***

On Monday when Ellie returned home from shopping, she heard Seymour on the phone with their son, Lawrence. She immediately picked up the phone in the kitchen.

“Isn’t Dad’s new candle-making idea great?” she said.

“Yeah, sure. But, I’m not…” Lawrence’s tone was stern.

Seymour cut Lawrence off.

“Ellie, we can talk when I get off the phone,” Seymour said.

“Can’t I talk with my son?”

“Later,” Seymour said in a harsh tone that Ellie rarely heard. Ellie’s eyes grew wide. Had Lawrence upset him?

“Well, okay then. I’m going to start dinner. Love to Sheri and the kids.”

Her hands shook while peeling the potatoes, scattering the brown ribbons all over the kitchen counter. Ellie placed the potatoes in the boiling water and the roast in the oven. She was setting the table when Seymour entered the kitchen, his lips forming a pout.

“Lawrence said he wouldn’t loan us the $3,000.” Seymour sat on the padded wooden chair.

“Why not?” Ellie said.

“He says, number one, it wouldn’t be a loan ‘cause he knows we won’t pay it back.’” He hooked his pointer finger around the others as he extended them one by one. “And number two, we owe him $60,000 as it is.”

“Oh. I had no idea he kept such close track.” Ellie covered Seymour’s fingers with her hands. “Why is he so thrifty all of a sudden? Of course we’ll pay him back with the proceeds from the photography and candle sales.”

“He says we should look for a partner.”

“What ever happened to ‘honor your mother and father’?” Ellie turned down the corner of her mouth and shook her head.

Seymour sighed.

“Is there more?” She raised one eyebrow.

“He wants to come here in the next few weeks to talk to us about our financial situation,” Seymour said, dropping his head. “He hopes Judith can meet him here as well. A family meeting, of sorts.”

“Why are they so concerned about us? Don’t they have enough to worry about with their own families?” She set her apron on the counter.

Seymour looked up but didn’t answer.

“Let them come.” Ellie threw her hands in the air as if she were unfurling a tablecloth.

***

A few weeks later Ellie stood with her hands on her hips on their bungalow’s front porch. Her two grown children emerged from the rental car.

“Didn’t your planes land at LAX at noon? Now it’s 2. You couldn’t have called?”

“We were in the Rabbi’s office.” Judith bent over to kiss her mom. “We thought it would last only an hour.”

“We would have been rude to break away in the middle of a conversation.” Lawrence hugged her.

Seymour stepped out onto the porch.

“How nice,” Ellie said. “Seymour, did you hear the kids went and saw the Rabbi today? I’ve always told my friends what great kids I have.” She stepped back to look at Judith. “Honey, you look great. Have you lost more weight?”

“This wasn’t a social visit, Mom,” Lawrence said, moving past her.

“Well, then. What was it?” Seymour asked, shaking his son’s hand.

“We made an appointment,” Lawrence said. “To talk with him about your finances.”

“Why would you discuss our private business with the Rabbi?” Seymour glared at him, opened the door, and gestured for Lawrence to continue the conversation in the house. Ellie and Judith walked past him and headed to the kitchen.

“You owe a lot of people a lot of money,” Lawrence said, standing in the front hall facing Seymour. “People in the congregation.”

Ellie turned on the burner under her pot of mushroom barley soup. When Lawrence stood close behind her, she stiffened. She turned her head, looked past Lawrence and saw Seymour in the hallway looking small and dejected. Her heart wept.

“Oh that,” Ellie said. She stirred the soup. Holding the wooden spoon, she flexed her wrist sending soup drops out into the air. Lawrence stepped away. “We owe a few people a little money. They know we plan to pay them back.” She batted the air with the spoon as if she were batting the debt away.

“How, Mom?” Judith asked. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. “You don’t make enough money to pay your current bills. Not to mention the money you owe Lawrence and me.”

Ellie felt sabotaged. Attacks now from two directions.

“I can’t believe you discussed this with the Rabbi,” Seymour said, entering the kitchen. “Our finances are neither his nor your concern. Besides…”

“Don’t say it, Dad. I don’t want to hear that Hashem looks out for you,” Lawrence said. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Your financial situation became our concern when Judith and I paid one bill after another of yours over the past few years, not to mention how we bailed out the business before you closed it.”

“You’re running out of friends to ask for money,” Judith said. “The Rabbi said people at the shul are already shunning you.”

“That’s not true,” Ellie said. She looked at Seymour but couldn’t read his face. She didn’t like the way her children were talking to them. Especially Lawrence. They had never acted resentful before when Ellie and Seymour had asked for money to tide them over. Why the change now? She looked into Lawrence’s eyes only to have him look away.

“Honey, is everything okay at home?” Ellie placed a hot bowl of soup in front of Lawrence. “With Sheri? And the kids?”