“So that’s big news, about Honey coming to your class,” my mom says, starting to stack the dessert plates and ignoring my question.

“I know!” I say. That’s what she said last night when I burst inside after Honey and Ezra walked me home. She didn’t look surprised, or anywhere near as thrilled as me. Of course, it turned out that she already knew—she’s the chairwoman of the board of my school. (But she never tells me anything!) Then, when I woke up this morning, she asked me how I felt about “Honey’s big news now that I’d had a chance to sleep on it.”

“I’m so excited!” I say again. “Everyone’s going to love her.”

“I’m sure they will,” my mother says, and hands me the white ceramic platter the chocolate rugelech were on. She raises her eyebrows and gestures with her head that I should help clean up by taking it back to the kitchen. I take the last rugeleh and pop it in my mouth, savoring the sweet, doughy pastry.

“Camp for two months, hanging out every Shabbat afternoon, now school together,” my dad says mischievously, looking at my mother. “If I had to spend all that time with somebody, never mind live with them, I would definitely get sick of them.”

“Jonathan!” My mother whacks him on the arm. Then she pushes the stack of dirty dessert plates toward him.

“Is that why you travel so much, Daddy?” Max asks. He has a chocolate mustache from the rugelech. “So that you don’t get sick of us?”

“What? No—no way, buddy. I would never get sick of you. I was just kidding around.” My dad stands up and scoops Max out of the chair next to mine and gives him a hug. “But your mother and Milla on the other hand …” He shakes his head sadly.

I laugh even before he waits a beat to wag his eyebrows so Max knows he’s still joking. My dad loves to tease us, and he is really good at keeping his face straight while he does it. The trick is to look closely and see if his eyes are smiling.

“Jonathan, be serious for once,” my mother says, pushing the stack of dessert plates closer to where he’s now standing.

“Of course I’m serious. I’m a serious guy. Who could have more gravitas than a tax lawyer?” My dad winks at me. “You knew that from our very first date.”

“I thought your first date was Mom helping you study for an exam,” I say, taking the empty dessert platter to the kitchen.

“Which I aced,” my dad says, eyes twinkling. My mother, who was a year above my dad in law school, rolls her eyes to the ceiling.

“Anyway, apparently Judy Wine had a disagreement with Schachter Mesifta’s policy over children with disabilities,” she says, following me. She’s carrying four water glasses in one hand and the pitcher in the other, our dirty napkins crumpled in the crook of her elbow. “And she’s pulling all her kids out. Can you imagine, the school her own grandfather founded?”