Disgust is really the only way to describe her facial expression. And the worst part is I know I deserve it

Spring has sprung.

I would enjoy this fact — the scent of trees budding, the twitter of birds migrating their way back to the telephone wires, the bluest skies we’ve experienced in months — except Basia’s stupid course flyer is stapled to every tree I pass. I almost reach out and rip them down and then think how society has not had much understanding lately for people who rip down posters. But still. I settle for grinding my back teeth until I arrive home.

I bang the door open like a crazy person; Avraham jumps like a foot in the air.

“Menucha! What on earth?”

I sink into a chair and close my eyes.

“Menucha?”

Avraham, I want to say snarkily. “Those flyers,” I snap instead, “are getting on my last nerve.”

He nods, saying nothing.

This isn’t the first time the flyers have appeared. Oh no, before Chanukah they had adorned every bulletin board and circular our community has to offer. Those were even plastered with little yellow stickers proclaiming “SOLD OUT” after a while.

“I just find it amusing,” I say in a voice that is anything but amused, “that she lectures to the general public about family harmony and unity when she barely speaks to her own mother.”

Avraham lifts a shoulder. That’s the most I’ll get out of him. He won’t say a bad word about her. Not, of course, that I’d want him to, but still, it’s annoying.

“Basia has always done her own thing,” is all he’ll say.

Which is a stupid answer. I settle for grinding my teeth again.

Of course it’s not official. It’s not like she decided point blank that we won’t have a real relationship. There was no dramatic “I’m never speaking to you again!” soliloquy with a slammed door.

It’s just… quiet. She doesn’t call. Or text. Or WhatsApp. Or Voicenote. Or telegram. Or carrier pigeon. Absolutely no method of communication is initiated. And that’s hurtful.

She’ll answer my messages, of course, in the most superficial way. Everything is always, “Great, baruch Hashem. Fine. And how are you?”

There’s no sharing.

Which, I’m pretty sure, is the point.

“Clients today?”

I nod. “Yup. Just going to wash up from my walk, then I’ll be out back all morning.”

Ten years ago, when we realized my cute hobby was bringing in a lot more than pocket cash, we converted the backhouse to a proper gym; my clients appreciate the privacy, and I love the convenience.

Avraham rolls his bad shoulder. “Hatzlachah rabbah. I’m off to a meeting.”

I take a deep breath and try to put the flyer out of my mind. “Hatzlachah to you!”

We smile at each other. At least I have Avraham.

When we first married, it took me a long time to understand that Avraham wasn’t going anywhere. I tried to push him away, to make him stop looking at me like that — like I was the golden ticket to the chocolate factory — but he wouldn’t stop and hasn’t since.

I’m a textbook case, really. My own mother spent most of her life in bed with a stack of books, trying to escape the demons that chased her, and that left me feeling unworthy of love. Yada, yada, yada, yawn.

But Avraham was there, at my side, as the babies came one by one, catching me unaware, unprepared, and at a total emotional deficit.

I’m the first to admit it, I was a wreck. And a terrible mother.

But don’t I deserve a second chance?

I’d ask Basia, but she’s too busy giving “a five-week course on harmony in the Jewish home.”