She never would have entered if it weren’t for her husband. This was not her kind of place, and as her husband creaked open the door, paint flaking eagerly from the panels, desperate to be free, she wondered how anyone could lay claim to it, a weather-beaten mess, windows streaked in sludge, bricks scraped bare from salt deposits. Had she been alone, she would have tilted her body toward the curb as she passed the awning without a tarp, a ghastly skeleton of cast iron poles, an unconscious habit she performed in the presence of homeless people and large dogs. Maybe she would have crossed to the other side of the street. Had she been alone, that is, entirely alone, most likely she would have been so bent on saving her heels from the cracked sidewalk lest she fall on this sort of a block she never would have lifted her chin to take notice.

He held the door. It was a typical gesture. The truth was, had she been alone she never would have found herself here. But she was with her husband and it was a Sunday and they were having a walk without the stroller, her arm looped through his, her gait steady as he steered them both, talking it out once more, as if they ever did anything else, making the whole afternoon seem romantic despite matters, especially when the day carried them to this dismal industrial strip on the fringe of their neighborhood, overrun with flag-strewn delis, Laundromats, and signs hawking new and used parts. They’d been walking for some time, the backdrop permeating her mood in a way she deemed fitting, but whenever a new bar or café leaped out from the mass of shuttered storefronts, she foolishly hoped for a bright little coffee and a rest. There was time. Jack, nestled between the foam cushions of his crib support, would still be asleep.

Instead he brought her here. The dank entry was too narrow to accommodate them both, so he released his grip, brushing past the covered doorpost, and she followed. Inside the small shop she had the feeling of being in a different country, not one she would have visited (of which there were only a few) but that somehow still seemed familiar in its foreignness, a collage of images juxtaposed from magazines and movie sets. It was like an entire marketplace had been squeezed into the cramped quarters. The pressed tin ceiling, puckered from water damage, hung so low her husband could not straighten his shoulders. The dark shelves, self-installed, sagged in the middle, weighed down by piles of dusty miscellany. Her husband removed his glasses and loosened the sash of his trench coat and dug in. She did not know where to look. There were books, sure, stacked high in an array of languages, spines leather bound and stapled. Throw pillows embroidered with dime-sized mirrors and hand-painted dishware, trinkets galore, from water pipes to candelabras, wooden masks, skull caps, caravans of camels, there were herbal teas and aromatherapy sticks, bootlegged CDs, comic books, barrels of dried fruit, bags of nuts, a lone caftan collecting the seasons. Leather sandals hung from cords like cured meat. It was unimaginable how much fit in here.

The place smelled of cardamom and for the first time all day it was quiet.

In the back stood a deli case, an outdated cash register slumped on the counter beside it. The shopkeeper sat behind it all with a terrible posture, as if the tip of his nose were a stirrer for his coffee. She approached, her hands balled up in pockets, wool collar grazing her neck; she appraised the sticky trays of baklava and pastries curled like birds’ nests, the hunks of cheese awash in a cloudy pool; she stared at a single, raw, whole, flaccid, gray fish.

“Can I help you?” the shopkeeper asked.

She shook her head. Help. In the last months, help, it was all she heard, only it was too late, there was nothing, nobody, so beyond the realm of help were they that the question now, in this crazy space, felt comic.

She almost smiled.

“Please,” he said, indicating a cocktail table wedged into the corner.

She protested, but when her husband cut in, “you must be tired,” she did not argue.

Nervously she slid into her chair and upset the flimsy table, quickly covering her lack of grace by thumbing a folded newspaper abandoned there; the headlines, plainly in English, might as well have been in another language. Since Jack’s birth she had lost all track of the outside world. Her husband joked, after the third time she’d forgotten his shirts at the dry cleaners, that he would leave reminders in Jack’s diaper. And that was before Jack got sick, that was when Jack was just fine, beaming and gurgling and drooling down his chin like every other baby, the short-lived bliss before the tests and doctors’ visits. She watched her husband fill up the room and put his hands on everything, as was his way, cracking a fistful of pistachios, hovering over backgammon sets, breathing his breakfast sausage on Roman glass and pendants of the evil eye. It was his confidence, an unwavering faith that the universe would always rule in his favor, which first attracted her. His presence had been a poultice to her system of nerves. Now he joined her, firmly planting his elbows on the table and reaching across it for her wrists. He demanded her gaze so she gave it.

“Trust me,” he said and he squeezed.

The shopkeeper settled his coffee on a dish. His stool scraped the floor as he stood. She turned. Despite the size of the store, it seemed to take him forever. As he approached, she observed his beige trousers shiny with wear, the thin, almost transparent fibers of his shirt betraying the white ribbing of his undergarment, sleeves rolled despite the temperature; discoloration crunched beneath the armpits. The man was tall (or at least appeared so, given the ceiling) and lean and now he was standing before them removing flecks of tobacco from his tongue. There was a mustache on his lip. She was aware of his belt by her ear. He set his forearm along the back of her husband’s chair.

“Finally, my friend,” the shopkeeper said. The men shook hands like they knew each other. Had her husband treated his root canal?

“My wife,” her husband said, making the introduction.

The shopkeeper said it was a pleasure.

“What can I get you?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“There must be something.”

“Two coffees,” her husband said.

“I will bring a special bite,” the shopkeeper nodded, patting her husband’s shoulder.

While they waited her husband continued but it was more of the same; of course, he knew best.

“There is quality of life to think of,” he was saying, meaning theirs, not Jack’s, what life would he have, absent of quality, regardless of setting, once deafness and blindness set in, his body growing more listless by the day, his mind slowly, cruelly, irrevocably turning to mash, until; no, not her baby’s but hers, her husband longed for her return, it was a reasonable request, she was his wife and he was a practical man, after all, rooted in rationalism, a man who needed to fix things and thus was his solution for fixing the unfixable. She should think about it, he was saying, (he was practically pleading) as if thoughts weren’t what consumed her, haunted her through every innocent stroll to the drug store. Even when she avoided the playground there was the omnipresent mommy brigade clogging the sidewalk, clustering their eco-mugs in coffee houses, their expressions a grotesque mix of pity and fear, as if somehow genes could be contagious. Her mind she never could quiet, much less at night, try as she did, it was exhausting, she was just so tired, tired didn’t begin to cut it, but sitting here now she was tired enough of the talk, it was incessant, to tune momentarily to the shopkeeper’s banal maneuverings behind the counter. There was the hiss of his coffee press, the delicate plinking of cups on saucers, the pop and slide of the display case, a gasping for air. Her husband was going on about family and tests and prevention and the passing of time, life’s great eraser, to make way for a future that included healthy children, unafflicted children, a future that would render Jack a mere blip in an otherwise perfectly wonderful life, one worth envying, I assure you. It’d be a couple years, tops, her husband was certain. Don’t get me wrong, love, we can visit him as much as we like, but the doctors say his needs, over time, will simply become too much to manage. There’s nothing cruel about it, love. (There was a thinness in his voice as he said it.) It is not a matter of failure. There’s only so much we can do. She watched the shopkeeper wipe his hands on a tea towel and fold it neatly. Back home Jack would be rousing.

“Even if you were Super Mom,” he was saying.

Her breasts filled and there it was: the smell of fish. Acute and potent, the stench came about suddenly, from where, a gas burner in the back, perhaps, a toaster on broil, it could have all been fashioned on a hot plate, that didn’t matter, it was everywhere and it was awful and it was unrelenting and it was this, she knew quite possibly, this rancid intrusion might make her sick. She picked up her pathetic paper napkin and gagged.

“Excuse me,” she said.

There was no escaping it.

The coffees arrived first. She picked up the small glass with haste, startling the table once more and bringing the shopkeeper to his knees. As he anchored the legs with a matchbook, she studied the thick, greasy swirls of his hair, salted with flakes, the cowlick spun counter-clockwise, a gold chain peeking out beneath his shirt collar. The pressure streamed into her chest. She resisted the urge to touch him.

“Better?” he asked, climbing to his feet and she nodded, grateful for her coffee, its spicy aroma, eager for it to annihilate the fish. She was drinking too fast and soon arrived at the black, mossy bottom, which she welcomed greedily, believing it to be chocolate. When the sandy grounds filled her mouth, she gasped, swallowing deeply before depositing the remains into her napkin.

“Careful of the sediment,” the shopkeeper said.

“We should go,” she whispered to her husband, clutching elbows, bracing herself against her body’s signals, a child’s hunger. The bile rose in her throat; the owner made a trip for utensils, returning with dingy forks, watermarked knives, stirring teaspoons. He returned once more with the sad platter of fish, all filmy-eyed and gelatinous and she knew it was an impossibility. Her throat clicked and her jaw was next but mercifully her husband drew the plate to him and broke the skin and asked the owner loudly for harissa.

She looked at her him and remembered how his knowledge amazed her.

The shopkeeper brought a reddish condiment in a sugar bowl encrusted around the rim. It was just another hot sauce, this harissa, which made sense; her husband collected the slender bottles like little dolls and seemed always on the lookout for more, for a tastier, newer Tabasco. The hotter the better, he said. She figured by now they had effectively wiped out his taste buds, singed them to bits, allowing him to eat anything, stomach everything with a smile, and charm the pants off lousy cooks everywhere (hence, he was a big hit with her mother).

In a silent exchange her husband ate for the two of them. He rescued her that way. Plopped a generous dollop of sauce on his plate and dug in, tearing at the chewy, ashen flesh, dragging each forkful through the fiery sauce until it was smothered; washed it all down with coffee, his eyes watering and the color stamping up his neck but otherwise remaining unruffled, he polished off his coffee and hollered out for another, motioning broadly for the shopkeeper to join them at the table.

“I really think it’s time,” she said, twisting a bulb around the regurgitated contents in her napkin. The shopkeeper dragged a chair across the wood floor. Goose bumps emerged on her flesh.

The man sat.

“Soon,” her husband said and she knew he was right. Her sitter could lift her baby from the crib; her sitter could change a diaper and slather the cream and dress him anew; her sitter could cradle her child and rock away tears, his body languid as the stuffed animals propped on his shelf, as if one day Jack might actually touch them. Her sitter could even administer a bottle if needed; she had stockpiled her supply precisely for days like this. Everyone deserved a breather. She didn’t need to be there, she knew, and yet she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t even shower without phantom cries haunting her from the nursery, as if her presence soon would make any difference.

Her husband was right: it was crucial to acknowledge one’s limits.

She watched the two men. Her husband was doing the talking, as was the norm, day in and day out, she pitied his patients strapped helplessly to their dental chairs, mouths agape, straws breathing a futile wheeze into drooling mouths as her husband drilled and irrigated and droned on and on, victims to a double punishment; there were inquiries of homeland and business, as if it weren’t all blatantly self-evident, wretched store on a wretched street, only this man, this singular man who smelled of a zoo managed to defy his surroundings; despite his dress, there was an almost military dignity to his carry, agelessness to his skin, his place at their table silently granting her a break from it all so she took it, her mind curling away like the flesh of a fruit roll-up from its corporal wax paper. Her favorite snack as a child, one that she always anticipated in her brown paper bag, alongside her mushy tuna and bag of chips, smiley-faced lunches she would never need to pack. She began to contemplate the age of that fish. How long had it sat there shivering in the case, awaiting an opportunity? Business was business, and finally, here they were: two feckless rubes. She didn’t fault the man. It was his job. She picked up a pin bone that had slid off her husband’s plate, measured its springiness between her thumb and forefinger. Soon Jack would be robbed of all muscle tone.

He was only working, maybe, but the shopkeeper remained attentive. Chiming in on cue, he propelled the mostly one-sided chatter, pleasing her husband. She found herself drawn to the graceful lilt of the man’s tongue, the fluidity of his gestures. Long, tan fingers. Was he married? Did he have a family? What would he do if the same fate befell him? Surely, he would accept it; he would begin to prepare, his wife beside him, as if a child’s brisk, inevitable demise were something for which one could ever prepare. Had he the means, would he ever consider a facility, out of sight, out of mind, a special place, call it like it was, an institution, designed to manage this kind of, this horrid, unspeakable, of all things, what were the chances, far off their radar, this Jewish disease?

Plates were cleared and replaced with glasses filled with mint. The verdant leaves swayed in her spotted glass like seaweed. The mint calmed her stomach and soon eradicated any lingering threat of the fish. The drink was good and the hookah that followed even better. When the shopkeeper presented them with the ornate water pipe, she hesitated, glancing uneasily at her husband, who sat entranced by the owner’s meticulous process of cleaning his instrument, unwrapping the coal-sized tobacco and placing it into the ceramic bowl, uncoiling the long, serpentine hose. She wondered how many lips had touched that mouthpiece, waiting and watching, as her husband went first, then the shopkeeper. It was all the encouragement she needed.

“May I try?” she asked and the shopkeeper steadied the leather rope for her. The water gargled in its pear-shaped base as she drew the smoke to her lips, coughing inexpertly before learning to hold everything in for as long as she could until she had no choice but to exhale.

“That a girl,” her husband said.

“Do you like?” the shopkeeper asked.

She nodded and then she let go, with each trail of smoke, sinking and nodding and letting go. Yes, she thought, relinquishing her grip on time, which had always been inextricably tied to Jack’s schedule, what remained of it, breathing the sweet tobacco, the apple scent reminding her of her baby’s breath, a blend of apricots and cream cheese that remained constant regardless of what he ingested. Her muscles, set firmly in her jaw, were next to fall, followed by her shoulders, drawbridge down, she was no longer armed, defenseless, her body melted away, what a warm welcome, she ran together, she was limitless, a haze crept in, there was smoke in the air and the hose came around so she took it, his veins were like roots, the hair below his knuckles itsy-bitsy spiders, she hummed, she inhaled, she made fish lips, her lids fluttered down and she let go.

The laughter that follows is garish and foreign, as if it doesn’t belong to her. When she opens her eyes the men are staring into her open, wet mouth.

It is time. Her husband insists on paying despite the shopkeeper’s protests; the man claims indebtedness for some unnamed generosity bestowed on him (more than a routine cleaning?) but he is unable to persuade. During their interchange, she fingers a case of oxidized jewelry, dangling earrings, embedded stones, charms of long, flat hands. There are necklaces strung from old coins. She touches their cool grimy surface, sticky from exposure, from the passing of time, wondering how vibrant they must have looked before they tarnished, what a statement they could have made with the right dress and shoes. She wishes for an entire feast of them, fastened like chain mail, row after row and clasped to her neck.

She can hear her husband over the ring of the cash register. She joins him, waiting patiently by his side as the shopkeeper cracks open a roll and sprinkles quarters into the drawer. Her husband is making promises for next-time but when a cigar box catches his eye, luring him three feet to the left, she steps in, her palm spread, so that it is she who receives the change and then it is she who takes the shopkeeper’s hand and draws it into her shirt.

He holds himself there, cupped and warm against her. His eyebrows do not waver. Then, with the slightest reach he has her, nipple between his finger and thumb, rolling her up like a scroll until a blot of milk spreads onto her blouse and she takes a step back to examine it as one would a surface wound before buttoning her coat and following her husband out of the store the moment he says ready.