I came home eleven months early without telling anyone and found my wife sitting against a wall with her head shaved and her face bruised, while my mother shouted at me to throw her out. I didn't argue. I looked at what had actually been broken in that room, and then I asked my wife for the notebook.

We don't bring family business in here. My son's money is not your concern.

My mother said that to my wife at a church supper in front of thirty people, and took an envelope out of her hand about an account in my name that was already ninety days down, and put it in her own pocket.

She was right that it was my money and she was right that it was family business.

What she meant was that Tova was not family, and thirty people in that hall heard her say it and understood it perfectly and let it stand, including a man who worked at a credit union for thirty-one years and who was sitting eleven feet away.

May you like

And my wife sat down and smiled, and went home, and wrote it down.

THE END