T

he table was shaky, the waiter was hovering, and Malky wanted to play a keep-your-marriage-fun game she’d read about in one of the magazines.

Kivi was trying to be patient and go along with her questions — What is your worst chore around the house, what is the strangest gift you ever received — even though he had some questions of his own: Why does Mendy act like something’s wrong with him? Why did he stop building his Lego tower just before the top floor was done, and why did he knock it over on purpose? Why does he climb up the seforim shelf even though I tell him not to?

If he’d ask, then Malky would get tense and tell him that it was fine, everything was all right, maybe after the upsheren they would look into it again and he needed to stop worrying.

His wife, sitting across from him at Paradis, was gesturing with her hands, her face colored by liveliness. This was his job, he thought: not just taking care of Mendy, but taking care of her. Allowing her to be happy. Playing along with her request to share one teenage memory that still embarrasses you when you think about it.

He poked at his arancini and said, “Okay, once when I was in camp, I fell asleep near the pool and some guys covered me with towels, like a huge pile, maybe ten feet high. When I woke up, it was really disorienting, it ended up on the camp video… whatever, was kind of embarrassing.”

“Whoa.” Malky looked concerned. “Was that hard?”

“Nah.” He laughed easily. “It was fine. I didn’t care. It was funny.”

It was quiet then, and he thought maybe the game was over and he could use their night out to mention Mendy.

She moved first. “So listen, Kivi, I was telling Mommy that we want to go Eretz Yisrael for Mendy’s upsheren, and she loved the idea. I was worried, you know, maybe she would think we need a big family party, we live here now and all that, but she got it. She said it would be nice for us to go back.”

“Stam.” Kivi tried to sound nonchalant. “Maybe she’s noticed that Mendy isn’t the easiest kid and that the situation is different than usual.”

Malky looked confused. “Whatever, she was happy, so I was relieved. Then she calls me back and says that maybe she and Tatty will come in too, I should send her the dates. How crazy is that?”

He felt something give inside of him.

“What, you’re not happy?” she asked.

How could he explain that the feeling of being violated was a compliment to her, to them, to what they had together.

He’d had a vision of them standing in Meron after the upsheren, and him saying, “Malk, let’s just stick around this part of the country for a few days, maybe even spend Shabbos.”

Maybe the adventures they’d missed in shanah rishonah were still within reach: Maybe he could do Breslov in Tzfas for Shabbos, then on Sunday walk through the tiny alleyways and buy fresh cheese, visit the weaving workshop and buy a challah cover that they would use every Shabbos to remember the trip. He’d thought he could convince her to go up to the moshav at the top of Har Yavnit where they made that crazy expensive wine, they could bring back a few bottles.

But if his in-laws would come along, it would be a different trip. Green’s for breakfast and where-should-we-go-for-dinner, let’s-be-adventurous, and at eleven o’clock we can go into the rebbe, bring Mendy, of course he should wear a white shirt. We should really stop in Bnei Brak, mention Matty’s problem with her back to Rav Chaim and get a brachah for the surgery too.

“I’m not happy, Malky,” he said finally. “I thought this would be our trip. We can use it, no?”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 739)