She knows something is wrong, very wrong, when Ari walks in with an oversized gift bag.

“It’s not my birthday,” she says, trying for a lighthearted tone.

“C’mon, Ma, since when do I need a birthday as an excuse to give you a present?” He gives half a chivalrous bow and places the bag on the table with more drama than necessary. The pulse in her wrist starts to throb. Dear G-d, what is he going to ask me for this time?

She pushes aside the just-started cup of mint tea and the cookbook she’d been browsing. “Well then, that’s very generous of you. Let’s have a little look….”

“Careful,” he says as she lifts a small, potted plant out of the sparkly bag. “It’s real.”

“Oooh, how pretty!” She studies the tangle of stems and large green leaves. “Does it grow flowers, or just the greenery?”

He tugs at the label at the side. “See here, Ma, here’s care instructions. You gotta water it a little, keep it in the sun, prune the dead leaves. It’s supposed to blossom soon if you take care of it right, see the picture?”

The tiny print shows dark green leaves surrounding orange flowers.

She smiles. “This will brighten up the kitchen, won’t it. Thank you, Ari.”

He gives a satisfied nod, seating himself at the table and stretching lanky legs so the polished toes of his brown loafers stick out of the other side. “You said you weren’t doing much gardening recently, with the old back.”

“Mm-hm.” Her “old back” is facing him, thankfully, so she does not need to conceal the sudden pooling in her eyes. It’s just an excuse really; she’s had backache for years. The real reason she’s abandoned the flower patches bordering their backyard lawn is Yoni.

But of course, she can’t say that to him. “What’s new at your end?” she says brightly.

He is suddenly morose. “It’s starting to really get to me,” her son says slowly. “I mean, there’s only so long a guy can sit in an apartment by himself, waiting for wheels to turn so slowly you start to wonder if they’re even moving at all. And you know… it’s not like there’s a problem with my parenting.”

She can’t stop a hint of incredulity from flickering across her face. Doesn’t he realize that dropping 75 percent of mitzvah observance can’t exactly put him in the top-ten parents category?

He’s speaking again, with nary a look upward to study her reaction. “I— Ma, listen, I’m gonna fight for this.”

Her fingers tighten around the rim of her mug. This is what he has come for, she knows. He’s going to ask her to do something, to support something that she cannot and will not support.

“I’m taking a stand, Ma. They can’t stop me. I’m hiring — I have a guy, the top lawyer there is. We’re building a case, I want Yoni. I — she — they barely keep to that ridiculous visitation arrangement. Only with a grandparent. And that means her parents.” He snarls out the last words. “Last I heard, there are another couple of grandparents on the planet, who are perfectly fine and religious, but no, they don’t count.”

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 615)