by Natasha Díaz
Dad looks at me with apologetic eyes, though it’s unclear whether he feels worse that our one-on-one time has been cut short or that he has to be around Bubby for the next few hours. We hear the clanging of pots as Bubby begins to assemble her army of copper and wood, followed by the sharp crack of shells as she sloshes eggs into a bowl.
“I wanted to order from Mina’s and have a poker party,” my dad whispers, sticking his bottom lip out, playing up the immature distress to get a smile out of me.
“I am starved,” I admit.
The kitchen, thank God, has not been altered, and I hop onto my favorite stool at the island.
“So, it looks like you’ve had an interesting summer,” Bubby says.
Egg goop oozes down the thin wires of the whisk she points at me, eyes squinted and lips pursed as she cocks her head the same way my father did when he first saw me. He’d hate to know how easy it is for me to find similarities between him and his mother, but it’s impossible not to. They have the same marbled aquamarine eyes, equipped with laser focus and ready to cut through you to find out what’s inside.
“Umm, I guess.”
Bubby goes back to whisking but keeps her eyes on me; she isn’t giving up her interrogation without an answer that satisfies her nosiness.
“So you don’t like it there,” she pries, leading me with far less subtlety than she realizes. “Must be a bit crowded with her sister…”
“Anita.”
My father grunts at the utterance of his sister-in-law’s name, the same way Anita does if my mother or I mention his. A sizzle sends cinnamon-sugar mist under my nose—French toast, one of Bubby’s specialties. I have to swallow before I drool on the marble countertop.
When a plate slides in front of me, I automatically close my eyes for the prayer, ready to dig in.
“Honey?” my dad asks.
I open one eye to find both of them watching me with the same level of confusion I feel when considering the amount of effort to put into a “proper” selfie.
“Oh—sorry.”
The French toast slices like butter under my knife, and I make sure to add the smallest bit of cheesy scrambled eggs on top, a little salty with the sweet, before I take a bite. The same dish sits steaming in front of my father, but he doesn’t reach for his fork.
“Were you…praying?” He speaks as if saying the word transports a sea of bile into his mouth.
“No! Well, it’s what they do before dinner, just a habit.”
“Corinne knows you don’t have to do that. Ever.” My father jumps off his stool and flicks his plate toward Bubby. “You’re a Levitz!” he shouts with such misplaced fury I look away in embarrassment.
Bubby’s eyes, however, glisten with more hope than anyone with two shreds of morals has felt since Trump was elected president.
“That’s right!” Bubby is quick not to lose the power she has over him in his vulnerable state. “Why don’t you come to shul with me? Both of you! They have a mixer after services. Nevaeh could meet some kids her own age. Good wholesome Jewish kids,” she adds, and pushes the plate back toward my father, baiting him with the aroma of his childhood.
The power shifts to Bubby like she’s donned a coat of armor, and she takes the stance of a wolf, starved for obedience and allegiance. My dad lowers himself back onto his stool, weak and hungry and distracted by some deep-rooted pain.
“You can’t make me go to temple!” I shout. “You hate temple, Dad. You said it yourself: it’s about being a Levitz, not about being Jewish! That would be so…hypocritical!”
The words hit my grandmother like rusty nails, but I ignore her. I meet my father with acidic rage, strong enough, I hope, to burn through the despondency that has temporarily taken over him.
“See!” Bubby declares to my father. “I don’t know what nonsense that woman has put into your head for all these years, but you were raised with Jewish values, and you need your community around you now more than ever. You both do. This is a chance to take your life back, set it in the right direction.”
My father volleys between us, the woman to whom he owes his life and the girl he gave life to.
“Nevaeh, you do seem…different,” he admits.
“Of course I do,” I retort. “You’ve been gone for months. You don’t know how hard it’s been. You don’t know anything.”
There is nothing my father hates more than to be shown up. He has spent his entire career making sure he’s the best at everything, but especially arguing. His jaw tightens and the veins in his neck pulsate. Alarm takes over his face: his eyes widen and his mouth forms an O, almost like the choking victims in the Heimlich-maneuver posters that hang in fast-food restaurants.
“There are a lot of single women, Sammy,” Bubby goes on. “Talia Bernstein, a widow, God rest Gregory’s soul—”
“Mother,” my dad interrupts through clenched teeth, “it’s time for you to go.”
Bubby recoils, shocked by the unexpected plot twist of her dismissal. She drops a dirty mixing bowl into the sink with a clatter.
“Who is she?” Bubby asks, looking at my father.
My father turns his head so fast I brace myself in case it rolls onto the countertop.
“What?”
“Please!” Bubby holds a hand out to silence him. “You may hate me, but I still know you better than anyone, and you didn’t gut renovate your entire house for the heck of it.”
She walks toward the kitchen door and stops suddenly, coming to a terrible realization: “Another shiksa,” Bubby says with disappointment so thick the words choke her as they come out.
I have been unable to cry since the separation, but not for lack of trying. I’ve gone up to my spot in the attic and thought every sad thought I could think, but nothing. Now I feel the tears move toward my eyes, traveling from wherever tears are made. The pressure builds, ready to explode in a fountain of disbelief and disdain.
“It wasn’t planned, Nevaeh, but I did meet someone,” Dad confesses. “I was going to tell you when the time was right. It’s been hard for me too.”
His plea for empathy dries the long-awaited tears I’ve wished for.
“I wanted you to come home first and get settled, but she’s moving in, in a few weeks,” he says.
He doesn’t deserve my tears. He doesn’t deserve anything from me. From us. Mom can barely hold a conversation and he’s already moving someone in?
“I hate you.”
Those three words have never left my lips, not together, and once they do, I know why. Because as I say them, a piece of me dies.
And my father says nothing. So I push my plate away, get up, and go upstairs.
Chapter 7
The door to my bedroom swings open, and the familiar jingle transports me back to when I was seven. At the time, I was obsessed with Harriet the Spy and decided to booby-trap my room to protect myself from the evils that lurked outside. Shortly after, my mom put a ban on any and all booby-trapping, in perpetuity, because after a variety of my attempts to build anything sustainable with strings and buckets of paint, she was sick of cleaning my carpet every other day. I refused to leave my room in protest, but eventually, hunger took over and I had to give in. When I opened the door to creep out late one night for sustenance, I found a thin red string around the doorknob with a small bell attached, the type that would normally be found on a cat’s collar. There was also a Post-it stuck next to the knob that read:
Now you’ll always know if there’s an intruder! Love, Dad
That’s the father I know. The one who encourages me to be adventurous. The dad who pretends to be a hypnotist and waves a pocket watch in front of me as a distraction when I have a splinter so my mom can pull it out. The goofy guy who thinks dessert is an appropriate meal substitute and who does terrible impersonations of celebrities for servers in restaurants
. That man downstairs is a stranger. He’s a cyborg, a recently acquired body snatch.
I’ve never prayed in my life. On these past Sundays, when the pastor gives us a moment or two of silence to reflect, I count the seconds as they pass, or think about what I should read next or what it would feel like to be kissed in the rain. Asking an unknown force I’m not sure I believe exists to grant me the unattainable feels foreign, but I suppose that’s because up until now, I’ve never known desperation. So here, in my own personal sanctuary, with no instructions or guidelines, I ask whatever power might be listening for help. I ask for my dad to see he made a mistake and I ask for my mom to feel better and come back and fight for us. I pray for our family to be fixed. It feels childish, but I have no choice; I ask for a miracle, and then I sink into the thick down comforter on my bed and think about how things used to be until the sun sets and night comes and I drift off to sleep.
* * *
—
The knob on my door turns and wakes me from my deep slumber as my father peeks his head in. He looks terrible, as if he hasn’t slept since I saw him in the kitchen yesterday and hasn’t showered for longer than that. Before I have a chance to ask him to leave, he sits at the foot of my bed, tears streaming down his face.
His sad eyes search for a sign that he hasn’t lost me for good, and I feel myself move to him, drawn by love, even though I still feel boiling hatred with each heavy breath I take. I prepare myself for a performance, an opening argument to plead his case to this jury of one. He reaches his hand out.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Can you forgive me? Can you let me make things right?”
It’s not just his words; it’s the conviction with which he says them. I barely want to exhale for fear of reversing the magic from whoever or whatever heard me last night and granted my wish. I squeeze his hand, temporarily swapping roles as I assume the position of protector and comforter to his sad, broken soul.
My stomach makes a noise that sounds like an alien underwater.
“You must be starving,” he says. “Why don’t I whip us something up?”
He hugs me before he gets up to go, and I breathe in the familiar smell of Old Spice deodorant that clings to his soft T-shirt, perhaps the one thing that will never change about this place.
* * *
—
My hair falls in crimped waves around my face as I take each braid out in front of the mirror. Jerry was right, I think, and I make a mental note to tell him as I get into the shower and let the hot water soothe my sore scalp.
* * *
—
Hunger pulls me downstairs, but rather than a greeting of French toast and eggs, I find my father sitting with an older white man and a young white woman in the living room.
“Hello?”
My dad jumps up as though my presence is unexpected. “Nevaeh!”
The older man nods in my direction, his eyebrow raised, a cue for my father.
“Nevaeh, this is Rabbi Avner.” My dad motions to the man. “And this is Rabbi Sarah. Why don’t you take her to the kitchen for a drink so Rabbi Avner and I can finish up?” he suggests.
Their eyes follow us as I lead Rabbi Sarah toward the kitchen, and they wait until we are out of earshot before resuming their hushed conversation.
“Are you hungry?” I ask as I pour two waters. She shakes her mop of frizzy dirty-blond hair no. I hand her a glass.
“So…when did you move into the neighborhood?” I ask her.
Rabbi Sarah walks around, mesmerized by the fancy silver appliances, touching everything with her fingertips as she goes. “We don’t live here,” she says with the thick, old-school New York accent usually associated with guys named Marty or Sal or Jimmy the Nose.
“Oh, sorry. I just assumed. Is your dad a client of my father?”
“Rabbi Avner isn’t my father,” she replies.
Rabbi Sarah sits down and drains her glass. She’s probably in her late twenties. Her paper-white skin is thin and delicate in a way that makes me look really ethnic by comparison. There are about a million evil eye bracelets running up her arm and five or six piercings in one ear.
“Sorry, your…husband?” I mumble from inside the fridge as I search for a quick snack before I faint.
“He’s not my husband either. He’s my boss,” Rabbi Sarah says.
I grab a handful of shriveled grapes that might already qualify as raisins and practically swallow them whole.
“So let’s talk shop for a second,” she goes on. “What’re you thinking about schedules? This is my first time workin’ solo with a student. Do you know any Hebrew, or are we starting at square one?”
I stare at her. “What do you mean, working solo?” I ask as the overly sweet and sticky fruit stops halfway down my throat.
Rabbi Sarah’s face turns whiter than it already is, and a sinking feeling comes over me. The kind that starts in the bottom of your stomach and the top of your throat at the same time and travels from both directions to meet in the center of your chest, where it sits heavy and hard.
“I’m sorry,” she says, unable to undo what she has done. “Maybe we should wait for your father.”
“Daddy!” I shriek.
Startled, her glass falls in slow motion, shattering on the marble floor just as my father and Rabbi Avner run into the room to see what’s going on.
* * *
—
I take back everything I said about prayer and miracles, because whoever or whatever heard me last night is evil and clearly wants me to die a terrible, horrible, painfully embarrassing death. Last night before I passed out, I was sure it had been the worst day of my life, but today has surpassed the nightmare that was yesterday and it’s only eleven a.m.
“Nevaeh, Rabbi Avner and I think that with all the changes, and living between two houses, it would be good for you to have someone on this side of things to help you navigate the transition,” my father says in his official lawyer voice.
“This side of things?” I ask.
The slick leather on the love seat keeps sending me sliding forward in my shiny black spandex pants. I pull myself up.
“Nevaeh,” Rabbi Avner begins, “your father reached out to us because this is a fragile time in your life, and we believe that weekly sessions with Rabbi Sarah to study the Torah and prepare for a coming-of-age ceremony would do you well.”
My father’s sunken eyes dart between us as he hangs on the old man’s every word like a drowning victim being thrown a lifeline.
“Did you say coming-of-age ceremony?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Yes. Mr. Levitz mentioned you have not been active in the temple and that your thirteenth birthday passed without a bat mitzvah, but now we have a chance to make up for lost time,” Rabbi Avner says. “This is a good way to find your footing in the religion. I have no doubt it will come naturally. After all, it’s in your blood.”
He makes it sound so simple. As if all I need to do is take a DNA test to feel comfortable in my own skin and resolve a lifetime’s worth of confusion and guilt.
I whisper, “Please, you can’t make me do this.”
I have three years left of high school. Three years of walking the halls of a school I’ve gone to since kindergarten. Three years left to keep myself in the shadows and out of the spotlight. This is the year I turn sixteen, and I was already hoping to avoid a party for that, but this…this will lead to a total social collapse.
I barely know what it means to be Jewish; it’s the one part of myself I never had to worry about because my father told me I didn’t have to. He said he and I were Jewish by birth, but we didn’t have to be religious. This bat mitzvah will be one more thing for me to wonder whether I have a right to claim. One more thing that makes me feel foreign to myself. One more thing to remind me I am different and don’t deserve a voice because ho
w can I speak on anything when I don’t know who I am or where I belong?
“Nevaeh, this is a serious time in your life, and you need direction!” My father yells at me the same exact way his mother yells at him.
I rack my brain for a different angle, because the look in my father’s eyes tells me the window for any sort of rational decision-making is closing at a rapid pace, but nothing comes to me. Rabbi Sarah enters with a plastic bag filled with shards of glass.
“Sorry to interrupt. I just wasn’t sure which bin to throw this in….There’s like five garbage cans in the kitchen.”
Rabbi Avner clears his throat, silencing her in the midst of our tense negotiation.
“Rabbi, I can’t thank you enough for all your help. I’ll be in touch soon with Nevaeh’s school schedule and we can go from there.” My father rests his case.
“I’m really looking forward to working with ya, Nevaeh.” Rabbi Sarah winks and smiles, but my silent glare hangs between us like an axe ready to drop from the ceiling and chop one of our heads off.
My dad gets up and walks them to the door. He returns, surprised to find me still standing there.
“I meant what I said, honey. This is all in your best interest, I promise. It doesn’t seem like it now, but when you’re older, you’ll thank me.” His paternal voice sounds forced, like he isn’t sure he believes it himself.
“I bet that’s what you said to Mom, and look where it got her.”
I walk past him, careful not to break eye contact, and then stomp up to the second floor, where I slam my door so hard that the little bell falls off the knob and rolls away.
The giant purple beanbag chair I spent a year campaigning for slams down in front of my door as a barricade. The chair cocoons me and I settle in, adding the weight of my body to ensure no one can interrupt. I turn the pages in the book so fast they create a furious wind that makes my loose curls bounce around my shoulders until I find an empty one.