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my father answered on the second ring. “I’m going to help Mrs. Kessler, see you later, okay?” I said quickly, not giving him time to say no.
    “Wait a second, Bunny. How are you getting home?”
    “Mr. Kessler is going to walk me,” I lied and got off the phone. I could picture him in his study. His sleeves would be neatly rolled up, the weekly Torah portion and books of commentary splayed open in front of him. He would slide his reading glasses up his nose and return to learning. My mother probably wouldn’t bother to ask him where I was or if I needed a ride. She wasn’t doing that kind of thing anymore.
    “You’ve got me for as long as you need me, Mrs. Kessler.”
    I set the table while she put Yossi to bed, and then we ate the food she’d prepared. “So, what are your plans for next year?” she asked, spearing a pea.
    “Tzippy’s getting married.”
    She chewed for a second. “I know that, but what about your plans?”
    “I’ll go to Madison, like Neil.”
    “They have a good teaching program.” She raised an eyebrow.
    I couldn’t help but smile. “I have to get in first.”
    “How is school going?”
    “Okay, except for calculus.” I didn’t tell her that I desperatelymissed Tzippy or that I had just one friend, a girl I liked only because she liked me. She knew that too.
    “Let’s have a look at that calculus.” After she read my problems, she rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be fun.”
    She sat up in her chair, shedding the tense fatigue she’d held in her shoulders, and explained orders of approximation in language I could understand. An hour later, she said, “Oy, look at the clock. I don’t think Mr. Kessler will be home in time to walk you to your house.” She bit her nail.
    “I walk home from Tzippy’s at night all the time. My parents are fine with it.” Actually, I’d only walked home from her house during the summer when it was still light until practically nine o’clock, and now it was dark and the walk four blocks longer.
    She looked tentative. “You’ll call me when you get home?”
    I was seconds away from asking if I could move into her tiny apartment to escape my mother, who sometimes acted enough like her old self to tease me into thinking that I’d been imagining the whole thing with the Shabbos goy. In my heart, though, I knew that I couldn’t pull her back to us.
    I left Mrs. Kessler’s apartment feeling fed and cared for, but by the time I entered my house, my mood had blackened. My dad was studying in his office, and my mother was sitting at the kitchen table in her pink cardigan, smoking and reading the paper. Soon she’d excuse herself for her Tuesday evening bath, and after we were all tucked into bed, she’d take off with the Shabbos goy.
    “Do you want a peanut butter cookie?” she asked absently, lighting a cigarette.
    I stared at her. She wasn’t in one of her mists anymore, but she was different, distracted but happier than I’d seen her in a long time. Couldn’t she be happy and still not pull away from us?
    “You’re doing such a mitzvah by helping Mrs. Kessler. Doing good deeds brings us closer to God, the rebbetzin reminds us.” Each of my mother’s syllables was plump with pride.
    I lapped up her praise despite myself. “Well, it was really Mrs. Kessler who did me the mitzvah by helping me with my calculus.”
    She nodded through a haze of smoke. “Don’t you have a test coming up?”
    “Tomorrow.” I was surprised that she’d remembered my weekly test.
    “You’ll ace it, Sweet B.”
    If she was going to remember my calculus tests and call me Sweet B, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to eat one of her cookies, her only recipe that turned out well. I took a bite, sweet, but so crispy that it practically nicked the sides of my mouth. “The trick is to use Crisco for the shortening,” my mother had told Tzippy and me once when we’d helped her bake for Shabbos.
    “Good night, Mom,” I said.
    She yawned.