Jessica Hecht

I'd do it again in a heartbeat

It's warm down here, said the rabbi.

Reminds me of this sanctuary without the fans.

Too bad the caretaker won't be there tomorrow night to turn them on.

"'Baby, Anne, I can do it,' I said, transformed into a person with purpose.

"'Baby,' he repeated, delighted, I suppose, by my growing French vocabulary.

At this, my daughter lifted her arms to him, and the rabbi automatically boosted her out of the playpen that I'd fashioned from dictionaries and a beat-up wooden desk I'd laid down fort-like on its side.

I guess he was an old pro at picking up babies.'

He had already had three of his own at home.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, and I watched her relax in his arms, returning his kisses to his chin.

It's been a long time since anyone but Maggie Rye have held her, I said.

Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, he recited.

Kinilai said, St.

Francis and the sow, are you even allowed to like a poem like that?

It's so Catholic.

The rabbi shrugged.

It speaks to me, he said.

The words suddenly came back and I recited too.

To put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch.

It is lovely.