*

Batsheva’s in tip-top form. “I WON’T,” she shrieks, perfect bottle curls bouncing with every decibel, hazel eyes impossibly wide with anger. It’s like her ODD is perfectly matched with her beauty: off the charts. I try to be cool and calm, but Dovi is crying, and Eliana looks annoyed, which is rare for her.

“Stand up right now,” I hiss angrily. I might as well have stayed quiet.

“I’m going to LEAVE,” Batsheva shrieks wildly. She suddenly jumps up, wrenches the door open, and runs out of the office, into the parking lot.

Abandoning Dovi, I run after her. I manage to grab her arm, narrowly avoid both of us getting hit by a car, pull Batsheva back into the office, trip over the doorstep, fall and hit my head.

And that’s all I remember until someone’s dripping water on my face. I squint my eyes open to find Chazi peering down at me.

“Oh, not you,” I moan.

“She’s delirious,” someone says.

Sure, let’s go with that.

Chazi’s biggest concern, after helping me into bed and giving me strict instructions to stay there, is that he’s going to miss Bowl for Hatzalah. What a shame. Also, I’m confused who he thinks is going to be watching our five children, if I’m in bed on concussion watch, and he’s off schmoozing about Hatzalah victories over beers and bowling.

His face falls when I mention this. Then he snaps his fingers. “I’ll call Ayala!”

My niece Ayala hates babysitting, but nobody can say no to Chazi. I know I never could.

*

I wake up to find Ayala humming Dovi back to sleep. I don’t love that she just came into my room without knocking, but I guess she didn’t want the baby to wake me. Her phone vibrates.

“Hi, Ma,” I hear her whisper. “No, Shosh is asleep and now so is Dovi. Yeah, the other kids are in bed. Nah, you know how it is here, Ma. She’s in bed and Chazi’s at a Hatzalah function-thingy. Hang on, I’ll go out so I can talk normally.”

She tiptoes out of the room.

Come back, I attempt to transmit to her telepathically. I want to hear more about what you all think of my dear husband. So it’s not just me who sees the insanity here.

I used to confide in Tova, telling her how Chazi’s never around for me, but she’s pulled away lately; she never offers to help me anymore, even though she’s literally the only person who knows what I’m putting up with.

At least Chazi tried to help tonight. Before Ayala showed up, he shepherded the kids into the bath, where they promptly flooded the bathroom, soaked the bath rug, and made puddles all along the way to their rooms. Of course, Chazi didn’t notice, so if I do have a concussion at this point, it’s probably from crouching down amid waves of dizziness to mop the floors up and then squeeze and hang-dry the sopping rug.

But Tova? Nada.

*

Gavriel is eating his afternoon snack in his bed again. I think about the pretzel crumbs littering his taupe plaid linen, and wait for the usual shivers to set in, but weirdly, I feel at peace with it. Maybe it’s my head injury….

Sara Malka walks in from kindergarten, glowing. I squint at the note pinned to her dress.

Shabbos Mommy.

Awesome.

I head to the pantry. Of course, our emergency treat stash is empty. I text Chazi to pick up twenty-five lollipops on his way home, and he sends back a thumbs-up emoji.

I want to sink onto the couch and massage my aching head — no concussion, it turns out, just badly bruised — but I see Sara Malka’s face.

“Should we go pick out your Shabbos dress already?” I ask, fake enthusiasm hitching my tone up by like ten octaves.

She claps excitedly and runs ahead of me, while I hobble up the stairs after her.

“This one,” she says when I enter the room.

I bite my lip. It’s a terrible, pink and purple tulle dress with butterflies and rosettes sprinkled around the skirt. Tova gave it to us for our dress-up box; where did Sara Malka even find it?

“Oh, sweetie, that one’s too big. How about this one?” I hold up her white dress with the crocheted navy sailor collar. I’m obsessed with it. I know she’ll say no, and I can’t even blame her. Which four-year-old wants white and navy when they can have pink and purple? But still, I refuse to allow her to leave my house looking like it’s Purim.

“This one,” she hisses.

“No,” I say firmly.

She throws herself to the ground. “THIS. ONE!!!!!!”

So much for my efforts at being a good mother.

I leave her crying on the floor and go down to find Chazi home, stretched on the couch, Gavriel bouncing on his stomach.

“Hey, Mommy, how you feeling?” he asks. He hands me a bag of lollipops.

I look down at them. Do. Not. Comment.

Do. Not.

I bite my tongue and look up.

“Tired. Achy. Annoyed. Like a failure. Exhausted. What was the question?”

He looks slightly alarmed. “Oy, Shosh. And why’s Sara Malka singing so cheerfully?”

Her screams can be heard from down here. “Ha. Because she wants to wear a Purim costume to be Shabbos Mommy, when the child has stunning Shabbos dresses that I paid an arm and a leg for.”

“And you want her wearing those to school, with the paint and the runny noses and the sticky fingers?”

I think about this. “Well, better than her looking like Glinda the Good Witch.”

Chazi straightens and gently pushes Gavriel off of him. “Gavs, go get a snack, kay?”

Gavriel runs off. I look at Chazi. He looks back at me, eyes narrowed.

“Why can’t she just wear what she wants?” he says, and I’m shocked to hear the sharpness in his voice. “She’s four. Who cares what she looks like?”

Oh, I have zero energy for this right now. “Chazi!” I clutch my head and he backs off.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I know your head hurts. What can I do for you?”

Clutching the bag of boring, nerdy lollipops, I ask, “Can you make the schnitzel for supper? Just try not to get crumbs all over, okay? And use the chicken scissors to cut one-inch-long pieces, that’s the size the kids like best.”

He’s biting his lip, a sure sign he’s holding back from saying something, but then he nods, and honestly, I’m too tired to find out what it was.

The pieces are definitely not going to be one inch, but I can cut them to the right size after he fries them.

I can’t believe it. He’s going to fry schnitzel and I’m going to sneak upstairs and cry into my pillow, just because I can. Serious luxury.

I hardly believe it. And then it comes in. “Five-alarm blaze. All units respond.”

He sits up. “I’ll start on the schnitzel,” he says neutrally.

I think about saying, “Sure, the egg is already in a bowl.”

But I don’t. Because he’s Chazi. “Go,” I say.

So he goes.

He helps save five lives while I make supper, and serve supper, and cry into the bathwater. I’m very impressed and grateful but also, couldn’t someone else save those five lives?

What about me? What about my life?

What if one day, I actually drown in my own life and that phone makes that noise I hear in my nightmares. “Drowning woman, thirty-one, unconscious. Cause: stress.”

Wouldn’t that be something?

*

Ma stops by during lunch the next day. I hate when Ma stops by. It took me a few years to realize that it’s because she’s obsessed with Chazi. I used to puff up with pride when she’d go on and on, and now, I try to realize how out of touch with reality you have to be to see your daughter suffering in front of you and not do a single thing about it.

But today, apparently, she’s been prepped by Tova.

“You look terrible,” are her first words.

It’s always fun when someone says that in front of your husband.

“Um, thank you very much?”

“Yechezkel, doesn’t she look terrible?”

Ooh, this is a fun one. He usually agrees with everything The Shvigger says.

He looks at me helplessly. “Well, Ma, she looks, you know, wonderful, but also, yes, very… uh, under the weather. Slipped at the PT, did you hear about this?”

Ma has heard about it, from Tova, and probably Ayala, the perfect granddaughter who doesn’t run into parking lots or scream like a banshee or smack random adults at the grocery store.

“Of course I heard. She’s always been vitamin D deficient, and does she take her supplements ever? I think I can answer that.”

Chazi nods. “Vitamins are very important,” he says wisely.

Ma beams in my direction. “See, Shosh, your husband the doctor agrees with me. Anyway, I spoke to Tova and we decided you shouldn’t be cooking right now. You need to get your strength back. So Tova’s going to whip you up one of her delicious dinners; she is such a gourmet chef, that one.”

Oh, Heaven grant me strength. “He is not a doctor,” I say through gritted teeth. “He’s an EMT.”

How? How does no one see it? I’m not managing. My life is crazy. My kids are nuts. And my husband? Well, he’s out saving the world. But who will save me?

*

The waffle is crisp on the edges, whipped cream swirls melting slightly from the heat of the treat. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to dig into something so badly. But we’re here “to talk,” before the kids get home. Even Gavriel was allowed back into afternoon classes today, so happy dance for that.

I cut off a delicate triangle and drag it onto my plate. Chazi does the same.

Oh, it’s as good as I thought it would be. So is the milkshake. I could get used to this. Who am I kidding, Chazi could have ordered water and breadsticks, and I still would have been so happy to get out of that house.

“Do you feel abandoned?” he asks suddenly.

I stare at him, chewing silently.

“Am I one of those Hatzalah husbands, the one whose marriage is falling apart and he’s running around with the guys, escaping his own life?” he says, blue eyes sharply focused.

I take another bite. It really is the best waffle I’ve ever had.

“Shosh,” he says, and he doesn’t yell, but something in his voice makes me stop focusing on the food.

“Why do you ask?” I say.

He looks at me. “When your mother came over, the way you said ‘he’s an EMT.’ I’ve never heard you sound so… disgusted.”

I blush. Ouch. “No,” I answer his question truthfully. “It’s not your marriage that’s falling apart. It’s me. And sometimes, when you’re flying off to help burn victims and save babies, I just think how one day, you’ll come back home, and think, ‘I could have saved her, if only I were there.’ And you’ll be talking about me, not your call.”

A muscle pulses in his cheek. He looks stricken.

Which is sweet, I think, in a detached way. But just too little, too late.

And then a baby falls backward out of his highchair.

His mother screams, there’s pasta everywhere, someone slips.

And Chazi’s suddenly at the center of it all.

I watch him work, and the scene floods into focus.

Chazi on the floor, barking orders into the phone.

Chazi cradling the baby, checking his eyes and his head.

Chazi reassuring the baby’s mother that it’s not life threatening, they just need to glue the cut and keep an eye out for concussion.

Chazi, radiating confidence and assurance, the hands, so inept at bathing children and cutting potatoes, so sure, so steady. I don’t even recognize his hands. Is that weird? These belong to someone different from the man who comes home, tiptoeing around me, unsure of his place and what I need.

Chazi comes back, breathing hard. “That was it, wasn’t it? Our marriage? You waiting, food getting cold, while I save someone else?”

But I don’t say anything. Because suddenly, the clear-cut case of abandonment I’d been nursing all these years is no longer that clear. Why don’t I know this version of Chazi? Why does every strange baby and choking grandfather and reckless teen know him that way? Is it… could it be… me?

*

Ayala comes by later to drop off the food that her gourmet chef of a mom has whipped up in, I’m sure, just a matter of fairy dust seconds. I look at the Tupperwares and pans. Onion soup, herb-encrusted chicken, mashed potatoes so fluffy they deserve an award and sweet potato fries. For dessert, the gooiest brownies I ever did see.

“This looks… amazing,” I say truthfully.

Ayala smiles so genuinely that I can no longer deny my distinct impression that she looked really unfriendly before.

“I’m happy you think so! My mother worked hard on it.”

That rubs me the wrong way, but I don’t say anything. I just head to the fridge and start pulling out vegetables.

“Just going to slice up some peppers, my kids need their veggies,” I say, winking.

And that’s when sweet, polite Ayala loses it.

“Omigosh,” she bursts out, “nothing is ever good enough for you. Everything always has to be done to exactly your liking and your method and your way, and if not… you just redo it yourself. You hover and get over-involved and redo anything anyone does for you. Yeah, you have a lot going on, Uncle Chazi’s out a lot, with his Hatzalah stuff—”

“Chazi’s amazing,” I say loyally. “But yeah, it hasn’t exactly been easy.” Wait, why am I explaining things to an adolescent?

But things haven’t been easy, I think as I put the peppers down on the counter and try to breathe — not because of Chazi, but because I’ve been shooting myself in my own foot. Repeatedly. What’s EMS protocol for that, Yechezkel?

*

I need to start bedtime, but I’m too busy staring at the open dishwasher, dishes still slightly steamy from the latest load. Chazi had tried to help, knowing how I hate a dirty sink, and started loading the dishwasher, all wrong of course. It’s like he was asking people to impale themselves on the upside-down knives. So of course, I’d grabbed the dirty cutlery away from him, huffing the entire time over how he didn’t listen to instructions. What is wrong with me?

I leave the cutlery in the dishwasher and robotically begin shepherding the kids to bed.

“That’s a beautiful tower,” I say to Batsheva.

She glowers and kicks it over with a resounding crash. “It was stupid,” she hisses. “The blocks weren’t straight lines.”

Oh. Oh no. What have I created?

Gavriel is standing next to the trash can in his room, holding something in his hands. “Mommy, did you throw out my project?”

I reel back. I did throw out his project. It was ripped and bent, and I hadn’t imagined he’d want to keep it. What is wrong with me, I wonder from a great distance away, looking down on the room.

Before flicking off the girls’ light, I take out the terrible pink and purple dress and drape it over Sara Malka’s bed. She’d see it in the morning. She was going to look crazy. Gorgeous, but crazy.

Chazi comes over later and hands me his Hatzalah phone. “Take it,” he says. “I don’t want it anymore. Not if it takes me away from you and the kids. The rest of the things, the vest and my kit, it’s all in the car. You can bring it all over to Rosenthal’s.”

I hate Rosenthal, head of Chazi’s team.

Wait.

Do I?

I’m not really sure anymore who I hate, or who I merely dislike (hint: probably Rosenthal).

All I know is that I’ve realized I’m a victim… of my own perfectionism.

Chazi hasn’t been running away. I pushed him away. It’s always been my way or the highway… can I blame him for his choice? He is never allowed to be Chazi, that take-charge, confident man I saw at the restaurant. He’s too busy having to cut schnitzel pieces into precise one-inch slices.

I pick up the walkie-talkie. “We have a field surgery in process,” I say into the radio. “One marriage to dissect and put back together. All units respond.” b

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)