And here we are, twelve months later, as dysfunctional as I thought we’d be. So cheers to being right

IFyou cry in front of a child too young to notice, did you even cry? This is my thought process as I lean on the counter, eyes glued to two slices of burnt toast. Isn’t that a stroke symptom or something? Am I having a stroke? No, there’s really burnt toast on the counter.

Dovi tries to jump out of my arms and grab the black, crumbly thing. “Stop,” I say weakly. He just looks at me.

I bend over, every bone and muscle in my body aching, and deposit him on the floor. Chazi would know exactly which muscles are giving me trouble. “You stretch your supercalifradgilistic when you pick up the baby from the crib like that,” he always says. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me. Because I don’t actually care what muscle I’m pulling. I just care that I’m the one pulling it. Alone.

Dovi tries to pull himself up against the cabinets, the unsnapped edge of his undershirt dragging pathetically on the floor. Poor baby. I cried the day he was born.

Chazi thought they were happy tears, poor deluded man. They weren’t. It was just that I was able to picture the scene so clearly: me, trying to nurse every two hours in a calm atmosphere, as the lactation consultant recommends, with four wild kids in varying shades of neediness banging on the door, and Chazi, walkie squawking, off to wrap burned fingers and set the neighbor’s son’s third broken bone from wheelie stunts.

And here we are, twelve months later, as dysfunctional as I thought we’d be. So cheers to being right.

I sit on the black and white tiles, scoop Dovi onto my stomach, and just stay like that until I feel like I’ve regained enough equilibrium to stand up and find some yogurt for breakfast instead.

It’s time for Dovi’s nap, thank You, Hashem. I take off his stretched-out undershirt, change his diaper, and snap him into his cutest romper before depositing him in his crib; somehow, when he looks like a Gerber baby, I find it easier to forget that my life is a natural disaster.

Chazi walks in from a call to find a sparkling floor, loaded dishwasher, and the washing machine spinning cheerfully. My usual morning checklist for Dovi’s naptime.

“Hey, Shosh. How’s it going?”

I look at him. Should thirty-two-year-old men be glowing? Chazi’s whole “I’m living my best life” thing seems a bit excessive to me.

“It’s… going,” I say. “How’s it going by you? How’s Mrs. Feldman’s finger?”

He’d been called out during breakfast by our neighbor deciding to use a mandoline. At eight a.m.

“Managed to put the thumb on ice, and they’ll stitch it back on at the hospital. Let’s hope there’s no nerve damage.”

I give him an exaggerated thumbs up at this and we both smile.

“What’s your day looking like?” he asks, taking a blueberry muffin off the platter on the counter.

“Close the—”

“—lid,” he finishes, snapping the glass globe back on top of the platter. He grins. “Not my first rodeo. These are amazing. YOU are amazing.”

What’s my day looking like? At ten thirty, Dovid will get up, I’ll get dressed, and then it’s time to go pick up Batsheva from school for her weekly PT session. Then after watching her sit on the floor and kick the physical therapist, which is always stimulating, I’ll bring her back to school and run to pick up Gavriel, who is “taking a break” from afternoon classes. Yes, a first grader who’s been kicked out of general studies for the foreseeable future. We’re very proud. I think about listing this all for Chazi but instead I just say, “You know, appointments, carpool, yada yada.”

Chazi shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do it. Anyway, don’t forget, I have Bowl for Hatzalah with the crew tonight.”

The Crew. Oh, how I hate the crew. Every single one of them. With their helmets and their vests and their multiple phones….

“Yay,” I say weakly. “Chaz… do you think you can shampoo the patio rug for me? I was going to do it, cause of your dust allergy, but I didn’t really sleep last night….”

He looks up, concerned. He hates when I can’t sleep. “Sure, happy to help out,” he says.

“Just don’t use too much shampoo, like last time, okay? It left marks. And if you beat the dust onto the patio, it kind of defeats the pur—”

His forehead is getting more and more scrunched, but he’s nodding.

And that’s when it happens. Just like I knew it would.

We both look at the beeping Hatzalah phone.

“Go,” I say.

He goes.

Sometimes, I look at Chazi with his phone, and I feel like I’m looking at the last-pick in gym class who buys the cool remote-control car so people will talk to him. I know Chazi’s not a last-pick. He was actually my first-pick. But these days I don’t know if he remembers that he has any worth aside from his Hatzalah ID.