I CONSTRUCT AN ELABORATE FANTASY in which I attend shul with Eli’s family. His mother invites me back to dinner after the service, and from then on I have a standing invitation, a place to make Shabbat every week.
The only way to get it back would be to marry a Jew.
Small hitch: I still have not yet met Eli’s mother.
Second small hitch: I have only a few weeks in which to meet her before Eli leaves for Paris.
I call him on Thursday to ask if he wants to go to synagogue with me the following night. He doesn’t pick up. On Friday, I wait at home, too depressed to face the service alone. Degan has to work late. Eli doesn’t answer my call all weekend. On Monday, his message is a string of excuses: his phone died; he didn’t have a charger.
He pauses. “I went to yoga. And then …” More silence. “And then I was tired,” he says.
When Granny died, she left an extensive will, her substantial assets distributed carefully among her progeny. Still, there were riches remaining, jewellery and clothes, and we four granddaughters were invited to divide those belongings among us. The cashmere stoles, the bracelets. But the thing I love most is a thin white handkerchief embroidered in blue with her initial.
A for Alzbeta.
A for Alison.
I cry into its cottony folds.
There are things I used to care about: That the bills were paid on time. That we ate the kale in the crisper before buying more. I once nagged Degan about ironing his shirt before work. I remember this through a fog of incomprehension, stunned that I would have noticed such a thing, let alone felt compelled to do anything about it.
Challah = carbohydrates. I eat the whole loaf before the Sabbath arrives.