Meet Ari

Ellen stared at herself in the mirror and saw her father’s eyes. Not just the same blue-grey, but also the vacant stare he’d worn yesterday. She stepped into the shower and let the water wash over her, wondering if her father’s despair was tinged with mixed emotion, like her own. Warmed by the water, she stumbled to the kitchen and put on coffee and was nursing a cup when Ari appeared.

“How are you doing?” He sat beside her at the table.

“Today I feel guilty.”

“Did you have any breakfast?”

“There’s some peach yogurt in the fridge,” she said.

“Can’t be properly guilty on an empty stomach.” Ari got up and came back with the yogurt and bowls and spoons. “You know, we Jews perfected guilt. I think of it as the normal human state.”

“Why do you feel guilty?”

“Well, if I’m not neglecting my mother or my grandmother or the problems of the developing world, there’s always the six million. Born too late to do anything about them.”

“I didn’t call her for five years. I barely thought about her. She must have missed me,” Ellen spooned some yogurt into a bowl.

“Well, she knew you were all right, didn’t she?”

“Yes, I emailed David. She wasn’t on email.”

“Ellen, everybody’s mother misses them when they leave home. When I was 18, I fought with my mother every day and still she cried when I had to go away! I got one phone call saying she missed me and by the time I came home, she’d turned my bedroom into the TV room.”

Ellen laughed. He was very adroit at saying the right thing.