A Small Miracle Happened

by Mari Donne

  “In that case you’d think they’d worry about opposite-sex marriage more than same-sex.”

  “I never thought of it that way.” Dan snorted. “They also hated things that didn’t fit into clearly defined categories. Pigs bothered the people who made the laws, because they have cloven hooves but don’t chew their cud. Shellfish bugged them because they live in the ocean but don't have fins. At least that was how they rationalized it. But it probably made sense to avoid pork and shrimp in a hot climate with no refrigeration available. Food poisoning must have been rampant. They just didn’t understand why those foods made people sick a lot, so they came up with what they thought was a logical explanation, and it got fossilized into law.”

  Chris thought about this for a while. “So if I ever invite your parents for dinner, I shouldn’t serve meat and cheese together?”

  “They’re not much stricter than I am, although they toe the line a little more around the holidays. Cheeseburgers are fine, but you probably shouldn’t cook latkes in lard.”

  Chris looked insulted. “I don’t cook anything in lard! It’s very unhealthy.”

  Dan suppressed a smile. So bacon was apparently okay, but lard wasn’t? Of course, you could make a tasty dish without lard, but bacon was, well, bacon. There wasn’t really a decent substitute. But all he said was, “It’s supposed to be hard to cook in a real kosher kitchen. Fortunately I can’t cook anywhere, so I’ve never had to worry about it.” He paused to stretch, trying to remember details. He took the opportunity to snake one foot up so it rested against Chris’s hip. “My grandmother tells this great story about a friend of her parents. It’s almost certainly fake, but it’s a good story.”

  “Then tell it.” Chris reached down to grab Dan’s foot, but instead of pushing it away, he began to massage it gently.

  “Okay. Once upon a time, there was a Jewish couple living in New York City. The wife was devout and kept a kosher home. The husband couldn’t care less.”

  “Change the religious affiliation and it sounds like a lot of families I know.” Chris’s thumb found a spot on the arch of Dan’s foot, then rubbed it with just the right amount of pressure.

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah, keep doing that. So one night the guy comes home from working late, and his wife is in bed. So he goes to the kitchen and makes himself a sandwich.”

  “Uh-oh. I can see where this is going. Meat and cheese?”

  “You’ve got it. The wife comes down, sees what he’s done with her knife, and insists he do what needs to be done to make it kosher again.” He sighed. Chris had lifted Dan's foot onto his lap and was paying attention to stiff calf muscles. “So he goes out to the backyard to bury it.”

  He thought Chris would be incredulous, but he nodded. “Because the earth purifies. That’s not as common a theme as burning, but I can see that becoming a ritual.”

  Hmm. It wasn’t the first time Chris had surprised Dan this way, quickly accepting and even interpreting something that most gentiles found incomprehensible. “Yeah. So he’s outside in the dark with a flashlight and this knife he used to cut roast beef, and he’s digging a hole with a trowel. And then he sees a pair of shoes. Someone is standing over him.”

  “Not the wife, I’m guessing.” Chris slid his hands down from the now wonderfully relaxed calf back to Dan’s foot.

  “Nope. It’s an Irish cop checking out what’s going on out there in the dark. So the husband, still holding the knife, says, ‘It’s okay, Officer; I live here. And my wife made me do this.’”

  Chris laughed. “I bet the cop took that well!”

  “According to my grandmother, the cop’s wife was a friend of the Jewish guy’s family, and all was explained without any arrests.”

  “Nice ending, but I agree with you it probably never happened. It sounds more like a joke that someone turned into a fable.” Chris slipped Dan’s foot back onto the couch and then began attending to his other leg.

  Dan sighed in bliss before replying. “There are too many things wrong with the story. For one, I don’t think you actually bury a knife to make it kosher again. You just stab it in the dirt a bunch of times.”

  But Chris’s eyes were alight. “That’s not the point. The point is it’s a good story with a funny punch line, so people keep telling it. And all the misunderstandings are sorted out, although maybe the wife trying to keep the kosher kitchen is still pissed off. But the moral is about accepting each other’s cultures, even when their rituals seem weird. You may laugh at the strange things your neighbors do, but it’s in a friendly way, so it’s a comforting story too.”

  “Does my ritual strike you as weird?” Dan looked at the menorah on Chris’s windowsill.

  “Lighting the candles? No! I like it. The little miracle of one light that grows to eight over a week until on the last day it’s a great miracle? It’s charming.”

  “That’s a really poetic way to put it. Where did you read that?”

  Chris just blushed. He was so fair his skin reddened easily and often, and Dan knew that flush spread over his whole torso when he was aroused. But why would he be embarrassed because he’d said something Dan found poetic?

  Dan’s gaze moved to the bookcase. He’d taken time earlier to look at some of the titles, and he’d discovered Chris was one of those people who not only read the classic literature assigned in high school and college, but kept some of the books. And likely bought others. “How come you didn’t get a degree in literature?”

  Chris was beet red now, trying to sink down into the sofa cushions. “It wasn’t practical.”

  “Hmm.” Dan remembered how Chris moved around a kitchen, tasting the food, deciding to add an ingredient not in the recipe, or make a substitution. He seemed so happy when he cooked, and everything he’d produced so far had been delicious. Dan wondered if there were other outlets to Chris’s creativity. He hoped that tech job he never spoke about allowed a few.

  He wanted to learn more, but didn’t want to make Chris uncomfortable. So he tried another topic. However, he thought the one he picked might be related, because a guy didn’t learn to be ashamed of his artistic bent without help. “Why didn’t you go home for Thanksgiving? Does your family live far away too?”

  “No. Just under an hour’s drive. But there’s too much…tension if I show up when the extended family is there. Instead my parents have me over for dinner a couple of times a month.”

  “But if your parents are accepting…”

  There was a long pause while Chris’s hands pressed hard on the sole of Dan’s foot. It wasn’t painful, but Dan was sure Chris didn’t realize how much pressure he was using.

  Chris spoke at last, carefully not meeting Dan’s eyes, but throwing a glance up through the fringe of hair that fell over his eyes. “They’re not so much accepting as resigned. They know I’m not going to change, but they’re not happy about it. And some of the other relatives haven’t come that far yet.” He must have seen something in Dan’s face, because he added in a defensive tone, “My uncle’s a minister.”

  “And my uncle’s a rabbi.” One who kept reminding Dan there was now an established ceremony for joining same-sex couples. Dan didn’t know if Uncle Aaron was eager to try it out or if he’d run out of other members of the younger generation to nag about weddings since his youngest son had gotten married the previous year. Uncle Aaron loved officiating at ceremonies. According to Dan’s mother, Officious should have been his middle name.

  Chris shrugged. “It’s partly my fault. I didn’t come out to them until after college. If I’d been braver, they might be used to it by now.”

  “That’s bullshit. People come out when they’re ready. If you know your family is going to react badly, that’s good reason to wait until you’re independent.”

  Chris shook his head. “I could have done it sooner. They’d never disown me outright.”

  No, they just won’t own you publicly. Dan bit his lip. There was no point in making Chris feel worse about his family.

  He
gently pulled his foot from Chris’s grip, then crawled up his body, intent on making him feel very good about other things.

  Chapter Six

  Sixth night—Monday

  Chris finished slicing vegetables, then contemplated the results. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, green beans, peppers, and carrots were spread out in bowls and on his big wooden cutting board. Good as far as it went, but…

  He opened the fridge and rooted around until he found half a yellow pepper. That would do. With that additional color and taste added to the mix, the stir-fry would work. The chicken was already cut up and marinating, so as soon as Dan arrived, he could start cooking.

  He checked the clock on the microwave before glancing out the window. It was already full dark. He’d expected Dan earlier. But offices tended to be busy the first day back after a holiday, and Friday really hadn’t counted as a workday, with most places minimally staffed.

  Still he felt a foolish wave of relief when the doorbell rang. He wiped his hands on a dish towel, then went to answer it. His smile of pleased anticipation faded the moment he saw Dan’s face. “What happened?”

  Dan grabbed him like a lifeline and held fast. “My father just called. The baby’s sick. Something about jaundice. I don’t know.”

  Chris had heard of people with hepatitis being jaundiced. Was there something wrong with the baby’s liver? He suddenly felt cold in spite of his overactive furnace. “Come on in. Sit down. We’ll look it up.”

  “I checked on my phone before I came over. The site I looked at said it can cause brain damage.”

  Chris pushed Dan onto the couch. “What did your dad say?”

  Dan took a deep breath. “That the doctors weren’t going to let Arielle go home from the hospital, because she had serious jaundice and they had to treat it. I could tell he was trying not to upset me, but his voice was shaking.”

  Dan’s voice was shaking too, as were his hands. He was still clutching his cell phone. Chris took it away, then reached for the laptop he’d left on the coffee table. Awkwardly, with one arm around Dan, he started to search for information on jaundice.

  The first thing he saw was that lots of babies had it. The second was if it was bad enough to be treated, it was bad enough to cause serious problems. He set down the computer, then hauled Dan close, rocking him a little. “It sounds like they caught it early. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  Dan started to relax a bit, but tensed at the sound of his mother’s ringtone. He pulled out his phone and had to try three times before he could swipe the screen correctly to accept the call. “Mom? How is she?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Chris could hear both sides of the conversation clearly. He wondered if he should leave and give Dan some privacy, but the hand that wasn’t holding the phone had a death grip on his shirt.

  “Dad said it was serious, and I looked it up. It could cause brain damage—”

  Mrs. Sobol’s voice was firm and steady. “Don’t worry, Danny. She’s going to be fine. Can you believe it? She’s yellow, so they put her under a blue light to turn her red again.”

  “Wait, what?” Dan let go of Chris to run a hand through his already mussed hair.

  “You know how babies always look angry red? Okay, you don’t know babies so maybe not. But this stuff that causes the jaundice made her skin look yellow. And this weird blue light breaks it down. She has to lie under the light in just a diaper with a blindfold on.”

  “That sounds completely crazy.” Dan’s laugh was shaky, and Chris realized his mother was trying to use humor to reassure him.

  “It works, and it’s not that unusual. My friend Trisha’s older son had the same thing, and he’s fine. Arielle is going to be fine. And you are not going to worry.” She huffed out a breath before adding, “Danny, is that friend of yours there? The one we talked to a little yesterday?”

  “Yeah, he’s right next to me. Um, he’s listening.”

  “Good. Put him on.”

  Dan looked confused, but he passed the phone to Chris, who took it gingerly “Uh, hello, Mrs. Sobol.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot your name?” She made it a question.

  “I’m Chris. I mean, Christian Parsons.”

  There was a long pause. “Really? Never mind that. Dan says you’re a nice guy, but what I want to know is, are you a panicky guy?”

  “Not really. I don’t think so.”

  “Good, because in case you haven’t figured it out already, Danny is. When something goes wrong, he imagines the worst, and keeps imagining it until he makes himself sick. His father’s the same, which is why I shouldn’t have let Ben be the one to call him. So I need you to do something very important.”

  Chris didn’t hesitate. “Anything.”

  “When he starts worrying the light is going to turn Arielle into a huge blueberry so she’ll explode or something equally ridiculous, you say this and keep saying it: Stop.”

  “Stop?”

  “Yes, stop. Tell him to cut it out, have a glass of wine, watch a TV show, kiss you, whatever he needs to do, but stop it.”

  Chris couldn't restrain himself. He choked out a laugh.

  “You laugh, but if I don’t tell you this, you’ll sympathize with him, and that you must not do. It makes him worse. Be firm.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Chris almost managed to keep his voice steady.

  Dan, listening in obvious mortification, grabbed the phone back. “Mom!”

  “That’s right, be mad at me. I don’t mind. I have to go hold your father’s hand before he makes your sister as crazy as he is. You be good, and I promise to text at least once an hour until bedtime.”

  Dan dropped the phone on the coffee table with an expression of disgust. “Well, that was embarrassing.”

  Chris held his hand, much as he imagined Mrs. Sobol was holding her husband’s. “I don’t know. Your mom is kind of sweet in a really, really forceful way.”

  Dan ducked his head as if trying to hide behind the hair that fell over his eyes. “She’s right. I do panic. I’m okay if there’s something I can do, but when I can’t…”

  “The adrenaline keeps pumping anyway. So it’s hard to talk yourself down.” He tugged Dan to his feet. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “First to the kitchen, where I’m going to put the veggies in the fridge. Then to my bedroom so I can change, and then to your place so you can put on some sweatpants and sneakers. We’re going for a run.”

  Dan shuffled his feet. “Um, I run like a girl.”

  “There were girls on my school’s track team. We don’t have to do a four-minute mile. We just have to work off some energy.”

  Dan was a perfectly competent runner, but he didn’t have much speed. Chris assured him that wasn’t important, and they jogged around their neighborhood, up Victoria Terrace, down Agin Court, then onto Mansfield Parkway until it linked to Court Darthur, then back to Victoria Terrace.

  By the time they returned to Prince Albert Circle, Dan’s phone had buzzed once with a text from his mother saying she and Sharon had spoken to the doctor, who was pleased with the baby’s progress. A few minutes later, she sent another message saying she’d sent Arielle’s father and grandfather out for food, because she was damned if she was going to eat one more meal in the hospital cafeteria. Dan seemed to find the second text most reassuring. “If she’s worrying about food, she’s sure things are going to be okay, not just pretending to keep everyone else from panicking.”

  Dan was heading back to his place, but Chris grabbed his hand. “Come home with me. We left the menorah there, and I need to start cooking.”

  “I need a shower.” Dan shoved his hair out of his eyes. His skin was glowing from the exercise, and he’d worked up a decent sweat.

  Chris smiled, showing his teeth. “I have a shower.”

  Dan was still distracted, because he didn't catch on immediately. “I thought you were hungry.”

  “Like your mom, I’m relieved your n
iece is okay. But that’s made me think of something besides food.”

  The damn pipes in the shower stall rattled, but Chris barely noticed. When Dan went down on his knees, the entire ceiling could have crashed down and not destroyed his mood. But the water started to run cold before he could return the favor, and he had to bundle Dan into a towel and onto his bed so he could reciprocate properly.

  He was pleased with the way that strategy played out when Dan sighed, curled up with a satisfied smile, and dozed while Chris made dinner.

  They ate in the living room. Dan sat on the couch, his plate on his lap and his phone next to him, while he watched the candles flicker in the window.

  Dan’s family called intermittently all evening, and by the last conversation even his father sounded positive all would be well.

  They went to sleep without making love again. But they shared the same bed. As Chris drifted off, still holding Dan, he wondered if that made them a couple. Surely it was a relationship if you slept together without fucking first?

  Chapter Seven

  Seventh night—Tuesday

  Dan slept soundly and had to rush to make it to the office on time the next morning. He spent half the morning checking his phone for news while he pretended to work. He received a few cheerful messages from his parents, but wasn’t sure the crisis had passed until his sister texted him.

  Sharon: Mom says you need reassuring so I’m taking time out from my busy new mom schedule to say all’s well.

  Dan: That’s great.

  Sharon: We can take Arielle home today.

  Dan: Even better.

  Sharon: And I’ve been able to start breast-feeding her again.

  Dan: Ew!!!

  Sharon: Sorry. Forgot your gay-boy booby phobia.

  Dan should have known it would take her fewer than fifty words to start teasing him. Some things never changed. I do not have booby phobia. I just prefer not to think about them.

  Sharon: I bet you thought about them all the time when mom was using hers to feed you.

  Dan: I’m sticking my fingers in my ears and singing real loud now.