Eye contact is the least of her problems. She walks into my home, her whole body tilted away from me in such obvious wariness that I want to cry, to close the door behind her and her issues,
I look at my father. There’s a fire, he says, a bad one. We need to get home, fast
I felt entirely at peace. My tefillah had been heard on Yom Hazichronos — — heard, and answered. The answer was no. And that was okay
“So, Ma,” my 17-year-old asked again that year. “Are you going to shul for the whole davening?”
He’s done his job. Given her the food, though he can’t seem to shut off the annoying little calculator in his brain that’s calculated the total to be $13.50, the stuff that he works his hands off for
