Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 3 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

The apartment where Chani lived was tiny. Hinda leaned on the kitchen counter and peered into the cradle standing right next to it. One-year-old Bracha’s hands protruded from between the bars as she stretched in her sleep, as if she was trying to grab onto them. Hinda smiled.

“I think she can manage here for another two months,” Chani said cheerfully. “Then we’ll move into our new apartment, and we’ll buy her a normal-sized crib. Come, Ima, sit down. You didn’t taste my cheesecake.”

The area next to the table was even smaller than the space allocated for the cradle, and exactly three chairs stood there. Hinda moved one chair back and wondered what they would do when Dov arrived.

Eli, Chani’s husband, offered to make her a coffee. Hinda thanked him but said perhaps it would be better to wait for Dov to come back from davening. Meanwhile, Chani told her about the substituting job she was about to start, and Eli talked about the leak in the bathroom that just was not stopping, and how they already felt uncomfortable calling the landlord to complain. Bracha woke up and gurgled playfully, and Hinda gave her a hug, amazed at how much she’d changed in the six weeks they hadn’t seen each other. Chani brought a plate of wafers to the table.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 2 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Dov let her know that he was downstairs. Hinda, who had been ready for ten minutes already, locked the door and went down, her mind on Uncle Michoel, whose phone number she had just tried again—still with no results.

Dov had suggested at the beginning of the week that they should try to invite Michoel for Shabbos. “You have one uncle,” he’d said. “True, he didn’t come to our wedding, but you said you weren’t too surprised about that. I think that even if there’s a bit of anger there, it’s worthwhile to forgive and to continue maintaining ties. Because, after all, at our age especially, an uncle is a treasure.”

“Alright,” she’d replied. “And the truth is that I’m really not angry at him. You know, it could be that he’s even abroad. He left me a mazel tov message on my voicemail on the day of the wedding itself. So already then I realized that he might not come.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 1 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Dov shrugged out of his faded suit jacket and placed a pile of mail on the table. “Hi,” he said warmly. “How was your day, Hinda?”

“Baruch Hashem, yom yom,” Hinda replied, giving the same response she had given for the last seven weeks.

“Your uncle sent a fat envelope, almost a package. I wonder how it came in the regular mail.”

“Oh, yes. He always sends envelopes that size, and it always comes in the regular mail.”

“The postmark is from more than two weeks ago, though.”

“He must have sent it quite some time ago, then. I was actually surprised that he had forgotten all this time; I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with some people.” She carefully glanced at the air conditioner she had switched on a few minutes before, ahead of his arrival. Her Baruch had made an amateur repair two and a half months ago, and if the electricity would short, a technician would no doubt disapprove of the unprofessional intervention.

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