Chaim didn’t even look up this time. Maybe, Shaindy thought with a little stab of satisfaction, he was also at the end of his rope. This would be their nisayon together, he would privately admit how hard he found it, and then they would learn a sefer together about coping. Eventually, Heshy would move out and she would tell her other children, without too much detail of course, about how she and Tatty had resolved to get through it together.

Heshy said he was going for a walk, and when he came back fifteen minutes later, he had several other minyan options he’d found out about. There was a hashkamah minyan on York (hashkamah, ha, Shaindy thought, her son hadn’t come out of his room before nine o’clock all week), a Syrian minyan in someone’s basement, and just outside the neighborhood, at the corner of Dalton, there was a minyan for an older man who couldn’t leave the house.

Instinctively, Shaindy knew that her son would choose the old man minyan, the inherent chesed in it appealing to him, and smiled to herself a moment later when he announced that he would probably go help out that minyan. “I hope it’s okay, Ta, that I’m not davening with you?” he asked, and without a trace of irony Chaim assured him that it was fine.

It was really just fine. Shaindy looked closely, trying to see the sign in her husband’s face, and she thought she caught it.

“I’m just getting the hang of taking thirty years of chinuch lectures and adapting them to old people, and now the chinuch world suddenly wants me,” Akiva Putterman said, but Rina could see that he was pleased.

It had been a good week, and earlier that evening when she bentshed licht, she’d added words of thanks for the fact that her husband seemed to have found a message that resonated within their new neighborhood. Now he was telling her about two new schools that wanted him to come in and do teacher enrichment seminars, his favorite type of work, and her heart soared at the enthusiasm in his voice.

It had started slow, but interest was building.

Akiva had to contend not just with competition, but also with paranoia about why people wanted his services. Recently, in a moment of truth, he’d blurted out that being Shea Helberg’s shver made him doubt what people really wanted. One over-eager menahel had invited Akiva to observe in the school for a week, and Akiva had been intrigued. “Observe? To what end? To present at the end of it, you mean? To write a report?”

“No,” the menahel had said, “no need to present, we’re just very proud of what we built here and we want people like you to see it firsthand. You’re very connected and all that, we need ambassadors like you.”

Akiva had caught something in his tone and told Rina about it later. “Rina, ambassadors? Does he need me to make a good report to the board of ed? To Torah Umesorah? Does the school need an ambassador to Dubai, Rina? No, of course not, they need me to be impressed so that maybe I can get through to oh-so-busy Shea Helberg and mention that when he’s pouring money out of that endless supply all across Klal Yisrael, they want their share. That’s what this is about. It’s obvious to me, and I find it disgusting.”

He had been embarrassed at his own outrage, but he didn’t take the words back, and she knew that he now viewed every potential client with suspicion. It was as if in the memo that circulated between the mosdos, the scouting report read something like, Akiva Putterman: mildly entertaining, no major chinuch insights, but pretty good, relatively inspirational, good presentations, also, he’s FIL of Shea Helberg, worth considering just for that alone.

It was just the two of them this Shabbos, and they lingered over dessert, enjoying the peace and optimism that had spread itself like a blanket over this strange new house, this perfect house with no defects or oddities, this perfect house waiting to happen.

He played around with the cranberry biscotti, then took a bite and looked at her appreciatively. “Good stuff, new recipe?”

“Yah, I got it from one of my new friends. New friends, new recipe.” She shrugged and smiled shyly.

He stood up, suddenly, and launched into a mock lecture. “Mrs. Rina Putterman, nearly fifty years old, expected to start a new life, in a new town.”

He paced up and down the room, and then punched the air for drama, enjoying his own joke. “Not only a new life, but new recipes too… and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real secret. Not finding freshness in the areas in which you have to, but in the areas in which you want to. Not just the house, the friends, the job, but the dessert recipes! Be like Mrs. Putterman.”

He sat back down, feeling good, and got back to the biscotti. Rina laughed lightly, but inwardly, she promised herself she would invite kids to come every single Shabbos she was able. Too much quiet wasn’t a good thing for her husband.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 891)