Chapter 7 Redemption Song #2
Meanwhile, Dan’s phone was ringing. Steve again. “So, here’s my question. Can we bring two desserts?”
Dan knew what Steve was thinking. Could they bring one vegan dessert and one good one? But he said, “I don’t think it would be fair.”
“You’re going all in?”
“Yeah,” said Dan. “And no complaining. Eat before you get here.”
“Would they be mortally offended,” Steve asked, “if we have nonvegan options at our seder?”
Dan took his phone out to the hall. “Look, at your house you can do whatever you want. We’re eating vegan because you know—they’re staying with us.”
“You’re vegan for the whole week?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Dan demanded.
Steve hung up.
“You’re antagonizing everybody,” Melanie said later.
“Not true,” Dan declared, but that weekend he lost it when he caught Melanie adding lentils to her vegan moussaka. “You can’t do that! No lentils on Pesach.”
“What?” Melanie stepped back from the kitchen counter. “What’s wrong with lentils?”
“We went over this!”
“When?”
“When we wrote the master list. When I ordered all the groceries. How did you buy lentils?”
“I figured you forgot them, so I just picked some up.”
“I didn’t forget. I thought we had a plan.”
“Maybe we should do two separate menus like Steve and Andrea.”
“We’re not cooking two separate dinners! We’re doing one dinner right!”
“Except you keep vetoing everything.”
“Obviously you can’t use lentils!”
“You’re making this impossible.”
“I am? I’m making this impossible? You were the one who said we should have a vegan seder.”
“I did not.”
“You said people use sunflower seeds.”
“Don’t you use that tone of voice with me,” said Melanie.
“What tone?”
“Listen to yourself!”
“I’m quoting your own words!”
“Against me!”
A van was pulling up. Dan and Melanie ran for the door.
Phoebe and Wyatt had arrived with their suitcases and backpacks, keyboard, cello, banjo, and violin. They were unpacking their Chevrolet Rocky Ridge Weekender—home, and command central for their alternative folk Bach—what would you call it? Revival? Silk Road Ensemble? Boondoggle?
“Hi, sweetie.” Dan hugged his long-legged daughter. “How are ya?” he greeted Phoebe’s boyfriend, although he never said how are ya.
“Oh my God, the house!” said Phoebe. “It’s so clean! You are officially minimalists now.”
“Not really,” Dan said. “We’ve got boxes in the garage, and in the basement.”
Melanie added, “We’ve still got our books.”
“A lot of people keep their books,” Phoebe reassured her parents.
“And your old music,” Dan said.
“Oh wow,” Phoebe cried out. “The kitchen looks incredible!”
“Well, there’s nothing in it anymore,” said Melanie.
“What are you making?” Phoebe glanced at the kitchen island heaped with tomatoes, yellow squash, russet potatoes.
“Work in progress,” said Melanie.
“We can cook!” Wyatt volunteered.
Phoebe said, “Just let us get some sleep and we’ll help in the morning.”
—
In the morning, Melanie was broiling eggplant. She had pivoted from moussaka to an all-vegetable lasagna with layers of broiled eggplant, zucchini, and fresh herbs. Dan took a long look, checking the ingredients.
Melanie started humming. The tune was unrecognizable, but the tone and timbre of her humming was familiar, high-pitched, and breathy. “Mmmhmmhmmhmmmhhhh.”
“Could you just?” said Dan.
“Mmmhmmmhmm.”
“Do we have grapefruits?” Phoebe was standing in the doorway.
“No, Dad threw them away,” said Melanie.
“Do we have spinach?”
“We can get some,” Dan said.
“You can get some,” said Melanie, because she was right in the middle, checking on the broiler while trying to slice potatoes thinly.
Dan asked Phoebe to come with him to the store, but she and Wyatt were busy researching flourless eggless dairy-free chocolate cakes, so he drove off alone, while Melanie kept cooking.
She grilled portobello mushrooms and diced tomatoes and cucumbers and chopped parsley for an Israeli salad.
She made vichyssoise and potato kugel and arranged the seder plate.
Nobody ate lunch, and nobody washed dishes.
By evening, Melanie lay on the couch with her feet up.
“Mom, you should try acupuncture,” said Phoebe.
Dan set out Maxwell House Haggadahs. “Done,” he said. “Now we need the wine.”
“I’m on it.” Wyatt ran down to the basement for the bottles, which Dan appreciated. To be clear, he did not hate Wyatt.
“Okay, we’re just about ready,” Dan said.
“Why do you keep announcing things?” asked Melanie.
“He’s getting ready to lead the seder,” said Phoebe, who had changed into a long black cotton dress which she wore like an apron over a white T-shirt.
But Dan would never be ready. His head was aching by the time Steve and Andrea and Zach and Nate arrived. Andrea came bearing a basket of spring flowers. Zach carried a giant salad.
“Oh, thank you!” said Melanie, and she set both on the table, even though there was hardly any room.
“Hey, Phoebe, I love your dress,” said Andrea. “Is that new?”
“New to me,” said Phoebe.
“Hi, Wyatt!” Andrea said. “How’s the music?”
Dan cut off the small talk. “All right, everybody.”
Everybody took their places, and with a steely look, Dan began chanting.
They took turns. They went around the table so that each person read one part of the Haggadah, but Dan set the pace (fast) and the tone (stentorian).
He was the director, assigning all the parts.
“Who’s the youngest here? Nate. Go ahead. ”
Nate sang the Four Questions in Hebrew while everybody followed along in English, beginning Why is this night different from other nights?
Wyatt began humming a camp tune after the last question. “Okay!” Dan cut him off. “Moving on!” And Melanie thought, On this night my husband is a control freak. That’s how he celebrates freedom from slavery.
If only she knew. Dan had ceded all control, relaxing standards entirely.
When he explained the items on the seder plate, he lifted a gnarly piece of ginger root and said, “This piece of ginger represents the shank bone which represents the sacrifice of Passover to the Lord who passed over the house of the Children of Israel when He smote the Egyptians.”
When it was Phoebe’s turn, she read in English of the enslaved Israelites crying out for help—and referred to God as she.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered the covenant She had made with them.
And the whole time, Phoebe was leaning against Wyatt, as if she couldn’t sit up on her own.
And She saw our affliction, Phoebe read.
Dan looked at her and thought, No kidding.
Meanwhile, Dan’s older nephew was texting at the table, and his younger nephew was tilting his chair back and back to the point that Dan yelled, “Stop that!”
“Dan,” Melanie chided, as though he was supposed to encourage Nate’s behavior.
None of it was right. None of it was the way it should be done, and Dan grieved. Not for a person, or a place, but for the unbroken recitation of the passage out of Egypt. “Our ancestors were slaves,” he said.
For a split second everybody looked at him. Dan remembered his own father who had stopped the seder once, demanding, “Doesn’t this holiday mean anything to you?” And then the moment passed. Phoebe and Wyatt were cuddling again.
When, at last, Melanie and Phoebe carried out the vegan feast, the family was ravenous.
Every last bite of lasagna, mushroom, and potato kugel vanished.
Talk about locusts. Not a leaf was left of Andrea’s huge salad.
As for dessert, the flourless, eggless, dairy-free chocolate cake was gone in seconds.
And after all the hours of cooking, chopping, and grocery shopping, Dan’s nephews were still hungry.
Nate finished off the matzo. Zach consumed all the parsley left on the table.
He didn’t bother dipping the greens into the salt water representing the Israelites’ tears.
Melanie thought, Why oh why didn’t I make pot roast for the rest of us? Why did I agree to vegan solidarity? And Dan poured a sixth bottle of wine and thought, We’re animals. We don’t remember anything.
“So, how’s the big tour?” Andrea said, turning to Phoebe.
Big tour? Dan thought. Is that supposed to be funny?
“What’s next?” Steve asked Phoebe. “Back to school?”
“Nope.”
“What happened to arts administration?” said Steve.
“Hey.” Dan was not going to listen to his brother interrogate Phoebe. Obviously, Dan had asked his daughter the same question, but that was different.
Phoebe said, “I realized administration is not for me.”
“An income is nice,” said Steve.
“Music is our lives,” Phoebe explained.
Steve smiled. No, he wasn’t smiling; he was smirking. “The only question is how to earn a living.”
“Drop it,” Dan told his brother.
Now the elders had the kids’ attention. At their end of the table, Phoebe and Wyatt, Zach and Nate watched, fascinated.
“Excuse me?” Steve said.
“You should talk,” said Dan, because his brother knew nothing about earning a living. He worked in academic publishing, for God’s sake. How dare he take this sanctimonious tone? “What were you doing besides smoking pot at her age?”
“Nice, Dad,” said Nate.
Zach was laughing.
For the first time, the boys were engaged, but Steve stood to go. “Okay, that’s enough.”
“Steve,” said Andrea. “We’re not done.”
“I think we are.”
“Go ahead. Goodbye,” said Dan.
Andrea and Melanie looked at each other in dismay. They maintained a certain bond, and they were wondering the same thing. Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way.
All watched. All waited.
Then, even as Steve stood in front of him, Dan opened his Haggadah and began chanting rapidly in Hebrew. Andrea shot Steve a look that meant You’re being ridiculous, and, also, You’re embarrassing me. At last, Steve took his seat and Dan raced through Hallel.
By the time everybody left, Melanie was so tired she was seeing dots.
“Time to clean up,” Dan said.