Fertile Ground Read Online Free PDF Page B

was merely a fact of his birth. She respected her parents and loved them dearly and had felt terrible announcing her engagement over the phone. They’d responded with silence. Then her father, his voice heavy with sadness, had said, “Can we talk about this?” and she’d said, “Please don’t. Daddy. This is what I want”
    She’d spoken with conviction, though something nameless had been nagging at her even then. Lately she’d started contemplating what kind of life she envisioned for
    herself and Matthew and their children; and she’d also been thinking, more and more, about her patient Naomi Hoffman, who was Orthodox. After every appointment with Naomi, Lisa had felt unsettled, vaguely dissatisfied, almost irritated with the woman for being so serenely content with her observant lifestyle. Several weeks ago she’d admitted to herself that her irritation was a form of masking envy, that what she’d dismissed for years as nostalgia was a yearning to return to the religious observance of her adolescence.
    She’d been putting off telling Matthew what she was thinking, waiting for the right time, but there was no right time. “What would you say if I wanted us to be Orthodox she asked now and saw surprise flash across his handsome face.
    “If I said yes, would you move in with me tomorrow?” He laughed, then assumed a sober expression and sat up straight, resting his arm on top of the couch’s high back. “I thought you were done with all that years ago.”
    “I thought so, too. But I’ve felt for some time that something’s missing in my life. Matt, and I’ve been thinking about taking some outreach classes.” From a local synagogue she’d learned that there were several programs for ba ‘alei teshuvah, those who returned to the faith; there was one in the Pico area, near her. The phone number and address were on a pad on her nightstand.
    “You didn’t tell me.” His voice held a hint of accusation.
    “I wasn’t sure how I felt. I’m still not.” She didn’t add that she’d been nervous about telling him. “We’ve talked about having kids, Matt, but we haven’t talked about what kind of religious upbringing we want to give them.”
    He frowned. “I’m not sure they need religion.”
    “I think they do. Matt.” She rested her hand on his arm.
    He was silent for a while, still frowning. “My parents never took me to a synagogue—you know that. I never had a bar mitzvah. I don’t think I’m deprived.”
    She didn’t answer.
    “All I know about Orthodoxy is the little you’ve told me, Lisa, and you’ve said yourself it’s complicated, with hundreds of rules and restrictions that sound outdated to me.” He paused. “There are other, less restrictive types of Judaism.”
    “I’ve been to Conservative and Reform services, mainly for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.” She’d avoided visiting her parents on the High Holidays—she’d had no desire to return to the synagogue she’d attended almost weekly for over eighteen years, to pretend she didn’t see the curiosity and criticism in the veiled looks of her former friends and her parents’ friends. Her parents must have understood her discomfort, because they’d never pressed her to come. Or maybe her presence at services would have made them uncomfortable, too. “The services were beautiful and inspiring, and the people were great—warm, welcoming.” She hesitated. “But I didn’t feel as though I was home. I want to feel that I’m home, Matt.” She gazed at him, willing him to understand.
    “Maybe you need to give them another chance.”
    “Maybe.” She realized she might be seeking something that didn’t exist, that what worked for her parents and Naomi Hoffman—and for Sam Davidson, who was Orthodox, too—might not work for her. He ran his hand back and forth on the leather cushion. “I have to think about this, okay?”
    “Of course,” she said quickly. “It’s taken me a long time to come to this point.