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Yentl rolls over to find the sheets empty that night, long after they’ve tired themselves out and have turned in for the evening. It’s unlike Eric to leave the bedroom for too long, but they are in his hometown, with people he hasn’t seen in nearly two decades. She figures it’s better to just let him catch up with old friends.
Meeting Kyle for the first time had been a surprisingly insightful experience. She’d heard stories from her husband, sure, but piecing together the real person from everything Eric’s told her was interesting, to say the least.
She knows Eric used to bring him up so much in conversation, after all. Glancing at the clock, she notes that it’s 3:30 AM.
Kyle’s many outbursts weren’t all that surprising- Eric had told her that he was an angry person, and she knows that the Eric of 20 years ago is a lot different than the one he is today, and Kyle may not be able to reconcile that. Eric had told her insomuch before they’d even parked in the lot of the diner earlier today.
Amusedly, she thinks back to her college years, when Eric was closer to how the people here might have known him. She certainly hadn’t thought that the annoying guy in her psych class was going to be the person she ended up falling for, but here she is.
Eric had been a loudmouth in every class she’d taken with him, and she, just starting to come out of her shell in college, had taken to bickering with him as a means to be more extroverted. He, in turn, had taken it as a challenge, and every day found something new to provoke her with.
She’d been genuinely angry at first, complaining about him to any friends who’d listen, but it slowly turned to something softer, as time went on. She can’t remember who had put it in her head first (it might’ve been her friend Leah? Leah had gone on to med school, but they’d been fairly close in her junior year.)
She and Leah had been walking in the halls of the main academic building, if she recalls correctly, and Leah had made some comment about Eric Cartman.
Yentl had, predictably, started bringing up her gripes with him.
Leah had said something about him being hot, and Yentl had refuted it with complaints about his personality, and it’s silly to think on it now, but that’s what started the ball rolling on her thinking of Eric as anything other than a verbal sparring partner in class.
She’d started thinking maybe the only reason he paid so much attention to her was because of some sort of attraction. And she thought maybe she was doing the same thing right back.
Yentl had confronted him sometime later that month, in their usual heated fashion, and Eric had stared at the floor in complete embarrassment.
She smiles to herself, thinking back on it now. It was cute, how mortified he was at first. She remembers some lengthy conversations they had, him justifying himself and trying to explain to her that women were very good debate partners, and he wasn’t only using it as a way to get close to her, because that would have been a very douchey move, and women were smart and funny and exceptional in their own right, and it had nothing to do with whether he was attracted to her or not.
Yentl had giggled at him at the time and told him it was okay if he liked her. That she liked him too.
And then had come the gifts. Eric had started leaving all sorts of chocolate baskets and flowers and letters outside her dorm room.
Yentl and Eric Cartman had been a hot topic among the roommates when one of them opened the door to a three foot tall candy teddy bear one morning.
She didn’t mind the attention, honestly. She teased him about it after, but she thought that was cute too.
Over the winter holiday he had visited her and her parents. They’d been a little bit critical of him not being Jewish, but Yentl had told them that he was more than willing to learn about all the traditions and honestly knew quite a bit already.
Eric had looked up from eating his second helping of noodle kugel and given her such a look.
She remembers the first time they’d kissed, the first time they made love- back in his dorm room when he’d kicked his roommates out with a crude:
“I’m about to get laid, get out.”
They’d met over summer vacation too, Eric had taken her out to a lake in the countryside and they’d spent a week there, Yentl teaching him a little bit of how to read the Torah and him botching it. He had gotten better though, almost immediately. She’d hear him practicing from the talmud down by the water when she wasn’t even around, and she’d smile to herself. By the end of the week he was reciting simple phrases pretty well.
Eric had gone from the boy she knew in freshman year, a loudmouth, opinionated, political sweatshirt-wearing boy to the more refined, more relaxed man she knew now. Not all at once, but it had happened.
He’d visited her hometown several times, but whenever she mentioned returning to south park, Eric had always balked.
“No,” He’d said. “There are too many bad memories there. I’d rather make new, good ones, with you.”
She remembers when they’d graduated college, The pride she’d felt for him when he showed her his degree in religious studies. When he’d told her he wanted to pursue being a rabbi, that he wanted to continue their life together.
That evening when he’d knelt down before her and asked her to be his forever, when they’d chosen their first real apartment together, when he started wearing his kippah during prayer together.
The way his lovemaking became more gentlemanly as the years had gone on, but he’d still been just as passionate about her, about their life, about they way they fit together so perfectly.
She remembers the day she’d called him up, equal parts frantic and overjoyed, as she’d held the four positive pregnancy tests in her hand- She couldn’t abide by just one, because what if it was wrong? What if she called Eric with the news and it turns out she’d been mistaken?
But she did call him, hands shaking, and told him. Sure, they hadn’t been using protection recently, and she’d sort of taken that to mean that maybe if there was a baby on the way that it wouldn’t be a bad thing, per se. Eric seemed encouraging whenever the topic was brought up. And he was good with kids, she’d seen him. He was rather paternal when he wanted to be.
She had called him and he had answered confidently as he always did, and when she broke the news she could hear the genuine surprise and elation in his voice. He told her he’d been standing outside a winter pop-up shop, looking in at the decorations, specifically one deep brown menorah, with its lights aglow. He’d asked her if she was seriously- several times.
They’d gone to the hospital the next day to get a real doctor confirmation,
and just about nine months later, Menorah was born.
Mothering had been hard, Yentl thinks, but she wouldn’t trade those kids for anything. They’re her pride and joy and she knows they’re Eric’s too.
After Menorah came Moisha, and then Hackelm just a little less than a year ago.
Of course, it hadn’t all been good. They’d had challenges and upsets and lots and lots of fights. But when Yentl looks back at her life so far, Eric’s been with her most of the steps. She fiddles with the gold band on her finger.
She remembers in college, when Eric was much more hung up on the guy from his high-school. She remembers when Eric would go home alone for some of the breaks from school, to visit his mother, and come back with angry biting stories about Kyle Broflovski.
Yentl had chalked it up to a childhood rivalry that persisted, and never paid it much thought. They were happy and Eric didn’t talk about him that much. And as the years went on, Kyle’s name came up less and less.
She glances again at the clock. It’s 4:58. Nearly 5 AM, and Eric’s still not back.
She hadn’t known what to think when Kyle had knocked on the guest bedroom door and started screaming at Eric about the way he and Yentl had made love, nor what to think when he told her that when they were children Eric had “given him aids.” Yentl likes to think that it’s childhood folly, that it’s code for something else maybe.
Being back in this town had made her husband a little different than she’d ever seen him before. And Kyle’s name started coming up more and more, to the point where even little Hackelm was repeating Eric’s angry mumblings.
Piecing together what little information she had from all of it, Yentl wasn’t sure how to feel if her sneaking suspicion that they’d had some sort of fling in highschool was correct or not, especially with them being downstairs alone for so long.
She does trust her husband, it’s just that she’s heard Kyle’s name one too many times today to be particularly reassured.
She aches for Eric to come back to the room, to tell her that everything is alright, that they’re going to find a way back to their home.
At 5:15 on the dot, the door to their room opens again.
“Eric,” She says softly. “You talked to him?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if I got through.”
“Oh, well. We’ll find some other place to stay,” Yentl nuzzles him. “Thank you for trying your best, honey.”
“Mm.” Eric makes a noise of agreement, though he seems distracted.
Yentl goes to sleep worried.
They need to get out of this town.