Near Hamilton, Raffi turned off the music and thought about Aunt Edith, as felt appropriate. The levayah had been after Pesach, they’d all flown in of course, and he’d given a hesped as well. It had been good, he’d thought, about the importance of the older generation, but he’d been somewhat disappointed by the turnout — his siblings, some cousins, a smattering of Aunt Edith’s friends from the neighborhood, a few stubborn holdouts who refused to move near children or retire to Florida like normal people.

Then there were the chassidim, a group of several unkempt hippie men who claimed that they were Edith’s friends and Edith, they insisted, was one of them. Later, at the meal after the levayah, Esther — who had called Aunt Edith every day — confirmed that it was true, that they were nice people and Aunt Edith had been overjoyed when they’d shown up in town, just a few families, then a few more. She joined them for Shabbos meals and when she became too weak to leave her house, they would come visit her.

“Loneliness,” Raffi had said with authority, “that’s all it was. They’re Jews and she had no one else, of course she went.”

She’d been buried in Jersey, near Uncle Sol, and Raffi and Daniel had learned Mishnayos each day until the shloshim. The lawyer had set up a conference call with all of them, the three closest relatives, to discuss the will.

Her money — forty-five thousand dollars in savings — was to be given to the hospital in Jerusalem, where she’d been assured that they’d mount a plaque with her name.

And the house. The lawyer cleared this throat. “So the house goes to you guys, there are plenty of people ready to pay market value. Your aunt wanted the chassidim to get first crack at it.”

Then, without stopping, the lawyer continued.

“Edith had one condition. The house is filled with books and photos, many of which belonged to your grandparents.”

She didn’t want movers throwing them into boxes and then putting them on a truck that would take them directly to someone’s garage. She wanted one of them to come and stay in her house, to go through every single sefer, book, letter, and photo. She wanted someone to feel each of these treasures with their fingers, and then decide what to do with it. Not a one-day project, she said, but to come and do it right.

Then they could sell the house.

She and Sol had never had children of their own, she wrote, and the Strauss children had been her family. They’d been wonderful, kind and concerned, but she wanted to give them something more than money.

She hoped they would appreciate it.

Raffi Strauss, hater of road trips and all long-distance travel, found the stretch of monotonous road to be soothing: cities suddenly rising here or there and then disappearing in the rearview mirror, cornfields with waving stalks and Trump 2020 signs, mountains and lakes appearing as in a children’s coloring book. At one point, he was speaking with Sarah and she asked him why he sounded so relaxed. He didn’t know the answer himself.

There was a threat of thunderstorms, she thought that a family of raccoons was living in the shed, and he was headed to a sad old town to sift through old papers for a week, yet he did feel relaxed. It was baffling.

Four hours later, he wasn’t relaxed anymore.

He was mad now, mad at Daniel with his of course I can’t take off a week smugness, mad at Waze for offering alternate routes and playing with his mind, mad at the tiny Prius that was driving too close behind him even though he was in the right lane.

He was also hungry and well aware that there was no supper waiting for him. Sarah had made sandwiches, and he pulled over to wash and eat.

The house hadn’t changed much. As children, they’d enjoyed the annual visits to West Haven, Connecticut. Uncle Sol did birdcalls and juggled apples, which he would bite mid-tumble. Aunt Edith would follow them with her Kodak Instamatic, worried about missing a single smile.

He’d expected to feel overwhelmed by memories as he pulled up into the narrow driveway, but the assault of nostalgia didn’t come. He walked up the cracked pavement path feeling like the Amazon delivery man, there to drop off the new toaster. He checked his phone, where he’d saved the combination for the lock, and got it right on the first try, turning right and gingerly opening the door.

The smell was unsettling. Raffi liked to be able to pinpoint things — that’s Uncle Sol’s whiskey mash, Aunt Edith’s perfume, the weird ointment she rubbed on her ankles every morning. This was a big mix of the past, a bit of the present, and a whiff of the future, when the whole house would be shining, smelling of something used to cover up something else, and a new family (chassidim?) moving in.

He pulled in his suitcase, grimacing at the sound the wayward wheel made on the tiles, and went directly to the guest room. Sarah had packed linen, and he started making up the bed with grim intensity, feeling virtuous and self-sacrificing. He imagined his high school students, posting pictures at each stage, the fully made bed coming together, with hashtags like #overtired, #responsibility, #family, #adulting. He wished he had a way to show his siblings what he was enduring on their behalf.

He looked in the full-length mirror hanging at an irritating angle next to the window. Middle-aged, rounder than he should have been, despite the treadmilling and Sarah’s drink water, drink water, drink water spiel.

Maybe this week would do it, he mused, the packing and schlepping. And not eating. He stepped back into the living room and looked at the bookshelves  jammed with papers and mementos, and took out the paper he’d printed back in Ottawa.

Public Storage opened at eight, and there was one 9.3 miles away. There was no active shul in West Haven, but he could go to New Haven at 6:50 a.m. He frowned. The website didn’t clarify if they davened earlier on Mondays and Thursdays, like his shul did in Ottawa, and that was really very irresponsible. Maybe he would say something.

Too tired to sleep, too hungry to eat, too anything for anything, he thought to himself as he sat down on the green couch with an old album. It looked like it was from Uncle Sol’s family (the other side, he could hear his mother’s voice, slightly disapproving), but he didn’t have the energy to get up off the couch.

He was unnerved by the sound of knocking at the front door. He’d locked it well, he was sure of that, and had no intention of opening it. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, he’d done his research, and he wasn’t really scared, but still.

Still.

The knocking got louder, and then there was a voice, “Hey, brother, shalom aleichem.”

He froze. Shalom aleichem. Was this a trick criminals were using nowadays?

He took his phone out and dialed the numbers 911, ready to press talk if necessary, and headed toward the door.

A tall man stood there, more than six feet tall. He had reddish peyos that hung low and a stringy beard. His white shirt was untucked, something Raffi disapproved of, and there was a map-shaped coffee stain on its front. Very disturbing, to walk around town looking like that, Raffi thought, it was a chillul Hashem, but of course he wouldn’t say it.

The man bowed, almost from the waist. “Shalom aleichem brother, and welcome.”

He reached out and lifted a steaming pot which he’d placed on the low stone wall near the door. “Here, figured you might be hungry, my wife prepared some meatballs and spaghetti.” He walked through the doorway straight to the kitchen, without Raffi having invited him in.

“Ahhh… Edith,” the man inhaled. “We called her Ettel Mindel, she got a kick out of that. We miss her.” He placed the large pot down on the counter, expertly sliding a towel off his shoulder under it.

“Okay, now I can say hello like a mensch.” He came over, and Raffi realized he would have to accept the greasy hand, but the handshake never came. Instead, the tall man embraced Raffi, tapping his back like he was a restless toddler.

“I’m Shloime.”

“Raffi Strauss, I’m Edith’s nephew, here to oversee the, you know, to attend to the details.” Raffi said this crisply, as if to assert his rights to the place.

He had a thought, then, that the uninvited guest was a squatter, maybe all the chassidim had been sleeping in this house since Edith had passed? Maybe even before? He shuddered.

“That’s rough, this place is oozing with Edith’s vibe, and I’m sorry again. The chevreh liked her.”

“The chevreh? What’s that?”

“Yeah, our group, you know. We have about 20 families; we’ve been moving in here over the last few years, it’s quite the place. We have the old shul, housing is doable, we’re making it work. She appreciated it, she was very encouraging.”

Raffi wanted to ask if she’d given them money. Of course she had. That’s where the bulk of it had gone, probably, but she’d been too embarrassed to tell him and his siblings about it.

Shloime had crumbs in his beard, Raffi noted. “How do the families support themselves?”

Shloime looked surprised. “We have jobs. Mostly around here, some in the city. We work.”

It was quiet, then, and Raffi really wanted him to leave. “Okay. Please thank your wife for the supper. I didn’t bring too much with me, just some clothing, and I didn’t realize how hungry I would be.”

“Did you bring you along?” Shloime asked.

Raffi walked him to the door. “Excuse me? Did I bring what?”

Shloime laughed. “You know, people run here, they run there, they have a million suitcases but they forget to bring themselves. So I asked if you brought you along.”

Raffi locked the door behind Shloime and headed to the kitchen. He took a fork from Edith’s cutlery drawer — red for fleishig — and, standing at the counter, ate until the large pot was nearly empty.

Did you bring you along?

Weirdos.

The next morning, Raffi was hauling a stack of new cardboard boxes up the path when he heard a voice.

“Good morning brother, let me give you a hand.”

He was in no position to turn around, and the help was welcome enough that he didn’t bother fighting.

It wasn’t Shloime, but another clown, same untucked shirt and flowing peyos.

“I’m on it.” The accent was California, Raffi thought, as the chassid took the stack of boxes and said, “We’ve got this, brother.”

Raffi struggled with the lock, hating himself for fumbling in front of this chassid, who probably knew about some kind of hidden safe in the basement.

Like Shloime, this one also walked right in. “The Baal Shem Tov has this incredible teaching that a soul wanders around this world for seventy or eighty years just to do someone a favor. Amazing, no?” He gently placed the pile of boxes on the floor.

“The name’s Laib. We miss Edith. She often came for supper during the week, Shabbos she had a waiting list of families who wanted her, you know… Anyhow, you have tape as well?”

Raffi straightened up. Yes, he had brought tape. He came prepared.

“Yeah, I’ll get it from the car, thanks.” He looked back suspiciously at Laib, who was sprawled out on the faded brown carpet opening the boxes, wondering about leaving him in the house alone.

When he came back, Laib was talking to someone. Raffi froze and listened.

“Oy Tatte, thank you Tatte, thank you Tatte.” Raffi looked on, fascinated, as Laib jumped to his feet and inhaled deeply, his face bathed in happiness. “Thank you, Tatte!”

Laib noticed him. “Hey, great, let’s get this done.”

Raffi wasn’t having any of this. He wasn’t having the chassid — this one smelled like sesame oil — hanging around all morning getting his do-a-Jew-a-favor points.

Did you bring you with you?

“Don’t you have work, or whatever?” Raffi asked, knowing just how impolite he sounded. Teaching teenagers for fourteen years had made him assertive.

“I do, sure I do.” Laib smiled. “No appointments today. I teach music, electric guitar, mainly to college kids, so summer is slow. They’re not around. We also have an instrument-repair business, a couple of us with musical backgrounds. We restore high-end instruments and, baruch Hashem, it’s been a vessel for a lot of light.”

Raffi looked dubiously at the man with the thick blonde beard, closed woolen vest and gray plastic-framed glasses. “Music?”

“Yeah.” Laib sat back and crossed his legs, like a Bedouin eating lunch. “Music is oxygen, the creation is a song. Until I found the Kadosh Baruch Hu, it was my life; now it just helps me understand life.”

He strummed an imaginary guitar. “The seven notes, the Sefiros, Hashem Himself, the strings of Divine kindness, it’s all a song.”

Raffi wanted to hear music, then, wanted this guy to play.

Laib nodded, as if he could read minds. “Can we do some music, maybe while I help you work?” He stood up and headed to the door. “I live two houses down, I’ll be right back.”

Raffi watched him go and shook his head. Part of him wanted to video this for Sarah, the lunacy of it all, but he sensed that she would obediently respond with an eye-roll emoji and write that she hoped the week passed quickly — just get the money in the bank, part for renovations on the back room, part for the kids’ college funds.

He didn’t want that. He didn’t want Sarah to see it and mock it just to please him, because whatever he could send her wouldn’t tell the story. He couldn’t describe the rapture of “Thank you, Tatte,” or explain why the “Did you bring you along?” had become a cord, wrapped tightly around his heart, making him happy.

He was here now.

The hallway was lined with sealed cartons and the small living room looked like a warehouse, 24 boxes ready for books, pictures and knickknacks. Raffi set up his tablet, so that he could catalogue the items for his siblings, and titled an Excel spreadsheet, “Edith and Sol, Contents of House.”

Laib had left, and ten minutes later, Jason arrived, long peyos, huge yarmulke, wide smile and worn sneakers. “How come your name is Jason and not something holy if you’re a chassid?” Raffi asked, his inhibition packed away in one of the boxes along with Aunt Edith’s towels.

“Ah, because Jason is holy too, you see. The Rebbe taught that we have to embrace the past, acknowledge the darkness, and build with it. Don’t deny it. Use it. Yah, at my bris my parents named me Anshel Sholom, it’s true, but the one who walked the path until here was Jason, it’s Jason’s journey, and if we’re going to help the Jasons of the world climb of out darkness and fix stuff, we need to be Jason, too.”

“You have a Rebbe here, in West Haven?” A rebbe had once come to Ottawa, Raffi remembered, a young man in a light blue silk robe, and he’d spoken through a translator about honoring the Shabbos. Raffi had brought the children over for brachos. Even though he and Sarah had both made fun of it later, it had seemed the right thing to do at the time. The brachah hadn’t worked either, Ari had the same weight problems and Chaya still sucked her thumb. He wasn’t a fan of rebbes.

“The Rebbe is in West Haven, but he isn’t, he’s in Uman, that’s where he’s buried. But he lives with us, for sure. We brought him here.”

Jason wanted to help too, and Raffi didn’t resist. He needed a good black Sharpie, the one he’d brought from Ottawa was out of ink. Jason took the marker and rummaged around. “Any alcohol here?” he asked.

Raffi straightened. Alcohol? Was that what they wanted?

In a small cabinet under the sink, Jason found a near-empty bottle of Drambuie and he poured some in a cup. He dipped the Sharpie into the liquid. “Here, it should work for now,” he said, “I’ll go get you a few more, though.”

Raffi tried the marker again. “Hey, it really does work!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah.” Jason winked. “Organic solvents tend to evaporate quickly. The alcohol will dissolve enough ink to get it flowing again,” he said as he walked out. “You learn a thing or two along the way.”

He stepped outside and spread his arms apart. “Hashem’s laboratory,” he said, then grinned like a father laying eyes on his new baby for the first time.

Officially there was a minyan for Minchah and Maariv each evening at the shul, but in the summer they davened outside, on a grassy slope near the waterfront on Center Street.

Saadiah, who was more elegant than the others — he was wearing a fashionable gray suit and light blue shirt — spoke. “Minchah… the challenges of the day, we bring them forward, the noise of the marketplace… we find the light….”

There had been no formal introduction, but each of the men had embraced Raffi; they all missed Edith and wished him well.

After Minchah, Laib and a few others lifted guitars and they sang a wordless niggun as the water gleamed with the light of the moon; the trees, so bold and daring just a few minutes earlier, swallowed up by the darkness, the headlights from passing cars the only reminder that there was a world beyond this hill.

This wasn’t like the shul in Ottawa, where the people grumbled if the rabbi chose to say Tehillim for the people in Israel and also say a halachah between Mincha and Maariv. It was one or the other, they maintained.

Here, he could hear muffled sobs during Shemoneh Esreh, and several “Tattes” punctuating the stillness.

Some of the men stayed back after Maariv. Raffi walked up the hill to the main road with Tuvia, who was Canadian like him. “Cut from the same cloth, eh?” said Tuvia, who was from Vancouver. He’d been in culinary school and gone to Israel to discover the secret of the tomato consomm? at a Herzliya restaurant; instead he found the Rebbe. “Instead of soup, I got the recipe to life, and this one is no secret. People walk right by it, because they don’t know what they’re looking for.”

He told Raffi the chassidic tale of the buried treasure in the backyard, his voice crashing like waves. Raffi wished he’d never stop talking.

Raffi had planned to call Sarah after Maariv to hear about her day, but he couldn’t. He knew she hadn’t been able to find a babysitter so she could go to her creative writing class and dream about the book she would never write and that Chaya was being extra difficult. Calling would mean that the sound of the niggun would disappear, the men swaying along with trees as night fell on Long Island Sound would fade.

Instead, he took a picture of the boxes and wrote, “Hey, great day’s work. I’m really bushed. Hope all is well. Too tired to speak, catch you tomorrow.”

He ignored Daniel’s e-mail asking for an update. Instead, he sat alone on the sagging back porch and tried to remember the niggun.

By noon on Wednesday, Raffi had gone through every book, letter, and picture and filed it on the Excel sheet. He’d packed up all the dishes and clothing.

Yaakov, who looked like a tzedakah collector but was a stockbroker, had come to speak about buying the house. They would pay the going rate, two hundred and ten, no problem; there were three or four families waiting for houses, they would figure it out. Yes, sure the furniture could stay. The chassidim would transport the dishes, clothing, and linens to the Brooklyn office of an organization that would distribute it to poor families and give charity receipts for the value. Canadian receipts were no problem, the tired-sounding woman on the phone had assured Raffi, who’d repeated the question several times.

They could close whenever Raffi wanted. They had a local notary they worked with, and the paperwork was no big deal.

But he couldn’t leave, not yet. Aunt Edith had specifically asked him to remain for several days, to linger over her precious possessions. He’d thrown out many faded pictures of people he didn’t know, the seforim were old and tattered, the letters Uncle Sol had written her when he was stationed in Europe barely legible. Out of a sense of respect, he’d put them in a box. Let Daniel deal with them. Raffi had kept little. A handsome copy of Wuthering Heights and a framed photo of his grandparents. Esther wanted all the albums and Grandma’s Tehillim. There wasn’t much work left. The garage was filled with old garbage. Where was he supposed to linger?

Over what?

Sarah was irritated. The kids were acting up, there were weird noises from the shed, she was having a bad reaction to ice cream. (Who asked you to eat so much ice cream? he thought irritably when she told him this.)

He went to the back porch to think. Should he go home to his family or spend a few more days honoring Aunt Edith’s legacy?

He felt tired and ended up taking a nap in the afternoon sunshine, waking up only when he heard voices.

“Hey, brother.”

He pulled himself up and went to the front door, where Shloime stood.

“It’s almost Shabbos, we need to make plans.”

“It’s Wednesday, Shlomo,” Raffi said, meaning to sound mocking, but instead, his voice came out like an amused mother whose child was being mischievous.

“Lechu Neranenah, did you say the Yom today? We’re spreading our arms wide open, ready for Shabbos. The Rebbe taught the holiness of waiting. He said that he yearned for the angels created by chassidim coming to visit him. Of course it’s almost Shabbos, Raffi.”

Raffi had no idea what Shloime was saying, but he knew that he would remain in West Haven, Connecticut, for Shabbos. He would create angels.

On Thursday morning, Raffi accepted Laib’s invitation to come see his workplace. They drove a few blocks into an alley behind a warehouse, then walked down a flight of concrete steps into an open area. It smelled of old cork, hot glue, and leather. A few older men nodded and waved, but then they went back to looking enthralled by the instruments they held.

Late Thursday night, there was a shiur. “In the winter,” said a former fighter pilot named Gavriel, “the ground is pregnant. That’s what the Rebbe taught. It carries a special secret, and in the summer, that secret is revealed.”

They sang and ate kugel. Raffi generally avoided fried foods, especially at ten o’clock at night, but he savored every bite of the thick slab of potato kugel, placed on a saggy paper plate directly from Jason’s hands. He didn’t feel heavy, but light.

Gavriel spoke about the secret of renewal. “The Rebbe said that every time he came out of the forest, he saw an entirely new world, the old world was gone. We can do that: stop seeing people in an old way, pinning old mistakes on them, giving them no chance to escape, because we hold them hostage.”

When Gavriel spoke, Raffi felt free to dream, to push away the image of a family with gloomy, dejected children. (Gloomy parents?) He imagined a supper table with jokes, delivered by him, the father, in an authoritative voice. He imagined a mother who saw each meal as a miracle — her hands as instruments of G-d, a steady connection with the Sustainer of all life — and children who would taste that wonder in every bite.

He imagined a relationship with siblings based on genuine interest, and friends who were more than just placeholders in his life.

They were seated behind the shul, where Jason had planted a small flower garden (Bad scenery is like bad food, man, he’d told Raffi) and placed a few picnic tables. It smelled like fresh wood, like Laib’s shop.

It had gotten very dark, and Raffi could only make out shapes, not faces, swaying beards. Raffi had a small goatee, but now he wished he had a flowing beard, one that would move back and forth, part of the dance.

Gavriel was motioning with his hands. “And being new, being fresh, brings to true humility, because if you’re always getting second chances, it means you’re always getting. Right? How can you not feel humility?

“And this,” Gavriel hit the table suddenly, “this is why shalom bayis is everything. To have peace in the house means you can listen, you have room in your heart; you know we’re all guests in a palace and every new room we’re allowed to see is a gift.

“If you have humility, you know that your wife is just a mirror. The flaws you see are your own. She is your reflection, created in your image: Instead of trying to fix her, fix yourself.”

And Raffi felt something inside him move. Sarah was a good person, but she’d never seen the inside of a musical-restoration business, the way people could look peaceful and content and totally one with what they were doing, sure that the world was hiding a secret. It was possible to be happy. It was even okay.

On Friday, the chassidim gathered before Minchah. Rafi met a few more men he hadn’t seen over the course of the week, more smiles and hugs, the sort of greeting that conveyed complete acceptance and no curiosity whatsoever about who he was and why he was there.

Some of them were smoking. Raffi was against smoking. He’d advocated for firing a mashgiach at the butcher who’d been smoking during his break. He watched Laib flick his hand, a small meteor of ash headed to the ground, and Raffi understood, saw the meaning in that motion, the week gone by, dispensed of. Move on.

He had called Sarah, who was irritated. For Heaven’s sake, he could tell the children why their father wasn’t home for Shabbos, she didn’t feel like explaining that he was sitting in an empty house looking at pictures all week and would prefer to spend Shabbos eating with people who probably spoke no English.

At another time, he might have pointed out that the week spent looking at pictures was worth many thousands of dollars and she might do well to say thank you, but instead, he sighed and said, “I know it’s hard Sarah, but I wish you the greatest Shabbos ever.”

He wanted to smoke.

They stood up to dance, and Raffi looked at his shadow shrinking toward his feet and felt like he almost didn’t exist, like they were all nothing, specks of dust floating in an orbit called Shabbos.

Laib was looked intently at the setting sun, threads of light remaining in the sky behind it like a spider web: a hand waving goodbye to the week that was. Raffi found he wanted to express this thought, and he blurted it out to Shloime, who had a little boy on each shoulder, but twirled around in appreciation just the same.

“Where were you? I nearly called the police!” Sarah’s voice was shaking.

“Sarah’le,” he said — he had never, ever called her that — “listen, there’s one minyan here and they just finished. What’s the rush, right?” He laughed softly.

“There’s nothing funny about that! We heard Havdalah at the Morwitzes ten hours ago. This is crazy. Just. Come. Home.”

“I hear you, and I’m sorry,” Raffi said, “really. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

“Hasn’t been easy is an understatement,” she said and he didn’t know what to say.

They wished each other a good night. He couldn’t wait to get home, he said.

Tomorrow, he would talk to her. Really talk. Tonight, there was Melaveh Malkah.

Midnight was dragging him in to the new week, away from Shabbos, away from the Lecha Dodi that had opened up faucets in his neshamah, a dance he wished would never end. It would pull him into a new week away from the Shabbos meals — last night at Jason and Dina with their spicy dips and thick challah that tasted like it was made in a stone oven, today at Gavriel and Miriam who smoked their own salmon and ate outdoors on low stools. It would pull him away from the sheer joy of sitting with a Gemara during the sunny afternoon and learning with Shloime.

In Ottawa, Raffi regularly went to the shiur, and was considered one of the more learned people in shul, but he’d never tasted such sweetness before, the way a simple question can fill your lungs like mountain air.

Now, as Saadiah spoke about Eliyahu Hanavi, about how the feeling of loss at the end of Shabbos was the biggest affirmation of Shabbos, how the deep understanding generated by Havdalah was the longing for the next Shabbos, Raffi experienced a moment of clarity.

He knew, at that moment, that he wasn’t selling the house. At least not the house in West Haven. He would sell the house in Ottawa and pay off his siblings. He would find a job teaching math right here and start living. Ari would be one of the boys in the large yarmulkes in that tent-school behind the shul. Sarah would wear a long tichel and big smile and cook organic and touch the essence of life; every moment of every day, they would celebrate life together. No one would say things simply because they were expected to, like tired actors in a play running for fifty years straight.

She had her needs, he knew, but here, there was enough space for them. He imagined meeting a Jewish student in public school — and there had been many over the years — but now, he would say, “Come to us for Shabbos, please join us.” They would sing soulful songs and drink homemade wine.

The endless lists, the grievances, the problems that were all about other people — those were staying in Ottawa. In the morning, he would call Sarah and explain it.

In the morning.

Monday morning, about eleven fifteen, he was running through the list again. He had planned to go home that day, but he needed more time. He’d found another box of cutlery in the garage, he needed to make arrangements.

He’d wanted to tell Sarah about the new life, but there hadn’t been an opportunity. She was always irritated by one of the children, or worried about the new leak under the laundry room sink.

He was about to go to the back porch to relax with an orange-cinnamon tea — Miriam had taught him how to make it — when he saw a black car stop in front of the house. It looked like an Uber. The driver jumped out to open the door for the passenger, a lone woman.

Sarah.

He put down the drink.

Did you bring you with you?

“Yeah, can you believe it?” She couldn’t stop smiling. “I booked a one-way ticket so we can drive back together, exactly, like a summer vacation, sort of. My parents have the kids until Wednesday morning. I know you don’t like traveling, so I figured I would make it a bit easier.”

“That’s really something.” Raffi shook his head. “Wow.”

Over Sarah’s shoulder, he saw Jason walking. She turned and followed his eyes.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “that’s really something. Wow. I don’t know how you survived here for a week. So not your type of thing. I mean, did you have to shake his hand?”

She shuddered in mock horror.

By one fifteen, the boxes were in the car.

He wanted to take Sarah around, to introduce her to the others, but decided that it would be better if he spoke to her first, in the car, when she would have space to process what he was saying.

He left a note for Yaakov with his cellphone number. Had to leave unexpectedly, will be in touch later. Raffi.

She’d seen Aliza, Saadiah’s wife, as they pulled out and she’d grimaced. “Look how they wear their babies around them, like scarves, not people. So primitive!”

“Why, isn’t that sort of nice for the baby? To be that close to its mother?” Raffi asked this without looking at her.

“Raffi. The whole world uses strollers for a reason.”

Near Hartford, Raffi said he was hungry. He thought there was a kosher place there.

Sarah thought they should just buy pretzels at a gas station, it’s not like they were going to find something edible in Hartford, even if it was kosher.

Raffi told her that he’d eaten his Shabbos meal at people who’d smoked their own salmon and it had been delicious.

Sarah smirked. “Why would someone smoke their own salmon? I guess if you have no life, it makes sense.”

There was something beautiful about being that engaged in the preparation of food, he said, he thought it was cool. Like it invested the whole meal with some kind of meaning, no?

She sensed that he wasn’t convinced. “Sorry that I have a life.”

She wanted to know about money, how much they would get for the house, how much would be left after paying the movers and the notary and taxes and splitting it with his siblings. And did he keep receipts for his own expenses so his siblings could keep their promise and reimburse him? Even the gas, she said, and looked at the dashboard. “We should stop, you’re at a quarter of a tank.”

He felt lightheaded and knew that this was his last chance to explain it.

He’d had a plan, to hit play on his phone and let the recording he’d made on Motzaei Shabbos, of the niggun, the singing, Tuvia speaking about Dovid Hamelech and finding life under every rock, fill the car. He knew Sarah would frown and say, “Turn that off, it’s so noisy,” and he would pretend it was a mistake, and look for his phone as if trying to shut it.

But during that time, he hoped, she would hear what it was he couldn’t say but wished she knew.

He took a deep breath, and hit play.

Oy, oy, Tatte…

Did you bring you with you?

Sarah looked irritated. “Please turn that racket off. I have enough of a headache as it is.”

He turned it off.

He could do this.

There was plenty of time.

He tried to think of the right words, a way he could reach her the way Shloime had reached him.

They were passing a farm, the old farmhouse rising from the pale green sloping hill as if it too had grown naturally. The beauty made him ache, a heavy feeling in his lungs.

“You know I was never a road-trip person, Sarah, but I think I’m changing my mind.” He was aware that he was blushing, like one of his teenagers in class. “Mr. Strauss, can we discuss my mark? Please?”

She didn’t react.

“Like, you miss so much if you don’t look around, you know?”

He waited for her answer. She was looking in her purse for something, missing the farmhouse, missing the shiny horse standing majestically near the fence, peering down its nose at passing cars.

She looked up.

“I almost forgot to tell you, they want you to speak at the library, they called again, the summer adult-education thing. Gloria asked if you could talk about what teaching teenagers taught you.”

He could do that. He had a ready speech, the one about punctuality as the message and not just the means.

“What night?”

“Next Tuesday,” she said, and then, sensing a certain shift, she said it again. “Next Tuesday.”

He tried to imagine what Laib or Jason would think of the study showing the link between punctuality and academic success in students, or the fact that he locked the door before starting class — in or out.

They wouldn’t get it. He knew that. They would talk about every person having their own time, the inner clock being the most personal thing in the world.

The sky above Springfield, Massachusetts was blank.

Sara asked what he thought about stopping in Burlington for the night, just to catch their breath, live a little. Her parents would be fine with the children.

He wanted to tell her more, to continue with his highway metaphor and having open eyes to see life.

He really wanted to.

“Also, the rabbi called yesterday, he wanted you to say the daf for him. I told him you were still away.”

The rabbi. His blue knit vest and half-hearted attempts at engaging the youth and the perpetually unfinished manuscript he was always talking about.

Raffi was thinking that maybe he could ask the rabbi about learning some of the Torah of the Uman Rebbe together. Yes, that would be nice. He felt very sad for a moment, but then it passed and he pressed on the gas pedal, moving the car into the left lane in a sudden burst of speed.

He laughed lightly and turned to his wife, his mirror, reflecting his image.

“Burlington sounds nice. Let’s live a little.”

(Originally featured in Calligraphy, Issue 757)