It had happened; in the two years that she’d been away, in the deafening quiet that must have roared through the house on long, lonely evenings, Mom finally got herself back into the parshah.

Sure, there’d been suggestions all along, people’s bright ideas often best left to themselves. Mom had always listened with half an ear; now she gave them her full attention. Nava’s back, and the phones are ringing with shidduchim. For both of them. Predominantly for Mom, though.

A 42-year-old single, with just one working daughter, is quite eligible, it seems.

The train roars, creaks open and shut. She rubs her forehead where she was leaning on the pole too hard.

A stepdad? A new man to steal Mom’s heart and go off with her.

No, that’s not it. Mom needs it, and Nava wants it. That’s not what’s bothering her.

Where was Mom all along? It should be my time for this now… I just want to move out, move on, and I’ll be okay with whatever she does.

Maroon suit, sure, she texts back, though the fit doesn’t do much for Mom. The train hurtles past the garment district and grumbles to a halt at 34th Street, Penn Station, and she gets off.

“Meeting at 12 for you newbies,” Sherry says, as her computer hums to life. “It’s gonna be a biggie this time.”

“It’s always a biggie, with Nadler,” Nava says.

The boss is flamboyance at its best.

“No, I mean the biggie. That thing he does to make you part of Nadler and Co.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you heard about it?”

“No.”

“Won’t tell you then. You’ll enjoy the surprise.”

Nava shrugs and turns to the skirt on her screen. She frowns.

“Too much, Sherr?”

She put ruffles on the edge of the skirt in a gently undulating pattern. It will be part of the Shabbos collection. Pretty, but…

“Just leave it straight?”

“Hm, I like it. No, no, the waves there give it bounce. But try a couple degrees down.”

Nancy walks into the workroom and hands out slips of paper. For her, Kayla, Jen, Tamar, Sharon.

Five of them, all new.

She twiddles with the arcs on the ruffle, adjusts the angle. Hm, nicer. She saves it as Draft3, and emails it to Karen. The big girl. The decision girl. Of course, she’s Karen Nadler, boss’s daughter. And she’s not a Nadler for nothing — her sense of style is natural, essence level. The woman has flair in her fingertips.

Nava sighs. Sure, she has flair too. Creativity, whatever.

She got her degree in art and design, but she was going to do something normal, graphic design maybe. Mom had wanted her to get a business degree too, something stable, so she wouldn’t end up out of touch at 40, sweet-talking houses, like me.

And then Nadler & Co, a huge name in Jewish children’s fashion, had gotten in touch with her course program in Israel, liked her portfolio, and here she is in a seventh-floor office in Manhattan’s garment industry, designing the clothing she could never afford as a child.

“So he did give you something good, after all, that creative genius Dad of yours,” Mom had said, half grudgingly. But she was delighted with Nava’s job. “Even though I don’t understand a bit of it.”

And she didn’t. She was going to wear her maroon suit, for heaven’s sake. On a date.

Mom’s dating!

“Earth to Nava.” Tamar taps her on the shoulder. “It’s five to twelve, meeting time.”

She signs out of the system and traipses after the others.

“All right,” Mr. Nadler says, punching a fist in the air. “You can sit, ladies.”

They take seats around the huge conference table.

Nadler smiles. “It’s been a great first quarter. Karen tells there’s been a lot of creativity from the new team. Even a couple of new styles she called specials.”

That rucked jumper? The one she’d created with Sherry?

But Nadler’s eyes roll over the table, looking at them all.

“And Karen knows,” he adds.

Nava wonders about his background suddenly. Where had he grown up? What did little boy Nadler find in his dresser drawer?

“So you’re getting to know what we’re about, and we’re getting to know you, and now it’s time to take it up a level.” He rubs his hands. “You might have heard about the balloon event being run by the American Balloon and Airship Club in Manhattan City Park. It’s in the area for a month or so, just over the holiday period. I’ve been up in a balloon myself there just last week. Ladies, it’s awesome.”

He says this, not like the word they throw around to mean “cool,” but with wonder in his eyes.

“And I thought I would like this experience for one of the team, to give you vision. What a vision. And hey, why can’t this be a reward for the challenge of firsts. You do know about that?”

Some nods. Nava is bemused.

“We do it every year with the new team. A task, a challenge, and a winner. Short time frame, focused task, and your brain’s fired up, you’re raring to go. That’s what this company’s about.”

He slams a palm on table.

“So, I’m going to leave it to Karen to explain the challenge. I know it has to do with an overhaul in the boy’s collection. My girl’s got the details.”

Karen sweeps in then. And Nava finds herself riding on the fervor, tingling with verve.

If she is honest with herself, she knows she doesn’t really need the prize.

She studies her sketchpad. “Maybe I’m crazy but I like to work.” She says this aloud, dusting blackened fingers on a cloth.

Sherry looks up from her screen. “You have graphite on your nose.”

Nava laughs. “Completes the look.”

Sherry leans back in her chair. “Someone’s looking happy, what’ve you got there?”

She slides her sketchpad over, an outdoorsy sweater, rustic and hardy at once.

“It’s great, Nava. They’re gonna love it, the moms, the boys. Is this your entry for the challenge?”

“I think it will be. I like it, I’m excited about it even. But y’know, not because of the prize. Maybe I just believe in what I’m creating?”

“Atta girl. You got it. That’s the point. That’s what Nadler wants from you, from all of us. Put yourself in it fully, start as a challenge, for a prize, whatever, but get to a place where you’re breathing the product.”

Nava points to her nose. “I am.”

Sherry chuckles.

Nava scans the image. CAD, computer aided design. Have all the fun and freedom you want with a pencil and then let the computer deal with the hard lines, the precision. It’s a good world for fashion designers. And she’s lucky enough to be a part.

She falls into a doze on the subway home, and when she stumbles into the house, it’s dark, cool, like no one is home. The dark is good now, soothing after a jolting half-sleep on the train. She presses her face into the suede of the couch. Ahh.

A key turns in the lock. The lights — hallway, kitchen, and living room chandelier — go on all at once. Mom clicks in on her heels. Nava rubs a hand over her bleary face and blinks. Mom dazzles under the light. Pearls, sequins on her sleeves, rhinestones on her shoes, all catching the light and glinting. She’s back from her date. And she’s glowing.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?” Mom asks, her voice like an eager teenager.

“Why don’t you take off your heels first?” she says, stalling.

“Oh, those. I’m still wearing them?”

But she makes no move to take them off. And Nava, crumpled into the couch, still rubbing her eyes, sees an inverted moment, herself in the glam and breathlessness, a mirage where it’s the other way around. Like it should be.

She puts head in hands a moment — c’mon, get a grip on yourself — and Mom finally kicks off the heels and gets herself a drink.

What to say? She doesn’t want to hear, doesn’t want to know how it went with what was that widower’s name? Hirsch? Though G-d knows she wants Mom to be happy.

She hears Mom clattering up the stairs, sighing, taking with her the words she’s wanted to spill out onto the carpet as soon as she came home.

Really, who else has to deal with a mother in shidduchim?

And when she herself is single.

What is it about the train that lulls her into semi-consciousness?

She’d been too weary to bound out at seven. At eight, there’s a seat, and the moment she sits, her eyes close on the crowds, on the rushing streetscape outside, and the flickering black, river, black, of the bridge offers her a memory.

They were shopping for seminary. Mom and her. Bloomingdale’s had a sale and she needed some Shabbos things for Israel. She slipped into a soft turquoise dress, loving how it drew out the green in her hazel eyes, how the cut was just so. She knew it was too expensive, even at 30 percent off, but maybe, maybe? Mom put money aside for seminary expenses, she was stretching herself sparse.

She came out of the dressing room, peered around for Mom. She was over at the evening bags. She must have gotten bored. Shopping was not her thing. But there she was preening in the mirror, a bag dangling from her shoulder, silky black on a long gold chain. Gorgeous. So not Mom.

Mom checked the price. Same as the turquoise dress.

“I’d never splurge on this,” Mom said. “What would I need it for? Except, maybe for a date…?”

She had shivered in the dress. It was the first inkling that Mom was thinking about dating and it didn’t seem real. Didn’t fit. Like the glamorous bag on Mom’s shoulder in the mirror.

The train screeches off the bridge and back underground. Nava shakes her head. That shopping trip, it had been when, three years ago? And Mom’s been waiting, hoping, all this time. And a lot longer before. She deserves her happiness. Just why now?

We don’t get to choose when the good things in life come along, do we?

When she gets home that night, Mom’s getting dressed again. Going out again.

“Come up, sweetie, help me choose what to wear.”

Mom’s bed is covered with clothes. Dark, all dark, drab colors. She doesn’t do this dressing thing like Nava, like the mother of a fashion designer. Her creative flair, it was all Dad.

Mom holds up a sweater. Black cotton — simple, functional.

“Hey, that would look good with my yellow scarf,” Nava says.

“Yellow, hmm.” Mom makes a face.

“Yeah, Mom, you know which one I mean, the lemony one, not the mustard.”

She stands there considering — thinking of how Mr. Hirsch would like it? — and her face breaks out in a grin. “Yellow, why not?”

Nava dashes off to get the scarf. It’s nice to see Mom like this, smiling over a scarf. She comes back and Mom’s getting into her heels. Sturdy blocks. She’s been wearing them for years, through their cycle back into fashion. She arranges the scarf around Mom’s shoulder, gives an artsy tug here and there, forms a casual knot, half of a bow.

“Just look at you, Mom!”

From under the deluge of clothes on the bed, the phone rings. Mom grabs it.

“Hello, yes, yes, uh, I see. No, we haven’t made many calls, we were waiting to hear from them. You’ll have her in mind. I see. You too.”

She drops the phone onto the bed, flops down too, her face heavy, drooping.

“Nava’le,” she says quietly, “it was the shadchan. They, the Colemans, they’re not taking it further at this point.”

Nava watches the curl of the yellow scarf on Mom’s neck, as the gentle knot comes undone and the bow falls apart.

It’s not so bad, really; so what if they’d said no? It’s normal, part of the process, she should be glad it’s now, and not later on. But now, now? When Mom’s meeting Mr. Hirsch in 20 minutes?

Her eyes blur. She rushes out of the room, leaving Mom wringing the sleeve of an old tweed dress.

They said G-d didn’t throw too much at you at once.

They’ve gathered in the conference room, not just the five of them, the entire design team. Karen had taken their entries for the contest yesterday and today is D-Day. Decision Day. Beside her Tamar, Jen, and the others are flushed with excitement, but she’s thinking of Mom, how she’d come home last night, her eyes smiling, face beatific.

“So ladies, we’ve reached the culmination of the challenge of firsts…” Big words from Nadler, always big. “We’ve seen innovation, inspiration, creative ideas. Thank you, thank you all. And now for the winner!”

Sherry squeezes her hand. Inexplicably she feels herself go cold.

Then warm. Flushing.

“Nava Lawrence.”

What? What? Dear G-d. This? Give it to Tamar, give me normal in my life, please.

But Sherry is already patting her on the back and the team bursts into applause, and she feels two cherry dots blossoming on her cheeks as Nadler holds out the tickets and she rises out of her chair to accept them.

“Tickets for two to the American Balloon and Airship Club Experience. Well done, and well deserved.”

Nadler had recommended sunrise. “From up there the Hudson was pink, pale pink…”

She mimics his gravelly voice. Mom throws back her head, laughs, hugs her. “My Nava, my talented girl, winning the contest, taking me up, up and away.”

“Oh, Mom, it was only the five of us, it isn’t that much of a deal.”

“The prize is a big deal.”

It is. It’s awesome. And hey, Mr. Hirsch isn’t the only one who can make Mom float on air.

The thought makes her snicker as she dials the number on the back of the ticket.

“All right Mom, I’m booking us in.”

Even the hold music is dreamlike, floaty notes with a hint of sky and cloud. She’s startled out of heaven by a woman’s voice.

“Sally speaking, good afternoon, how can I help you?”

“We’re interested in the sunrise experience, please, on the air balloon. From Manhattan City Park.”

“You know we’re in Manhattan just until over the weekend. We’re moving this show over to Seattle on Sunday. But we’ve got two sunrise experiences left, Thursday morning and Saturday morning.”

“Thursday, Thursday for two.”

She gives Mom the thumbs-up and laughs. Mom is standing there simulating flight, bending down low and whooshing up, arms high and free.

But Wednesday evening they are eating supper, and Mom’s boss calls. She answers distractedly, still taking surreptitious spoonfuls of rice.

“DeKalb, really? Two people?”

She puts down her spoon, clears her throat. “Mr. Smith, I have an appointment tomorrow, with my daughter, can this possible wait until next week?”

Her voice is genteel, mellow, like it has to be with her boss. He’s a toughie. But oh, not tomorrow, please not. Nava cuts her chicken into halves, quarters, eighths, smaller than she wants it.

“What about Louise?” Mom dares. She sighs. “Okay, okay, I’ll be there for both of them. Good evening.”

She clicks off the phone, glares at it.

“Tomorrow,” she groans, “Of all days, he’s got two appointments for DeKalb, two, after weeks of nothing.”

“But Mom, the sunrise experience….” As if Mom hadn’t tried.

“I know, I know, but Smith insists I’m on it. I know the house, I’ve done it before. He went ballistic when I suggested Louise. And it has to be tomorrow because one of the guy’s come up from who-knows-where and wants to be back before Shabbos. But two is good, especially when they’re scheduled back to back, human psychology, you know, one goads the other… Nava, I’m so sorry, but it’s my job. And I really need that commission now.”

Money, it all boils down to money. She pushes the chicken pieces around with her fork and has a ludicrous thought: Mr. Hirsch, what were his finances like?

“But at least you’ll go, you’ll take some photos. It won’t be the same,” Mom is saying regretfully. “Why don’t you go with a friend?”

“What friend? They’re working, teaching, Chayala and Dina. And who else is there? The others are in Israel, married.”

It’s not a good time to press that point.

“You’re not passing up the experience, Nava.”

She doesn’t. She’s on the subway at five-thirty, clutching the tickets, both, as if a friend, partner, fiancé, is going to appear fully formed and raring to go at dawn. She gets off at the park, and as she follows the blue and red signs for the balloon and airship office, she finds herself ripping the second ticket, a path of sad little shreds until there is one sweaty piece of card left in her hand. She holds onto it.

Ten people are waiting. Three excited couples and a family of four.

Why am I doing this? By myself, what is it worth?

But the pilot is already lighting the burner and the balloon comes upright from the power of the air in a great whoosh. They climb aboard the gondola, everyone chattering around her, snapping selfies, holding onto one another from excitement, fright, as the air pressure builds up, the balloon inflates fully — and slowly, almost like magic, they start to lift off the ground.

Nava holds onto the side. Soon the treetops are spread underneath them like a canopy, and they are wafting higher. It’s majestic, this flight, peaceful even. She unclenches her knuckles, lets herself breathe.

“Look out to this side,” a member of the crew gestures grandly, “the New York skyline.”

Heads turn, a collective ahhh. Pink, like Nadler said. The skyscrapers gleam a fiery pink, the newly born sun shining in a million windows. Between the buildings, the river shimmers orange, yellow; alive like a giant snake. And from here the Statue of Liberty is a shy, golden-tipped girl far, far away.

The vista fills her inside, her heart expanding until it is almost painful. She wants to share it with someone. See the gloriousness she is feeling in eyes that are awestruck too.

They rise higher, carried on wind.

What’s a breathtaking moment when there is no one to share it with?

The thought comes out of the sky. That’s what Mom’s had all these years.

She looks over at the other passengers. They are wrapped up in the beauty together, like little bundles. And suddenly it is not about her and her transient pain at being alone, it is about Mom, living, experiencing, all alone for years.

Is that what I want for her? Doesn’t she deserve more?

In the clouds, in her visions about her own future, anything is possible, she feels young, unencumbered, full of hope. It will come for me, in time. Why should Mom wait? If she has a chance, she should grab it, run with it.

The descent is slow and spectacular, the world, the city, zooming in again, like the focus on a camera.

They are a merry crowd, exhilarated, drunk on air. The balloon lands lightly on the grass and everyone scrambles out of the gondola, posing here, there, against the balloon, with the pilot. So many together smiles, Nava is dizzy.

She picks her way through the park, checks her phone. One missed call, one voicemail. Mom.

“Hi, Nava, how was it? I wanna hear all about it. About DeKalb, it went well I think. We’ll see later. Oh, and tonight’s another on night. I’m going out with Hirsch again.”

Oh, oh, so it was real. This real.

You want it for her, you know that. What changes on terra firma? Is clarity so elusive with two feet on ground?

She looks up, beyond the trees, into the sky she’s just emerged from. She has an hour before work starts. What to do? Stretch out on the grass?

The subway is up ahead. Bang into reality.

She takes the stairs underground — goodbye sky — and catches a train. The subway car is empty in the middle of the day. She rummages in her bag for something — lipstick, an empty box of mints, what? — vaguely aware of the passing cityscape, Carnegie Hall, Times Square, the garment district. The doors open and close and open again. She is off, through the doors, along the platform, up the stairs.

She slips into the office 45 minutes early. She’ll blab and sound cheery about the air trip later. She takes out her sketchpad, turns to a new page. A new project. Nava closes her eyes, sniffs the charcoal, rolls it between her fingers. And then they are flying over the page, quick strokes, lines, the outlines of a dress.

A custom-designed engagement dress.

For Mom.

(Originally Featured in Family First, Issue 613)