Ira snickered, patting Lady as she bristled and stared balefully at Staas’ foot, waiting for it to attack her again. “No, that was Ori. Until I caught her, of course.”
He set aside his empty cup of tea, pulling his legs up to his chest to rest crossed arms on his bony kneecaps. “Um.” Struggling to try and come up with something interesting, Ira tilted his head and gnawed at his thoroughly bitten thumbnail again. A helpless shrug.
"I don’t know, um. You know about Papa and Ori, and that I was born in Pittsburgh.” Ira flicked the nail of his index finger against the stub of his thumb’s. “…I grew up with my mother and grandmother, though, too. But Mama died giving birth to Ori, and Bubbe passed not long afterwards. A stroke, a bad one.”
Cue a sharp pang of sadness, along with the (more important) glow of warm remembrance in his heart. There was a small, not quite happy smile on his face, and he lifted a shoulder and dropped it in another shrug. “It was hard, but not traumatic or anything.” Ira nudged Lady’s soft tummy with a finger, and narrowly avoided a nip for his intrusion.