She snatched the "love letter".  "How dare you.  Do you even know how many things are on their minds at that age?!"  It was big sister battles to the max.  She crumpled the letter in one hand trying to strangle distraction.  She shoved it in a kitchen drawer.  Wiped her hands on a Mother's Apron and called around the doorless entryway into the TV room.  "You guys gonna get ready to go soon?" 

  Groans and throat clearing and a snort to clear a mold'd nose.  "What's the game plan Big Sis?" The smallest boyman came into the kitchen first.  "Okay, well, nobody showered so you all can." 

  "We're not showering." Came a voice from the other room. 

  "Not showering?" 

  "Yah, let 'em get a whiff of dah crud." 

  "Crud?" 

  Another appeared in the doorway scratching everything and stretching and yawning.  "Do you know what we were working on this week?" Nobody answered.  "Or has it been two weeks?" 

  "Like five.  That would've been two and a half paychecks." 

  "What were you working on?" 

  "Has it been that long?" The rabbi asked.  His head covered in a sweatshirt and socks, cleaned.  "You loook like a big fuckin' rabbit." A big deep sigh. 

  "Am I allowed to say?" 

  "No, it's top secret moron." 

  "Is it?" 

  "Cha.  Now I will have to kill you." 

  He tried to dodge the oncoming head noogie and rammed his head into the doorway. 

  "You should stop that." 

  "But they won't." 

  "And you shouldn't wear such tight jeans.  You could damage your" 

  "Who's she?" 

  "Talking about our nuts Roscoe.  Prolly an Upper."  The rabbi threw a sock at each of them, the Muscle and the Giant. 

  "Look at that.  There's a Most Interesting Man in the World contest on TV.  Or do you enter via the TV?  I wouldn't know I'm sooooo boring." 

  "HAaagh, When are your women coming for you?" 

  "That one prolly doesn't have a voomahn.  He's a girly-mahn."  He looked hard at the smallest. 

  "Just because someone's musically inclined and smart and creative doesn't mean they're gay." 

  "What'd he buy a skirt for?" 

  "It's a sarong.  Very sexy in some parts of the world," he passed me the fork but she snatched it from me and put it in a different drawer.  We both chomped on celery sticks all cut perfectly symetrical like the carrot sticks and potato sticks. 

  "Is there a store that sells such stuff?  Sexy stuff?" 

  "No, we were at a fashion show." He took the rolled-up fabric out of his back pocket.  "It could be anything you want it to be." 

  "Like a Superhero cape?" 

  "Or a headscarf." 

  "I wouldn't put that thing on my head after it was on your ass." 

  Someone threw it at the rabbi.  He unrolled it.  "It's soft." He contemplated it, then asked, "Do you wear underwear with it?" 

  "Some do, some don't," a middle-ager sleeping on the sofa said. 

  "He'll tell me." 

  "Helps to sleep with them." 

  "Eeeewwah.  You're my shrink." 

  "Tell you what?" 

  "What have they been working on?" 

  He sat up but held his bright white socks off the floor until he reached for his neat little pile of man things.  Shoes, belt, and "Where's my wallet?  Oh dear Lord." The rabbi waved it at him.  "Can't trust anyone these days," he said as he put his shoes on.  "Ripping apart an asylum." 

  "Is that a thesis title?" A dark haired woman blending in with the floor under an afghan asked. 

  "Oh dear Lord.  Am I not safe from you anywhere?" The shrink asked over the sofa. 

  "Literally?" The apron'd woman untied the apron.  "That sounds cooler than pretending to be my mother." 

  More people came down from upstairs.  A brilliant blonde who announced, "I'm ready."  No one said anything.  "To leave PT.  And, I know what I want to do with my life." 

  A man and a woman holding hands tightly sat on a grand ottoman in front of the rabbi.  They held onto each other's hands and she said, "We're ready for Couples' Therapy." He stayed looking at their hands clutching onto each other.  "Is this true?" The rabbi asked.  

  "We can't go anywhere.  But it's great that you're ready." 

  The man suddenly removed his hands from the clutching.  "Why'd you do that?" The woman asked.  "I don't know." He started wiping his hands off on his sweater.  The sweater was sagged long like it had hung on the back of a chair for a long time. 

  "But you said," the blonde shook her head neat and curt, "Wait.  Why not?" 

  "What do you mean can't?" The dark haired woman got off the floor and slung the afghan onto the back of the sofa.  The back of the shrink's hair blew up in the air and fell back into place.  "It does that because I can't remember when I last had a shower," he said to my watching everything. 

  "Do you know?" The blonde asked me.  I knew her to be a senior in the Communications stuff so I couldn't lie.  "Yes." 

  The roomfull of people looked at me.  I blew out my shyness in a terse breath.  And could smell the cigarette I'd smoked.  "It has to do with how Towns keep functioning when people go off to war and to serve in the National Guard." 

  "Really?" 

  "I think so.  That's my cursory understanding but," I looked at my husband, "We were on a bit of a honeymoon, and I'm behind in the articles." 

  "Let me make a phone call." 

  "Did you say husband?" She grabbed my ringless hand then threw it back at me. 

  "It's fine," the smallest man was looking down the front of his pants.  The rabbi got up and looked down in there too.  He dropped the wallet into the open travel belt/purse. 

  "It has to do with function.  So like Finance people can fill in for each other and teachers can do Administrative and stuff." 

  The blonde came back.  Closing a cellphone she said, "It's just a temporary stop."  The darkhaired woman lit a cigarette.  "Can you do that outside? I'm still experiencing some respatory symptoms."  The dark haired woman felt along the wall for a door she'd come in. 

  "Say that again," the woman was clutching and twisting her own hands.  The man was shaking his head noooooo.  

  The woman put the apron over her shoulder and reached into the smallest man's pants and snatched the rings.  "Is this real?" She held the diamond engagement ring up to the yellowing lightbulb. 

  "God's brought us together," the rabbi said.  And he looked around the room astonished.  "Like he did in the forest."