But it also hadn’t been this bad at home before.

Up ahead, there’s an intersection: home, straight on, hospital, left. Where to go?

He’d have to try his mother-in-law. He tenses, sits up straight, and dials. Before he even says hello, Gila’s mother is talking, low-voiced, strident. “Do you know where Gila is? Do you have any idea?”

He balks at her hostility. “I know. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

The light changes at the intersection, he indicates, turns left.

“Don’t you bother coming, she’s sleeping now.”

“What happened?” he says quietly. A spasm of fear, “The baby…?”

The steering wheel is slick with his sweat, he maneuvers onto the shoulder and stops the car.

She’s still talking. “It’s not so clear, but the doctors are hopeful. Gila’s okay now. We’re here overnight and she’ll come to me tomorrow.”

“Which ward is she in? I’m coming over.”

“No, I told you, she’s sleeping. Go pick up the kids, get them out in the morning. Come tomorrow.”

Go home, don’t come.

An automaton U-turns the car and drives home.

You weren’t there for her.

If clothing could talk, Dassi’s pajamas, and Shuly’s socks, and the big and little shoes he stumbles over, they’d tell a story of a woman in pain and three little children rushing, rushing out in a frenzy and you weren’t there for her.

When the children are finally reassured and sleeping, he lies down, the weight of his weariness, earlier euphoria, guilt, heavy on his pillow.

In the empty house, the quiet of night presses in on him. Gila is lying in the hospital, and they almost lost what could’ve been because you weren’t there.

***

Shlomo eases into the chair, luxuriant leather, Italian, definitely. Somehow his name attracts a certain crowd. He likes to think it’s not just his name.

“So what do you have in mind?”

Blank faces. Father looks at mother. Mother giggles, “Don’t look at me.”

Typical. They don’t know what they want. No one does really.

He knows other singers do away with the formality of meeting the family before a wedding. Just go up there, do your best, and everyone’s happy. Happily ever after. But Shlomo doesn’t work like that. Every wedding has a certain feel. The merging of two families, he wants them all in his singing, with their own hints and undertones, like fine wine.

He leans forward and smiles, “Chassan, nu?”

Shmuly Templer throws up his hands and grins.

“You know, the regular, leibedig beat, hora…”

“I know the regular, Shmuly, I’m asking about the topping, what songs will say this is my wedding?”

Mrs. Templer perks up, “Could we do ‘Neshama,’ the Yiddish one, at the dinner? I love it. Oh and maybe ‘Toich Emnunei,’ MBD’s…”

“And that new one, the one you’re humming all the time, ‘Tnieyela.’” Mr. Templer throws in.

Mrs. Templer beams.

Good. When the women are happy, everyone’s happy.

He turns to Shmuly again. “Back to you. Let’s start with the chuppah.”

Shmuly gulps. His mother gives a delicate squeal.

“Our first,” Mr. Templer murmurs.

Shlomo gives them an indulgent nod of understanding.

“I haven’t thought about this much,” Shmuly says.

Mrs. Templer starts to look anxious again.

“You know what,” he says, “Let me speak to the chassan myself, get to know him a bit, we’ll take it from there.”

He leaves the stately driveway a half hour later. Another happy family.

He guns the engine and coasts away. He’s in the business of happy families.

The irony bites back and he groans out loud to take away the hurt.

I have to buy something for Gila.

He stops on the main street. The bakery? She’s drowsy and droopy and has no appetite.

The bookstore? If she’s in bed, she’s sleeping, she has no time to read.

What do you buy someone who’s had a close call, someone who happens to be your wife — and you weren’t there for her?

Nothing. There’s nothing to buy, and nothing to say.

The cold chases him back into the car. He shakes his head and joins the snaking rows of cars. Not that he’s in a rush to get home. He’s the moron at his mother-in-law. Gila’s there, went straight from hospital. And the kids are going there after school. As if they need him there.

The traffic inches forward. On his left, a man, not more than a boy really, stands on the curb, surrounded by black buckets. He holds a sign: Roses, five dollars a stem.

Shlomo fishes in his pocket, finds just one five-dollar bill, rolls down the window.

“I’ll take one,” he hollers into the wind.

One? Really? An offering, what?

“What’ll it be?” the boy calls back.

“Red,” he says on impulse.

The boy lifts a single stem, no plastic wrap, no tissue paper. As he hands it to Shlomo a tune falls from his lips. “Stark in its naked beauty. A single rose, red and vibrant. Sweet and fragranced. To life, to love, to joy.”

Shlomo smiles. He looks up, but the boy has moved on. Behind him, there’s a honk and the cars start to move, the boy’s words slipping out of reach, snatched away by the wind.

***

“Shuly, why aren’t you eating?”

He hovers over the kitchen island. There are four stools, his children occupying three of them and his mother-in-law the fourth. Should he pull up a dining-room chair, put the damask fabric at the mercy of sticky fingers and greasy food? Should he take his portion to the dining room? Where is his portion?

“Want you to give me,” Shuly pouts.

“Don’t you eat on your own now, big girl?”

“Don’t you even know your kids?” Mom says snidely, so that only he can hear.

He thinks what her tichel will look like if a chicken quarter were to land on it. Just a thought.

“In Bubby’s house someone always gives me to eat,” Shuly says.

“Okay, okay.” He cuts the chicken and hands her some on a fork.

Yaakov munches loudly beside him.

“What about Dassi?” he asks, pointing at his youngest.

“Dassi’s finished already, she’s just fine.” Mom says this so pointedly, she might as well say “we don’t need you” in those words.

He sits in Dassi’s chair and bounces her on his knee. Do I also get a piece of chicken? he screams telepathically, willing his mother-in-law to hear.

He bounces his daughter higher. I’m hungry.

She giggles. A delicious, infectious two-year-old giggle. Like her mother, really. Gila has a tinkling laugh. He remembers that evening more than a decade ago when he’d first heard it. She’d laughed about something he’s said and the bell-like sound was so incongruous to the down-to-earth, practical woman he was getting to know, and he knew then and there that there was something more.

He holds Dassi and the memory close. Dassi snuggles against his chest. He tousles her curls, strokes her shoulder, and the love that rises in his chest is a complicated thing, rushing with guilt and things he cannot name.

Later, when Mom finally deigns to serve him and the kids are asleep, he reaches in his bag and removes the single rose. He will find a vase, fill it with water, but for now he wants to give it to Gila like this, just a rose, unadorned.

In the morning when he picked her up from the hospital, everything was brighter. They’d pronounced Gila good to go — it was a scare, just a scare — and he was breathing with relief, a tingle of joy even. But Gila was silent as a stone. They were driving to her mother’s house. He’d been on the verge of asking — begging — her to come home, recuperate there, he’d be there for her, he’d show her. But every time he’d opened his mouth, the thought had struck him down like a bullet: You don’t have the right.

So he’d settled her down in her mother’s home, and he’d apologised, but there were too many words, none of them saying what he really meant. Maybe because he didn’t really know what he meant.

He’d put it right. Now, when she’s calm, surely. He comes upstairs, stops at the door, smiles valiantly. He would give anything to see her smile back. But her expression is no longer stone, but resigned, like she’s lost her fighting spirit. Has she given up on him?

He puts his hand into his pocket and fingers the rose. Delicate petals. He needs delicate words.

“Gila, I—”

She looks up, eyes softening.

He clears his throat.

She’s still looking up. He turns around. His mother-in-law bears upon them, a tray of supper, served on china, in her arms, steam curving from the soup bowl.

He steps aside and she lays it down beside Gila, too much chivalry in her movements, as if they are in some warped gifting competition.

“Mmm, thanks, Mom,” Gila says, reaching for a spoon.

Mom perches on a bedside stool beside her. Gila looks up, and for a moment her eyes change, she’s telling him something. But he doesn’t know what, because her mother is yapping and fussing about her, stealing their moment.

Downstairs, Dassi starts to cry. Time to gather them all up and take them home. He says goodbye to his wife, still clutching the petals in his pocket. The oils seep out of the flower and the petals are pockmarked with fingernails.

To life, love, joy.  

He open the door and pulls the mangled rose out to throw it to the dogs. His coat snags on a thorn.

***

Schneider, Clarence Drive, 11 a.m.

The reminder pings in his pocket. He snoozes it.

“Good morning, Gila.”

They’re back home, thankfully. Bring on the living room-cum-playroom, bring on the squeaking third stair. Home.

He smells it before he’s entered the kitchen. Cinnamon coffee, his favorite. It needs twenty minutes in the old-fashioned, whistling kettle to brew just right. Good old Gila.

He looks down and realizes he’s still holding Yaakov’s lunch out like an offering. He glances at the clock, 10:50. Rushing, always rushing. He was going to drop it off at the school on his way home from shul, but Lazer had a grand idea after davening. A way in with Duvi, the producer. Not that he needed a special way in really. His voice, his reputation, speaks for itself. But you have to be extra careful with a first CD. The field is competitive and sharp-edged, and if Lazer’s cousin could sweeten the deal for his debut album…

Gila turns her head. He sticks Yaakov’s lunch into his briefcase. Later, who knows when, whatever.

His debut album. The one he hasn’t told Gila about.

Yet.

She puts a mug of coffee down on a coaster for him, and takes a cup herself.

They sit. She inhales the rich brew. Smiles, a little lopsided.

He takes a scalding sip. Maybe now is a good time to tell? The guys wanted to start right after Pesach, his own wife should know before word gets out on the streets.

But Gila has other plans.

“What’s your schedule looking like today?” she asks, pleasantly enough.

He stiffens, this isn’t like her. She does her thing, he does his.

“Um, Schneider in five minutes, the wedding’s next week. Meeting with Rofeh Cholim later to discuss the upcoming dinner. And the Halberstam sheva brachos tonight, y’know the Halberstams from uptown. I told you about it, it’s on a boat.” He grins, okay, full rundown, can I go now?

Gila doesn’t smile back. “Shlomo,” she says, “we have to talk.”

“I know,” he says, making an effort to smile still, “that would be great. But really, I have to catch the Schneiders now.”

“Tell them you’ll be late.”

This isn’t Gila. Hormones out of whack? More than that. She’s been talking to someone. Someone’s been talking to her. Who? Her mother?

“Please,” she concedes, in a more Gila-like tone.

He breathes. Running late, sorry, he texts Schneider.

She sets down her coffee. Both arms free for gesticulating. Serious.

“Shlomo,” she says again, and without preamble she throws the bombshell at his feet. “Don’t you think it’s time to change tracks?”

He looks down. Looks up again. “What do you mean?” he says quietly.

“You know what I mean,” she says. “Change tracks, go into something different. Something nine-to-five, so you can be home in the evenings. Something that won’t possess you from the inside. Something that will let you answer the phone when your wife needs you…” Her voice cracks.

He says nothing. Watches as a tear sparks in Gila’s eye and she swipes it away. He hates the way the silence stretches, hates that it’s come to this.

He spreads out his hands, “But it’s all I know,” he says. “I like what I do, I love it. Don’t you care about that?”

“Don’t you care about me? About our family?”

He sighs, “I do, you know, I do, but can’t a man have both? I mean, it’s all for you and the kids really, it’s a parnassah.”

“The weddings, maybe, but the concerts? It’s not just parnassah. It’s obsession. With stardom.”

He winces. Tries for one last vain attempt. “It took me a long time to get here…”

There’s a quiet fire in her eyes, like she knows where she’s going, like she’s daring to hope. “Stepping on too many things along the way,” she says quietly. “I don’t want it, Shlomo. This is not a life.”

“What do you want?” he asks this rhetorically.

But it seems she’s been waiting for the question.

“Therapy,” she says quickly. “I want to talk about it — with you — in therapy.”

Therapy? To air their issues before a wizened old woman or a pompous young man. All nods and hmms and — he doesn’t have time for this. He’s not that kind of guy. He can sort his own stuff out, thanks.

Can you?

He grasps for an excuse. “Therapy’s expensive, Gila.”

“Some things are important,” she says.

In his mind, he nods along, thinking of an envelope he’s stashed away. Tips and extra jobs. Money, hard-earned, saved up for a dream. His debut album.

He puts head in hands.

The reminder pings again at his chest.

Schneider. Oh.

He’s a trapped man. Not even the luxury of cradling his dreams — mourning dreams? — between head and hands.

“Let me think about it,” he says with effort, as he leaves.

But he doesn’t know what to think.

***

The Hudson at night, spangled with a million lights, reflecting the city’s likeness back up to herself. A mirage in the depth of water.

What is this life?

What is real?

He leans onto the railing, watching the waves behind the boat ripple and distort the reflections in the black waters.

From inside the boat, the clanking of cutlery, the swell of conversation.

“Reb Shlomo?” A tap on his shoulder.

He starts.

The older man holds out his hand. Reicher, head of Hatzalah.

Shlomo takes it.

“Ahh, Reb Shlomo, what a niggun that was down there. You have a gift, you know. Nisht pashut.”

Nisht pashut, indeed.

“So I was thinking,” Reicher puts a hand onto the railing, the other on Shlomo’s shoulder. “I know this is late, but you know we have our major concert coming up on Chol Hamoed…”

Shlomo’s heart leaps, eddies like the waves.

Reicher thumps his shoulder. “I discussed it with some of the others downstairs — they’re all here, Halberstam’s on the board — and we want you there. No doubt about it, young man.”

The Hatzalah Chol Hamoed concert? The biggie? He’s been around, done some of the small ones, some not-so-small. But the Hatzalah Pesach concert is huge. And it’s a first.

“Really?”

“Yes, really, I’ll put you in touch with Shuey, the coordinator.”

And he’s off, clipping down the deck, mission accomplished.

Shlomo watches him go, looks out into sea.

He didn’t even ask. It wasn’t a question, Reicher and the big boys make statements.

Erev Pesach with a crazy rehearsal schedule?

But the concert, the huge names in the industry. You’ve made it to the top.

What am I going to tell Gila?

***

“Yedid nefesh, yedid nefesh, Av harachamim…”

Yaakov sways in his seat, childish voice ringing. Shlomo takes his son’s hand and pumps it. Their hands are clasped over the table, rising and falling along with their voices.

They go higher and even Shuly joins in, four-year-old rendition of the words, perfectly on tune. A child’s range is incredible, Shlomo muses, and he smiles down at them all. At Dassi, sitting calm and content in her high chair, squealing with glee as the three of them reach a high note.

Gila comes in with the tureen of cholent. She sets it down on the table. Hard. Gravy splatters.

The children are still singing, both of them taking hold of Shlomo’s hands now, a half-circle of Shabbos and song and sweetness at the head of the table.

“I have a headache,” Gila says pointedly.

He stops mid-note. Yaakov and Shuly warble on for a moment until their voices taper off uncertainly.

“Kinderlach, go play til your cholent cools down. Mommy’s tired,” he says, and they break the circle, leaving him alone.

Gila plays with her serving, makes patterns with the beans and potatoes. She puts her spoon down, looks up, eyes brimming with pain.

“I can’t,” she blurts. “I can’t hear you sing now.”

What?

“It hurts, it reminds me of being all alone, and you weren’t there for me because you were out singing. Not just last week, but all those times. Shlomo, when?”

Not to sing? I can’t hear you sing? His own wife?

He shakes his head slowly, half closes his eyes. And they are young again, just married. His new kallah looking up at with shining eyes, as he sings zemiros at their little table in Jerusalem.

Where has it gone? Her love of life, love of a melody, her pride in him?

The years, ten years, had they only driven a wedge between them?

It couldn’t be. They had a family now, a home. There were myriad good moments, shared moments, stars in the sky. But there were another side, too. Gila alone, another late night out, and another. Wan and waiting and wanting. He opens his eyes, looks at her. She is just 30, but her face is old, her eyes hard, like they cannot hope for change. When was the last time he’d heard her laugh? That beautiful laugh that melts everything away. Is this what he wants for her, for them?

“Shlomo,” she says, “I’m not coming to the Hatzalah concert. I can’t.”

“But, but,” he splutters.

How has it comes to this?

“Look,” she says sadly, “I can’t stop you, I don’t want to take it away from you, but I can’t support you either.”

The kids skedaddle in — “Want cholent already,” — and he thinks about what she’s said as he eats. It doesn’t sound like a marriage, it sounds like a deal.

***

His heart isn’t in it.

All around him men are singing, lifting themselves beyond the dingy studio. Headphones on, they’re in their own worlds. But it is a together world, too.

Only he is not part. He stands next to the fathers of the industry, men whose voices filled his youth, men whom he could only dream of rehearsing with one day.

Now the day’s come and here he is fiddling with his headphones.

Two days before Pesach.

How are they all here, trilling blissfully into the night?

Surely their nearest will support them on their big day…

Lazer, that guy from shul, the one with the connections — he’s here helping out with arrangements — pokes him in the ribs.

“Come out a minute, Shlomo.”

“What’s with you?” he asks when they are in the cold wood-panelled hallway. “You’re not looking good.”

“I can’t get into it,” Shlomo sighs.

“So the future star has the jitters.”

Shlomo smiles weakly.

“I have something for you, to cheer you up a bit.” He winks, like the macher he is. “It’s a gedank, a composition. From Duvi, you know, my cousin, the producer. He wants to know what you think of it. If you like it, for the CD.”

His dream album. More days and nights out in the studio, endless meetings with arrangers, composers, producers…

He rubs his stubble, looks more morose than before.

“What, you don’t want it? You don’t even want to hear?”

He shakes his head, nods, shakes again. Puts head in hands.

“I’m not feeling good,” he mumbles.

***

Huddled behind the curtain, they wait in the wings for the last signal. The finale. Refoel is on stage, Refoel, one of the oldies, whose voice and style have withstood the test of time.

Shlomo listens, lets his heart soar. But euphoria is a bubble, like they say. One moment melding with the music; popping from reality the next. Gila’s not here. She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want to hear me anymore.

Refoel starts an old classic: “Eishes Chayil.” The audience roars and joins in. From the side, Shlomo can see them. They are on their feet now, bochurim and older men and someone out there rocking in a wheelchair for all he’s worth.

Beside him, the other singers sway, mouthing along, Eishes chayil mi yimtzah…

It’s too much. He closes his eyes; he whose wife is not here tonight.

Batach bah, lev baalah… From out stage, Refoel’s voice goes strong, soothes him. He’s back there in his mind with Gila, the old times, young times. The years of sweetness they share.

He holds onto it, lets it sing from the heart. Strong, stronger still.

What does he want for their family?

She knows what she wants, she wants therapy, she’s here to make it work. Is he only pushing away?

Oy, yoy, yoy, Eishes Chayil…

What will it do for them if they would talk, really talk? What if he faced up to Gila about his dreams, made her part of them… What if he faced up to himself?

Oy, yoy, yoy, Eishes Chayil…

He has a young family that needs him, new life coming, a wife he wants to fill his home with laughter. His debut album, it would have to wait.

Refoel sings on and he finds himself rushing out through the dark hallways, away from the stage, from the magic of the wings, into the labyrinth of rooms backstage. He’s riding on inspiration from a place Refoel stoked open tonight, a place that must be within him, even if it’s hard to find.

There’s the room. He fingers his coat, takes out his cellphone and shoots off a text.

Gila, I’m with you, therapy. We’re going to make this work.

His phone shows it’s almost midnight. Where is she now? In bed already? Still scrubbing? Started on the cooking?

He bites his lip, flies back through the shadowy rooms, through the huge antechamber, back into the hushed embrace of the wings.

A quizzical look from Mordechai. And then two notes. Finale time.

Refoel, still singing, motions them on and they walk into the spotlight together.

The singers link arms, all joining Refoel, as the music transposes, higher, taking them to the farthest place for the last few moments. Eishes Chayil mi yimtzah…

He lets go off his thoughts, gets into the words. Feels the words. Like he’s never felt them on thousands of Friday nights.

The audience is there with them, on air. He looks out.

And sees Gila.

He is dreaming.

She is sleeping, or stooped over in the kitchen. Should have gotten his text five minutes ago. Surely she couldn’t have come so fast.

He keeps singing, staring out at an indistinct figure in the blackness. He is singing for her, just for her, the whole audience transmuting into one. The one who matters most.

Is she here? Has she been here all evening, seen me take it all away?

The spotlight swerves green, gold over the crowd. It’s her.

For one moment, over the heads of thousands of others, their eyes meet. And her face breaks open, and though he cannot hear it, he knows her laugh is tinkling across the hall.

(Oringally featured in Family First, Issue 584)