“Our lives?”

“Fine, not our lives, our kids’ lives. Why do we have to this anyway?”

“The rav said we should,” Yitz said. “Let’s get to work.” He opened the folder in front of him.

“Do we have to?” Brachi tried one last puppy-dog face.

“We’re not arguing over this, we can be done in five minutes. Less.” He started pulling out papers. “I printed up one of those forms — like a fill-in-the-blank sorta thing.”

“Really, our lives are fill-in-the-blank,” Brachi started.

“C’mon, don’t start picking on details again. Can we just do this?”

“Fine. Start.”

Yitz skimmed the papers and waved his hand over them impatiently. “I’m skipping the obvious stuff like our names and kids’ name, that I can fill in myself. Getting right to business. I’ll ease you in, we’ll do assets first.”

“Oh.” Brachi breathed easily.

“Who gets what?”

“Breindy is getting my candlesticks, Fraidy will get my tray, and Dovid gets your menorah,” Brachi said quickly.

“Wait. You’ve thought about this before?” Yitz said.

“It’s a lot easier to digest than who will raise our kids if we die.”

Yitz laughed. “Fine, And what about Yosef and Suri?”

Brachi shrugged, “I dunno, there’s nothing else that big. Two small equals a big?”

“Whatever, it’s not that important.” Yitz waved his hand.

“Wait, wait,” Brachi interjected, she was not going to let Yitz broach the big topic without utilizing every possible delay and distraction, and this was important too. “There’s my jewelry. Breindy gets my diamond ring, Fraidy gets my kallah bracelet, and Suri gets my diamond earrings.

“Whatever you say.” Yitz took notes.

“And Dovid gets your cufflinks

“What about Yosef?” Yitz humored.

“I dunno, there isn’t enough to go around. Maybe he can turn my on-the-ear medallion earrings into cufflinks. Wait, wait, what if we have more kids?” Brachi suddenly looked at Yitz urgently, “What will they have? We’ll have to do the whole thing over when we have more kids.”

“Or just buy more jewelry and silver,” Yitz said.

“Are you serious? No. Wait, you’re making fun of me.”

“Me?” Yitz leaned back into his seat with a smirk. “Never.” He looked down at the papers, “I think we should leave this blank, just write to take the value of everything, divide it equally among the kids, and work from there.’

“NO!” Brachi burst out.

“Why not?”

“’Cuz then they’ll possibly melt down my jewelry,” she blustered.

Yitz humored her, “Okay, it’ll probably out-of-date then anyway, don’t you want the kids to get what they want out of it?”

“No, I want them to remember me by it.”

“They won’t remember you if you they never wear it.”

“But if we die really young then they’ll want to wear it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Breindy will wear an engagement ring from age ten and on.”

“Ten?!” Brachi shrieked. “She’s eight now! When am I dying?!”

“Kidding!” Yitz finally said. “You’re taking this whole thing way too seriously. This is just a huge contingency plan. Just in case we both die before the kids are old enough to take care of themselves. How many people do you know who lost both parents?”

“Fine.” Brachi sulked.

“I’m just writing to take everything’s value and divide by the number of children. Then they can take turns choosing items till it reaches the right value.”

“So boring.”

“Are you serious?” Yitz sounded exasperated. “You can’t make up your mind how you feel about all this.”

“I feel this whole thing is awful and morbid. And I don’t want to think about it, but if you’re going to make me do it, I want Yosef to have my shot-glass collection, and Suri to stay far away from my shoes, I hate when she tries them on. I know she’s two and supposed to be cute and all, but she’s stretching them out.”

“I think they’re gonna throw your shoes out,” Yitz said.

“Omigosh, you’re right. Forget it, just forget it. No more, I’m not doing this anymore.” Brachi laid her hands on the table and stood up. “Great progress today.”

***

Brachi looked around the small shul hall. Yitz had suggested on the car ride there that while the whole family was together, she should observe each of her siblings, and hopefully pick one by the end of the night.

Ruchy had chosen the venue, and Brachi was nixing her because of it. Cheap was never the way to go, especially when the whole family finally got together for a party. How was she supposed to relax with wallpaper that boasted wilting peonies? Ruchy was too practical. True, she had no money to be otherwise, but it was natural to her; her poverty wasn’t the struggle it was for other people.

Breindy pulled on her sleeve, “I’m going to play with Yehudis,” Breindy said. Brachi looked in the direction her eldest daughter pointed in and immediately nixed another sister-in-law, Bracha. Bracha’s boys ran around in rumpled air-dried shirts, and her daughter Breindy’s age wore a pastel-colored ruffled dress that The Children’s Place had sold for Easter with a fading white shell. Dressing well was important — you treated yourself with more respect when you dressed well. If her kids were gonna be orphans, at least they should at least be dressed well.

Brachi went over and kissed her mother. “Mazel tov, Mommy.”

“Thank you, darling,” Brachi’s mother appraised her third child. “You look beautiful as usual.”

Brachi winked. “Where do you think I got it from?”

“Well at least some of my kids got it, some of my other kids seem to have ‘priorities.’ ” Mother and daughter laughed at that. But then it niggled at Brachi.

“Excuse me, Ma.” She left her mother’s side and walked outside the hall to the dingy antechamber. There was a plastic blue chair next to a plastic potted plant in the corner, and Brachi sat there.

Only some of her siblings took after her mother, and only she took after certain parts of her mother. Parts of her were her father, and some of her, most of her maybe, was made of something entirely independent: herself.

The door creaked open. Brachi sat up straight, then relaxed. It was Yitz.

“What’s up?” he asked, brow lightly furrowed.

“My parents are alive,” Brachi started. Yitz made a face as though to say, umm, duh. Brachi continued. “They’ve had years to influence me, and they have, in some ways. And some ways totally not. And look at my siblings — we’re all so different that sometimes I wonder how we’re from the same parents. I almost feel like what’s the point of parents, it’s so easy to just mix and match, we’ll all end up the way we were meant to be.”

“That’s true, to a point. But I wouldn’t totally discount parents.”

“This will business is giving me a major existential parenting crisis.”

“I can see that.”

“I just want my kids to be mine, but looking around, it doesn’t seem like I have much say in any of it.”

“Yup.”

“That’s all you got to say? Yup?”

“I told you already, the whole parenting thing is a delusional ego trip. Most people maintain the delusion longer than you though.”

Brachi laughed at that.

“C’mon, let’s go back in,” Yitz encouraged. Brachi stood up. “Did you get any closer to picking someone?” he asked.

Brachi chortled. “Ha! I nixed, if that helps.”

They went in and found seats on a corner table near all the kids. Yitz looked around the room and pointed to each of Brachi’s siblings, one by one. One by one, Brachi shook her head. “Y’know the whole thing that neshamos pick their parents. But, but… how can I make that decision for them?”

Brachi crossed her arms. “Forget it. I’m not doing,” she stated. “At least, not now. It’s too depressing, and the choices… I never realized how much I judged my family. I love them. But give them my kids? Never.”

Yitz stood up and looked around the room. “Let’s get this party started. K?” he said brightly. “You could use some distraction.” He walked over to an ad hoc stereo system and put on “The Fiveish Dance” and proceeded to do that dance, taking each move very seriously. All the nieces and nephews first laughed, then joined. Brachi sat back in her seat and let out a small giggle.

After too much dancing and Happy Anniversary singing and family trivia of “What is Mommy’s favorite tea flavor” (sweet apple chamomile) and “What did Tatty buy Mommy for their 25th anniversary” (trick question — nothing), everyone packed up and left.

It was a short trip home, just a half hour on the expressway. Yitz put the car in cruise. the kids had fallen asleep in the back though Brachi begged them not to, and they had a rare moment of quiet and nowhere to run away to. “Want to talk again?” Yitz tried.

“Please, can we just enjoy the peace?”

“Like a Band-Aid. Pull it off. Discuss it seriously, get it over with.”

Brachi opened her mouth to wail another kvetch, but then she felt it: something close and urgent and fast.

“Watch out!” she yelled. Yitz looked deep to his right, a moment’s blur and an even faster jerk of his wheel to the left and long lean of his hand on the horn.

The car coming into their lane succeeded, and continued his apparent drag race with the driver in the first lane. Yitz’s move was fast enough to save them from the car, but the guardrail was on his left. He jerked the wheel to the right, which worked for a moment until the car destabilized and Yitz lost control. He pressed the brake, tried shifting the wheel back to center, but the car skidded and jerked from left to right, the dashboard flashing and beeping manically.

And then it stopped. The roads were empty enough, and there was space for the car to do its dance of death, weaving in and out of lanes, and when Yitz pressed the brakes again, they engaged, and he navigated the car to the shoulder. Brachi, who had sat through the entire thing frozen and slack-jawed, lost it.

“Noooo.” She yelled slowly at first and then faster, so the repetition blurred into one word. “Nononononononononono.” Yitz just breathed, the kids were now awake and crying. Brachi paused a moment to take a deep breath.

“Tomorrow you are taking off,” Yitz said, “as per your new work policy, family trauma or whaever — and we’re writing a will.”

***

Yitz tried the next day. After the kids were off to school, he picked up brunch and set it up on the dining room table.

“Oh, look, you even used real dishes,” Brachi said when she saw the spread. “You know me too well.”

She sat at the table and put two pancakes with syrup on her plate, then she buttered a bagel and gave it to Yitz. He took it wordlessly, and waited for her to talk. At first Brachi kept busy eating and serving, but with Yitz’s silence, she grew uncomfortable and finally got down it.

“Talking about this just freaks me out.” she said. “Not the dying part, but that my kids won’t be mine, that someone else will take my place.”

Yitz took a slow bite of bagel. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, studies found that identical twins reared apart share a lot of traits, it’s almost uncanny. And that would point to nature versus nurture,” he responded.

Brachi shook her head. “That doesn’t help at all. I might as well give birth to them and give them up — they’ll end like me or like each other, anyway. Or not — just look at my family.”

“So then it doesn’t make a difference then who we give them to. Why is this decision taking so long?” Yitz pushed.

Brachi clapped her hands on the table. “C’mon, Yitz, you really discount nurture? So what if twins separated at birth share a liking for toothpaste-mint ice cream, and snort instead of laugh? What about the values and views that really make a person?” her voice started to rise.

“Really makes a person?” Yitz arched an eyebrow. “You’re taking this a little too deep for me. I don’t know what part of me makes me, me. We’re a sum of our parts: The mint ice cream and the belief that thinking too much never turned out well.”

Brachi rolled her eyes.

“But in the end, we have limited options, we know our choices. Just pick one.” Yitz pleaded.

“I can’t! I don’t want someone else raising my kids; there’s no one I feel really close to in my family or yours.”

“You’re working on the assumption that we are perfect parents, and that anything other than us would be substandard,” Yitz said.

“Are you saying I’m not a good mother?” Brachi demanded.

“No!” Yitz amended quickly, “Just saying that it’s not like we, or anyone else, are the perfectly thought-out, deliberate parents. It goes back to the whole ego thing; do you really think we have that much control and influence on our kids?

Brachi paused a moment, “I’d like to think we do.”

“Kids need food and shelter, warmth and love, it doesn’t have to be whole grain and hypoallergenic mattress,” Yitz answered.

Brachi stabbed at a piece of pancake and missed.

Yitz continued. “The things we do to be good parents, how much difference does any of it really make compared to other people’s efforts? It’s probably all evens out, one person’s calmness to another’s motivation, one person’s health craze to another person’s fashion sense — you just have to be trying.”

“I can’t believe what you’re saying.” Brachi shook her head.

Yitz shrugged. “I’m not even sure what I’m saying, just that I don’t think this whole thing is as big a deal as you’re making it be.”

“Well, you’re basically saying that as long as your give your kid chicken and rice and an itchy wool blanket, coupled with a hug, it’s all good.” Brachi stabbed again at the pancake. She got it, but as she raised it to her mouth, it fell off without her noticing “What are we even doing then? Why do we try so hard as parents if it makes no difference in the end, our kids will be who they’ll be.”

“Maybe we’re all big egos thinking we can shape and mold our kids. We’re deluding ourselves. Parenting is an ego trip. I said this already.”

“So I should just pick anyone?”

“Exactly.”

Brachi opened her mouth, then closed it, something visceral coursing through her. “No. I’m not talking about this anymore. This whole thing is just — just messing with me. I can’t!” Brachi put her fork down with a messy clatter, and stalked off to the bedroom.

Yitz raised his hands to the ceiling in defeat. “You know the lawyer is coming tomorrow night,” he called out. Brachi didn’t answer.

***

Back at work the next day, Brachi was a mess. “Maybe take another day off,” a woman from HR said when she saw Brachi. Brachi glared.

When she went to pick up Suri, she lingered again in Ruchy’s kitchen, careful not to lean on the counter this time.

“So, who did you pick?” she blurted without preamble. Ruchy smirked, but understood Brachi’s question.

“We picked you,” Ruchy stated.

“Me?!” Brachi’s voice was high, and shocked. Why me?”

“It was actually a pretty easy decision,” Ruchy said, then started to wash dishes.

“Really? I’m still confused and such a mess over it,” Brachi said. She sat down at the cramped dinette table.

“You have the most money, and space, so you can have our kids without them being an impossible burden — not that it would be easy, but you’re the best equipped. I’m sure your company would add my kids to the family-leave policy, and you might actually use it then.”

“Stop it. Seriously. That’s not a good enough reason.” Brachi protested. She noticed a stack of bills on the corner of the table.

“Okay, you also live nearby. Our kids can stay in their school, keep their friends, have some semblance of normalcy — stability is important.”

Brachi shook her head slightly, “But that’s just too practical. What about who I am as a person. We’re so different, you trust me to raise your kids?!”

“You’re a good person. You’d do a good job,” Ruchy said simply, but looked away too quickly.

“But I nixed you!” Brachi said. “Or maybe I didn’t, I don’t know. I can’t pick anyone, everyone’s too yeshivish or too modern or too shallow or too haphazard or too something. I just want my kids to end up like how they’d end up with me, and I don’t trust anyone for that.”

Ruchy turned the water off. “Yeah, me neither.”

“But you said you picked me!” Brachi jabbed at her chest.

Ruchy shrugged. “I did.”

“But why, if you don’t trust me to raise your kids as you would?” Brachi’s voice was confusion.

“The dead have to be practical. They don’t have the luxury of existential crises,” Ruchy said, taking a seat adjacent to her sister.

“I don’t get it.”

Ruchy splayed her hands out supplication. “I’m being practical. You are the best option for my kids for practical reasons and you’re a good person and I pray that none of this comes to pass. In the meantime, while I’m living, I can freak out over whether I’m a good mother or not or doing the right thing, and do my kids take after me, and blah blah blah.”

Brachi was quiet while she digested. “I thought I was the smart one in the family,” she said finally.

Ruchy winked. “You’re not the only one who takes after Tatty.”

***

It was Yitz’s late night, and the original plan was to meet at the shul for their appointment. Brachi wasn’t sure if he’d go there since they hadn’t decided on anything. But as she walked into the antechamber she saw him schmoozing with a friend. He looked up, and noticing her, excused himself right away. He bounded over brightly.

“Chayala,” Brachi said before he ever said hello.

“Chayala?” he repeated. “Chayala who won’t change a lightbulb without consulting her group chat?”

Brachi relayed her conversation with Ruchy to him. He listened and nodded.

“Chayala’s a good person, she’ll do a good job,” Brachi said finally.

“Woah,” Yitz breathed. “I can’t believe you actually came to a decision. And quoting Ruchy, too.”

Brachi waved her hand dismissively. “It’s only a major contingency plan, how many real orphans do you know?”

“Quoting me too? I must be dreaming.”

A pause. They both laughed, then pulled straight faces, and entered the rav’s office.

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 566)