Chapter Twenty-One
T he following weekend, I’m at my childhood home in northern Connecticut to celebrate Passover and my mom’s birthday. It’s just the three of us tonight because Mom’s long-term boyfriend, Bob, is out of town.
My family isn’t religious. For the most part, Jewish holidays are limited to presents on Hanukkah and consuming large dinners on Rosh Hashanah and Passover.
We don’t do a full seder or keep kosher, but we have our own Passover traditions, like reading short passages from the same children’s Haggadahs that Audrina and I colored in as kids, playing hide-and-seek with a piece of matzo (the afikomen) to win a special “jumbo size” matzo ball, and, most recently, celebrating our mom’s birthday at the same time.
We started combining the occasions after Audrina and I moved out and it became harder to visit twice in the same month.
It works great for everyone except Mom, who has to cook her own birthday meal.
When we’re done with the main course, I stand from the table. “Can you help me with something, Audrina?” I cock my head knowingly.
She gives me a blank look before understanding washes over her face. “Oh, yes. Of course.” We giggle and race toward Mom’s second freezer in the garage like excited children.
“Whatever could my daughters be doing?” Mom wonders out loud behind us, even though she knows exactly what we’re doing since we’ve done it every year before.
Together we remove the Carvel ice cream cake from the freezer and bring it into the kitchen. “Cover your eyes, Mom!”
When we’re sure she’s not watching, we light birthday candles with the numbers five and four and bring the cake over to her. “You can look now!”
She opens her eyes, and we sing an exaggeratedly off-key version of “Happy Birthday.” To clarify, I’m exaggerating. No one would mistake me for Billie Eilish, but Audrina’s natural singing voice sounds like a screaming cat in a horror movie.
During cake, we laud our mom’s cooking skills. Growing up, Nana Lena’s meals were a given and therefore taken for granted. She’d spend hours cooking five-course meals with pleasure, yet we’d beg our mom to make her special ziti, which was only special because she made it.
Mom shrugs. “I can only take credit for the soup and chicken this year. Audrina made all the side dishes.”
“Did you like the maple-roasted carrots?” Audrina’s eyes, the same honey shade of brown as mine, widen at me with the expectation of praise, and it’s like looking at a slightly older version of myself except she dyed the golden hair we were both born with a dark auburn and wears it longer.
“I did.”
She smirks. “And yet you gave me such a hard time.”
“Because it breaks tradition.” I complained when I learned she was substituting the standard tzimmes, a Jewish stew made from carrots and dried fruits like raisins and prunes, with a new, “healthier” recipe she stole from Joy Bauer’s website.
Tasty or not, maple-roasted carrots are not tzimmes.
But it’s not like I have a right to complain about anything since my one measly contribution every year is the charoset—chopped apples and walnuts mixed with sweet wine.
It takes skill to mess it up, something I did only once, when I substituted Riesling for sweet dessert wine so I’d have something palatable to drink during the arduous chopping process.
As if reading my mind, Audrina says, “The charoset was impressive this year.”
I beam. “We can thank Marcia’s food processor for the consistency and the lack of Band-Aids on my fingers.
Speaking of Marcia,” I say, cutting into my slice of cake and making sure to include some of the sweet blue frosting and chocolate crunchies with the ice cream, “she had her first date in a decade last week. Carley did her makeup so she looked gorgeous.”
Mom’s eyes widen in interest. “How was the date?”
“Awful, but at least she’s trying.”
“Good for her. Maybe you can follow her example, Aud.”
Audrina responds to our mom’s suggestion with a noncommittal “Maybe” while using her fork to fiddle with the melting ice cream on her plate.
My heart splinters for my sister. She loved Kevin with every fiber of her being and still does.
Three years into their marriage, they legally separated when he claimed he felt trapped and needed to experience independence before he could start a life and family with her.
Last we heard, he was in El Salvador working as a long-term volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.
To change the subject, I say, “Nana Lena would be impressed with this dinner, Mom.”
“You don’t think she’d be jealous?” Mom chuckles.
“Oh, she’d be jealous, but also proud of you.
” Nana loved to complain about how hard she worked in the kitchen, but she also lived for the praise and wanted to be the only person who cooked for us.
One of my favorite ways to punish her was turning down a second serving even when I really wanted it.
My heart races and my throat feels full like I’m about to cry, but I’m not the only one.
When Mom meets my gaze, her eyes are wet too.
I’m poised to spoon another bite of ice cream cake into my mouth but drop my fork. “Are you okay?”
She wipes away her tears. “I’m fine. Just… she never treated me like I was her ex-daughter-in-law. I was her daughter. And she was my mom long after my own mother was gone. I miss her all the time but the grief comes in waves.”
“Me too,” Audrina says.
We’re silent for a moment until I speak up again. “I hate the way I treated her.”
Audrina leans forward. “What do you mean?” She was in college and out of the house for most of it.
“She loved me so much and I acted like I didn’t want her around half the time.” Half is generous.
Mom’s gaze penetrates mine. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“I don’t think I am.” I swallow the lump in my throat.
Audrina hands me a clean napkin, her expression rife with concern.
“What? Do I have ice cream on my face?”
“Probably…” Her lips quirk up. “But also… you’re crying.”
I touch a finger to my wet cheek. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Every time.”
“Talk to us,” Mom says.
I’d prefer to shrug it off like I usually do, but I already opened the door and the only way out is through.
My tears would make a hostile witness for the defense anyway.
I tell them everything: about rebuking her embrace the last time I saw her and how guilty I feel for refusing to spend real quality time with her during the last years of her life.
“I blamed her for what Dad did. Or didn’t do. ”
Audrina squeezes my hand under the table.
I squeeze back out of reflex, not because I think the support is justified.
“She didn’t deserve it. She loved me so much.
I never stopped loving her either, but I…
” My throat chokes up again. “It was like I had no control over my anger.” And then Mom called me at college to tell me she was gone and I immediately regretted everything. But it was too late.
Mom’s features soften as she steadies her gaze on me. “Lena wasn’t clueless about her son’s behavior. She wrongly blamed herself for not being able to rein him in, and she was a willing punching bag if it meant you had somewhere to direct your feelings of abandonment.”
Adam said something similar, but I don’t mention it out of reluctance to bring him up in conversation.
I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all.
Except not thinking about a crush you live and work with is not an easy feat.
I try to keep my distance at the library and in the apartment.
When I can’t, I force my brain to turn off the memory of kissing him and the feel of his hands on my ass.
Was it na?ve of me to hope for an “out of sight, out of mind” weekend?
“I should have sent you girls to a therapist, but I na?vely thought you were doing fine… that you didn’t need a father because you had me, Nana, and each other.
But there’s no substitute for a father’s love.
” She mutters “asshole” under her breath.
“It was his loss. I hope you know that. But while we’re being open and honest, I carry a lot of guilt myself. ”
Audrina and I look at our mom with matching expressions of confusion.
She tosses her napkin over the liquid remains of her ice cream cake. “Your grandparents rescued me when your father disappeared, and I let her practically raise you girls from preschool through high school while I worked all the time.”
“She wanted to help!” I argue.
“She was so proud of how hard you worked,” Audrina insists.
“Audrina’s right. She bragged about you all the time.”
“I just wish I thanked her more,” Mom says.
It never occurred to me that my mom also struggled with feelings of guilt over Nana’s death.
I hate this for her. “She knew you appreciated her. You thanked her by killing it at work. All those promotions proved it wasn’t all for nothing.
” My mother had a reason for not being able to attend our parent–teacher conferences or chaperone school trips and leaving us in the care of Nana.
The best reason of all—making sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table.
She would have shared this responsibility with our dad if he weren’t a garbage human who eschewed his parental obligations at every turn.
“With my own parents already gone since before we were married, I needed her desperately at the beginning. She and your grandpa paid off the mortgage on this home. I’m just glad by the time she died, it was me taking care of her financially rather than the other way around.
But I’m grateful she was there when I needed her. ”