Persuaded – Chapter XXVIII

Mindy

Lieba was doing much better now, and had even been discharged from the hospital. But since the doctor had advised against travel for a few days, and wanted her to come to the hospital every couple of days for monitoring and tests, she was staying at the Harari home. Rena Harari was actually a nurse by training, and everyone felt it fortuitous that Lieba was receiving not only the rest and nourishment she needed, but was under professional oversight.

With Lieba discharged, Mindy was finally able to relax and settle into summer at home, which gave her time to ruminate about the status of her sisters-in-law’s shidduchim. For one, she wasn’t sure what was doing with Lieba’s shidduch with Effi. He had disappeared for all intents and purposes—he wasn’t in Brooklyn, wasn’t in Deal. Had he called it off? Had he been turned off by Lieba’s stupid, immature impulse to show off? Mindy was dying to know but didn’t want to seem too indiscreet, and anything Lieba-related was a delicate topic these days. Chezky, of course, was no help. “They didn’t tell me anything, and I don’t want to bother them with shidduch issues right now,” he responded. Mindy pouted, but didn’t protest further.

She decided to do one more trip to Deal to visit Lieba one sunny morning, taking her minivan down the Garden State Parkway and easily locating the Hararis’ house. Rena, ever gracious, led her straight upstairs, where Lieba was installed in an upstairs bedroom.

She found Lieba sitting in an armchair in a frilly pink and white bedroom Mindy assumed was usually occupied by the Hararis’ daughters. Lieba had a magazine in her lap, but was staring into space. “Lieba, I brought you some crinkle cookies!” she said brightly, depositing the decorative box she’d packed them in. “How are you?”

Lieba pulled herself out of her reverie. “I guess I’m better,” she said with a little shrug. “I’m just tired a lot and a little dizzy sometimes.”

“What do you do with yourself all day? Aren’t you bored?”

“Not so much,” she replied. “Rena and the kids talk to me, and I have my phone with me. I started listening to more shiurim, and my friends call.

“They say I can come home soon, though. I can’t wait! I’m so sick of being sick.”

“Nothing like being in your own space,” Mindy agreed.

They chit-chatted for a little while, speculating on Hennie’s shidduch while carefully avoiding the subject of Effi. Mindy related that Pinny had been Camper of the Week and had been magnanimous enough to remember to save an extra lolly for his brother. But before long she saw Lieba’s eyes drooping shut, so Mindy said goodbye and made her way downstairs to the kitchen to ask for a cup of coffee for the drive back.

She found Rena sitting around the kitchen table with Ralph and Beyda, sharing a pizza. Rena quickly threw a slice onto a paper plate and handed it to Mindy. “Come sit with us a minute and eat something before you go,” she said. “Then I’ll get you a coffee.”

“How are you?” Ralph said. “Lieba looks much better, no?” He turned to Beyda. “This is Lieba’s sister-in-law, Chani’s sister, do you remember her?” he asked.

“Mindy!” Beyda exclaimed. “Yes! You know, your sister Chani is something special! Such a deep girl with such beautiful middot!”

Ralph gave him a sharp look, as if wondering if his friend was trying to hint something. Mindy caught it too. “She’s a very good sister,” Mindy avowed. “I can always call on her when I need help with the kids.”

“But she’s such a thinker! She suggested some books about grief that really helped me. I never realized that it’s a process you just have to work through, everyone on his own schedule. I thought I just had to work harder on my bitachon. But I keep reading what she gave me and I’m realizing what a journey it is emotionally to go through a loss like that.”

He said so many flattering things about Chani that Mindy called Chezky on the drive back. “I think this Ezra Beyda character is interested in Chani,” she said. “He can’t stop telling me how great she is.”

“I’ve heard him speak about her too,” he said. In the background, she could hear the boys asking for more French fries (she had instructed Chezky to heat frozen chicken nuggets and fries in case she ran late). As Chezky squeezed ketchup onto the boys’ paper plates, he said, “You think your father and Mrs. Rosner would go for a shidduch with Beyda?”

“Certainly not!” Mindy huffed. “My father would never let Chani marry a Sephardi guy!”

“The Hararis are Syrian, and they’re very classy people,” Chezky said. “They don’t even know us, and look at everything they’ve done for Lieba.”

“Well personally, I can’t imagine him as a brother-in-law,” Mindy said. “He’s so quiet except when he’s talking about his stupid books.”

“Mrs. Rosner would probably like that,” Chezky said. “Just her type. Maybe Chani’s type too.”

“Chezky,” Mindy said impatiently, “What kind of guy is ready to date again just a few months after his kallah dies in an accident? Give me a break! Sounds very fickle to me.”

“Well, some guys are lost without a woman in their lives,” Chezky said practically, adding diplomatically, “I’d be lost without you, hon.”

“Yeah, well if you took up with some other girl a few months after I died, I’d come down from shamayim and wring her neck,” Mindy said. “Hold on a sec, let me just pass this truck…”

“Speaking of shidduchim,” Chezky said, “can you keep a secret?”

“Of course I can! What’s going on?”

“I think Chaim Haber’s family gave a yes to him dating Hennie. Of course, you and I know that’s why he was so nice about driving in to visit Lieba on the days my parents couldn’t go.”

“Chaim?” Mindy wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I know she was really interested. But he’s so…I don’t know…greasy! She’d really want to marry into that family? They’re so, you know”—she searched for a word that wouldn’t make her seem too snobby and petty—"yeshivish-style, more so than your family. Very old-fashioned, if you know what I mean. The type of people who wear black hats to bed.”

Chezky, good yeshiva boy that he’d been, inwardly admired the Habers’ modest lifestyle and devotion to Torah. The Haber parents were both in chinuch and Chaim was set on earning a semicha. As it was, he was serving as a sort of assistant rabbi to the elderly rav of a shul in their neighborhood, Rabbi Shocklee. “I’ve known Chaim my whole life, and he’s a great guy,” he said loyally. “I think he’d be great for Hennie. Hennie’s a very frum girl, you know. She came back from sem very inspired.”

Mindy shrugged and passed another truck. “I guess she can always say no,” she said loftily.

Chezky hung up—back on the home front, Pinny was nagging him for ices—and Mindy took a moment to process the idea. In the end, she admitted, this shidduch was not her call anyway. Let her in-laws decide if they felt Chaim was suitable for Hennie. Just because she found him too serious and bookish—kind of an Ashkenazic version of Beyda, she reflected—didn’t mean he wouldn’t be good for someone else.

And the idea of Ezra Beyda dating Chani—no way! Just: No way. He was short and thin, who knows what kind of a family he came from. Surely nobody with yichus like the Elmans. Why should her sister have to get herself into a lifestyle of making lachemagine and all those other Syrian foods every Shabbos (even if, assuming Rena’s food was any indication, they were delicious)? But no. No thank you.

To be continued.