Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

Author:Robyn Bavati
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: teen, drama, fiction, young adult, dancing, ballet, Jewish, Orthodox Jew, Jew, girls, female protagonist, dance, dancer
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2012-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

A week before the big day, the Aaronsons came for Shabbos lunch. They had nine children, but three were already married and one was away studying at a yeshiva in Israel, so there would be seven of them altogether, as well as us. I counted out sixteen knives and forks.

“How many children do you want?” Shayne asked Rochel while we set the table.

“As many as Hashem will give me,” said Rochel. “As many as Hashem decides.”

My mother looked up from the napkins she was folding and smiled at Rochel approvingly. “It took me almost two years to get pregnant the first time,” she said. “You don’t know, until you try, just how awful it is when you don’t immediately conceive. I was distraught when it didn’t happen straight away. I was just desperate to have children.”

I wasn’t sure why my mother was so desperate to have kids. I mean, I knew we were supposed to want them. And the stories in the Torah make you think there’s no worse a fate than being barren, and maybe there isn’t. But I could see how hard my mother worked. The shopping, the cooking, the laundry, the housework—it never ended. It seemed to me that any fun would stop the minute you had children.

“Do you think everyone feels like you did?” I asked my mother. “Or do you think some women might not want children?”

“Not want children?” My mother was shocked at the question. “Don’t be silly, Ditty. All women want children.”

I remembered how proud my cousin Shoshi was when we found out she was pregnant soon after her wedding. And suddenly it struck me that in haredi circles, the number of children women had was almost like a status symbol. As if there was nothing else a woman could do that would be worthwhile.

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