They say animals can sense danger before it strikes. He didn’t look at the mess, at the counter with its patina of gravy drips and challah crumbs, at the overflow of dishes, just smiled at her and left.Įtti plopped onto a chair and squeezed her eyes shut.Įverything felt wrong. “Yeah, you can go to that shiur, the boys just left.” “Uh, Etti, everything under control here?” Shua ambled in next while peering at his watch.
We were finished eating anyway.Įtti dumped the contents of the dustpan into the garbage can just as Meir and Bentzi came through the basement door.Įtti looked at her two sons, knew they were itching to go to that shiur they’d mentioned earlier. It’s zeman simchaseinu, nothing happened. Somehow, the way Etti was on her hands and knees now, palms carefully patting the ground in her search for glass shards, brought to mind the earthquake drills she’d spent her formative years torturing herself with. Nachi was asleep, worn out from a week of tagging along with his older brothers as they bought Succos paraphernalia and arba minim. Of course Etti had offered to watch the baby until they got back what else were sisters for? Shua had offered to walk Ma home after Shaina and Chaim decided to get Kivi checked out by the frum doctor three blocks down. Meir and Bentzi had gone digging in the basement for a folding table she thought they might have lent to the Flohrs a couple of years back. “Not on the table, sweetie, let’s get Mom-”Īnd the tabletop, held together by more screws and bolts than actual wood, decided to part company with its rickety legs, and collapsed - taking Kivi, plates, cutlery, bottles, and vases with it.Īn hour later, in the calm after the mayhem, Etti found her eyes prickling. Kivi, hysterical, jumped out of Chaim’s hands right onto the table.Įtti thrust her arms out to catch him. Ma jerked to wakefulness, the parfait cups scattered, Shua dropped forward with a crunch. Shua beamed, Etti wiped a chocolate orange mousse smudge on a napkin. By four she knew it was way over everyone’s heads and they preferred to laugh rather than sound stupid. Two to three seconds was the sweet spot - one second meant everyone had seen the punchline coming.
So old, no one was going to get it.Įtti often counted the seconds from the end of a punchline till the laughter. “Ashirah laHashem bechayai-yai-yai-i.”Īn old Pirchei London song. “What does a Yekkeh say when he gets into his brand-new A8?” She forced her attention back to the table, pushed back her chair, and started stacking parfait cups into neat stacks, collecting the mini spoons in her other hand.Įtti watched as Shua leaned too far back in his chair and stuck his thumbs into his belt. She put her hands under the table and clenched them over her knees. Even her traditional first-night-of-Succos dessert was right.
There wasn’t much left of the tablescape by now, but she’d used the napkin rings that now sat in a pile next to the pretty flower arrangement Ma had ordered.Įtti looked down at her untouched orange chocolate mousse. And Ma sat to her left, pretending not to doze. Her sister Shaina was off somewhere, probably feeding the baby. Her sons, Meir, Bentzi, and Nachi were clustered around him, laughing at her brother-in-law Chaim, who was clearly at the end of a joke Etti had missed. She looked across the table at her husband. Which made it very funny that Shua’s actual line of work was earthquakes. The mortal fear caused by some story her little ears had overheard, the years of never walking past a building without wondering if its foundations were safe. The smell of pine and bamboo, the whisper of wind on paper chains. She glanced around the table to make sure no one was looking at her, closed her eyes, and drew some air in through her nose. Which made no sense whatsoever - she had her feet firmly planted on the ground of her succah.
What was causing the ominous rumbling in her marriage?
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