“The girl’s doing fine,” I announced. I told Nelly that I had actually been worried the first two weeks, when she acted as if nothing had changed. No sane girl moves from Tel Aviv to a desert homestead without having some kind of temporary crisis, and it’s good for her to finally experience it.

Nelly said I was missing the point and lowered the jar of herbal tea onto the table with a thud. Other than her clothes, it was the only thing she brought with her from our old house, claiming that without it she would go back to smoking in two days. I wasn’t as successful at asceticism; I set out south with two bookcases, a telescope, and my framed certificate of excellence from the Technion, which I still haven’t found the time to hang. It was the one condition I made when Nelly insisted we move, to take whatever I wanted with me, and to her credit she never gave me any trouble over it.

“It’s a little more serious than that, Ofer,” she said, adding my name to convey the gravity of the matter.

“You’re just getting yourself worked up for no reason,” I threw in before she could say anything else. “Give it a couple of weeks, the girl will get used to it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain, I don’t think it’s just the move,” she said, and added in a confiding tone, “Maybe you could talk to her? I’ve tried but it’s not working.”

I wanted to say that I’d tried as well, that I’d been trying for some time now and getting nowhere. And that also, I’d lately come to realize that Shira had always belonged more to her than to me. That maybe it was time we considered having another kid. And that we would agree that I get dibs on this one. We’d sign an agreement before he’s even born, two kids for two parents. But I didn’t really want to bring up the subject, to deal with her adamant assertion that it was all in my head, and her not-so-subtle insinuations that even if it wasn’t, a father doesn’t talk about his child like that.

“Sure thing,” I replied, got up, and went to our bedroom. “I’ll talk to her.”

2.