly, I looked up at the chair. But Yaakov was gone.

Yahrtzeit seudos were meant to be gefilte fish-and-kugel events, with a couple of men being mesayem Mishnayos and mumbling Kaddish. They were not designed as opportunities to showcase your culinary creativity.

“Overdone,” I criticized my daughters. “Totally out of context.”

“You know we enjoy this,” Bracha said in their defense.

“Yeah,” said Gayil, looking up from the main course she was plating. “And besides, it feels right. We’re not doing this just to be yotzei. You know how Tatty always did everything with his entire heart. It feels appropriate to go all-out in his memory. Like a kavod for his neshamah.”

Did I know? Yaakov would put his heart into stuff and get completely carried away, forgetting the time and everything around him. Like the summer he spent building an electric sign for our succah. An electric sign, like an 11-year-old. He wasted two months on that stupid sign. And my daughters consider this an admirable quality.

Of course I didn’t say any of this. I bit my lip, just like I’d done all those years, so my kids had no inkling. No inkling.

Still, I didn’t have to hear this. I picked up a tray of plates and headed to the dining room. I peered at the crowd: brothers and nephews, an uncle, some close friends, our rav. Binyomin was picking sesame seeds off his challah roll, a habit he’d inherited from Yaakov. Goodness, how many annoying habits the man had.

My brother-in-law Dov was shuckling at the head of the table. “And that’s who Yaakov, zichrono livrachah, was. He had a magnetic personality, he radiated simchah and ahavas Yisrael. He was an anav, an ish emes.”

Around the table, heads bobbed solemnly. Binyomin’s face was grim.

My throat burned. I ran back to the kitchen with the tray, dropped it onto the table, and fled downstairs to the basement bathroom.

Leaning against the wall, I slid onto the floor and closed my eyes, breathing heavily. I didn’t want to think. The main course would be over soon, 15 minutes maybe. Then they’d serve dessert, something extravagant, not apple compote, even though I’d argued with my girls that apple compote was the only appropriate dessert for this affair. But no, they would serve pavlova, or chocolate pecan tartlets with mint leaves and who knows what else, like this was a birthday party they were celebrating. In Yaakov’s memory, of course, because Yaakov was such a mentsch, so beloved, so personable.

I swallowed bile.

A gentle knock on the door made me jump. “What?”

“Come out, Ma. I know it’s hard, but you have to try. You have to be strong.”

It was Shira, my baby. I blew a long breath. “I’m okay, sweetheart,” I said softly. “You can go upstairs.”

“Ma! Please!”

Gayil. So we had the whole gang on my case. Joy.

Sighing, I lifted myself off the ground and opened the door. “I’m fine,” I groused, rolling my eyes at my daughters who were clustered worriedly at the door.

“You don’t look fine,” Bracha objected. “I think you should drink something. Come upstairs and sit on the couch. We’ll take care of the serving and cleanup.”

I waved her off. “Just go ahead upstairs. I’ll come up soon.”

Bracha looked at Gayil uncertainly. Gayil shook her head vehemently. “No, Ma, you can’t do this. You can’t come down here to hide. It’s hard, we totally understand. It’s normal. Nobody blames you. But this is not good for you. I’m telling you, come upstairs, I’ll make you a tea. You’ll feel better.”

Tea! Was she my daughter or what? “Mamaleh, leave me alone. I’m good.”

“I don’t think you want us to leave you alone,” Bracha said gently. “You’re trying to be brave, which is good, but it’s okay to admit how hard it is. We know how lonely you’ve been all year. Why do you act like nothing happened?”

I felt my cheeks go hot. “I don’t—”

“You do,” Gayil said. “This thing about never going to anyone for Shabbos. Why do you do it to yourself? We’re not trying to take Tatty’s place. There’s no crime in moving on.”

Moving on. As though I was avoiding moving on. As though I was holding onto my grief.

Shira took my hand and nudged me away from the door. “Sit, Ma. Take your time.”

I trudged along. Shira held onto my hand like I was an 89-year-old grandma, and for a moment I actually felt like one.

“Sit,” she whispered.

I looked down. The chair. Yaakov’s chair. My knees went numb. “No!” I shouted.

Shira recoiled, gripping my arm. Gayil and Bracha gaped.

“Okay,” I said, panting. “Okay. Let’s go. Upstairs. I’m coming. Okay.”

Quietly, we trotted up the stairs.

The smell of overnight potato kugel lingered through the night as I lay awake, my shoulder stiff. With effort, I shifted onto my back, facing the ceiling. That’s how I’ve been sleeping all year — facing the left or the ceiling, never the right. On the right was Yaakov’s unoccupied bed, and no matter how blas? I felt about his passing, when night fell, death was a creepy thing.

The wind howled outside, the beginnings of a serious storm. From the corner of my eye, I caught the irritating light from the alarm clock. Where was my sleep mask? I turned to my nightstand and groped through the drawer but couldn’t find it. It was three o’clock. I would regret this in the morning, but what could I do? Sleep wouldn’t come.

I flicked on the lamp. The mask was right there on the nightstand, but suddenly I was thirsty. I reached for my glasses.

The kitchen was a mess. My girls had offered to clean up, but in my desperate need for space I’d shooed them out of the house, lying that I had a cleaning lady coming in the morning. Maybe I should start now, what with sleep being a no-show.

It’s okay to admit how hard it is.

Hard? It wasn’t hard. It was annoying and unnerving and so strange. I hated the situation. The pity, when I hadn’t earned it. The sadness, which was a total hoax. Even my children were fooled.

I slammed the fridge door shut.

Trees shook outside, winds gusting through branches, inviting the first patters of rain. There was a draft coming from somewhere, and I shivered.

Go downstairs, my brain cajoled.

I shuddered. No, not now, no. I needed to go upstairs, back to bed, not down to the basement.

Chicken. You’re scared of a chair.

Scared? No, no, I wasn’t scared, please. It was simply ridiculous. Insanity.

Do it. Talk to him. It’ll be good for you. Speak your heart, say it once and for all, get closure. Don’t be afraid.

I wasn’t afraid. Come on.

Stupid, stupid Gestalt. This was all Kimberly’s fault, that woman and her workshop. I was a graphic designer, not — not some psycho talking to empty chairs.

I turned the knob of the basement door, then jumped back. Whoa, Debs, get ahold of yourself. This is your basement and you’re an adult. You think a monster will jump out of a closet?

The light buzzed and blinked unevenly when I turned it on. The room was dim and shadowy. I should replace some bulbs.

The steps creaked as I made my way down. This was crazy. I belonged in bed, sleeping.

The chair looked like it had been waiting.

“I’m here,” I said.

The chair sat.

“Well, it’s been a year. You’re gone. You heard what the guys said about you. Or did you? How do these things work anyway?”

Silence.

“You know why I’m here tonight?”

Silence.

“I’m here to ask for something.”

I leaned forward and crouched down. The nail heads stood at attention. I have to do this, I pleaded silently in my own defense. I suffered enough when he was alive. He’s dead, I don’t deserve to suffer like this anymore. I deserve closure, it’s my right!

I licked my lips.

“I want—” I started.

“I want an avocado,” I blurted. I fell onto the floor, burying my head in my lap, and sobbed. “I haven’t eaten avocado in over a year, Yaakov. Nobody buys me avocados anymore. Nobody. And I want—” I turned around sharply, was that a mouse? “I want,” I started again. I swallowed and lowered my voice. “I want another chance. Because I didn’t appreciate it then.”

I reached for the legs of the chair and turned my head up to the cushioned seat. “Right, Debbie?” I asked quietly. “You didn’t appreciate him.”

The chair seemed to squirm, as though trying to escape. I stood up and grabbed the armrests. “No, Debbie, don’t go anywhere. It’s your turn now. Sit.”

My knuckles were white. I tightened my grip. “Sit. You belong here. Because you thought you wanted to leave him. You thought he needed you more than you needed him. You thought it was a weakness to grieve.”

The glazed wood sweated in my palm. I didn’t recognize the voice that scratched its way out from my throat. It was detached and reedy. “You thought he failed you.”

A torrent of rain pounded the basement windows. I listened as the winds howled through the night. My limbs felt weightless, as though the storm had sucked the pressure out of them. And then, with a rush of astonishing relief, I collapsed into the chair.

(Originally featured in Calligraphy, Issue 757)