Chapter Twenty-Six
I t was a gorgeous Friday afternoon. The sun was shining, and Aaron’s car was speeding up the highway, precious cargo in the trunk. The babka was on Samuel’s lap and life was good.
So was the conversation. Tommy was talking about something happening with one of the baseball teams he followed, and Aaron was asking about a documentary that Tommy had watched.
Very familiar, very comfortable.
Except there was something that Samuel needed to do. If he had a chance of making it out the door in time to catch dessert at the Nachmans’, Samuel had to inform his brother about what was going on, and maybe enlist his help in getting out the door.
Which wouldn’t be possible if either his brother or his brother-in-law stood in his way.
“So,” Samuel said as Aaron drove up the highway toward Briarwood, “I’m going to leave before dinner’s over, take care of some business at the Nachmans’.”
There was silence in the car, and Samuel could see his brother do his best to glare in the rearview mirror. “You’re doing what?”
“Watch the road,” Tommy interjected, thankfully. “Stop glaring at your brother.”
Yep. As far as Samuel was concerned, there were, in fact, benefits to delivering this information in the car where Aaron was driving and Tommy was sitting in the passenger seat.
And yet he still had the question to answer. Or rather the information to deliver once again. “I’m going to Nathan and Shayna Nachman’s place tonight after dinner, hopefully to catch dessert.”
There was a long pause before Aaron answered. “I’m not sure whether I’m more offended by you leaving us with Mom and Dad or you taking the babka.”
“The babka,” said Tommy, sure of himself and his husband, and of course most likely correct. “Because you don’t know what’s going on and whether you think they deserve the babka.”
“Right you are,” Aaron replied as Samuel added an internal tick mark to the score he was keeping. “Okay then. So?”
Now was the fun part. Samuel managed to find the words to explain what had been going on with Leah, at least the best way he could. “So anyway,” he said, “when both Leah’s nephew and future brother-in-law told me that I needed to come tonight, I realized I needed to make it count.”
“So you’re going to hope that the babka is enough to convince Leah that you’re worthy of the time she has?”
He shook his head. Aaron and his obsession with babka that was or was not his amused him. “Babka is for her family,” Samuel clarified for his brother’s benefit and need to know where all babka was at all times. “The reason I asked you to drive with your larger car is what I’m hoping to use to convince Leah I’m worthy.”
“Speaking of using things,” Aaron said. “I liked your letter to the congregation in Virginia.”
Going from babka to work matters, but that was also normal—if not slightly dizzying—conversation between him and Aaron. All the same, Samuel adjusted himself to the swerve in topic and nodded. “I think I’d like to prepare myself to write a Sefer Torah in the future, but I’m not ready, not now.”
“Indulge me,” interjected Tommy. “But what exactly do you have in that back seat? Do we need to worry about the condition of the trunk after you take it out?”
From the back, Samuel laughed. This wasn’t Tommy’s car exactly, but it was enough his for him to be interested in the condition of the car. But the idea, the contents?
What sat in the trunk, the object of Tommy’s concern, had been the result of a random idea…and yet it seemed like it would possibly, potentially work. He’d listened to Bryce and Asher and Shim and, in the end, Samuel decided that what was really important was a fresh start. And the item he brought needed to symbolize that, not a recycled piece of someone else’s history, or even their own.
So when he’d gotten back to his apartment after the class on Thursday, he’d racked his brain, trying to figure out something that would be symbolic enough to fit the situation. To demonstrate that his mind wasn’t on the past, that it was on the possibilities of their history, their future.
Something new.
And then it clicked.
He’d stood, staring at it as if he’d seen it for the first time. Leah had even pointed it out so long ago while they were talking about contracts.
This was it.
And so he managed to wrap it up, frame and all, and hope his brother, with the bigger car and the bigger trunk space, would be able to bring him to Briarwood.
“No,” he said. “It’s not a messy thing, just big.”
Tommy snorted. “Hopefully it’s big enough to do what you need it to.”
And as Aaron turned into their parents’ driveway, Samuel nodded. “Yep. That’s what I’m hoping too.”
*
Leah knew exactly what she had to do the second Jamie’s words had sunk in. They followed her back to Manhattan right after the jewelry opening, followed her to bed and into her dreams that night.
Friday morning, standing in front of her closet, knowing the large wrapped package was inside, she made the executive decision to call Naomi. “I need you,” she said. “It’s an emergency.”
“Okay?” Naomi sounded confused, but that was okay.
“I need you to help me bring a painting to Shayna’s.”
“A painting?
“A print, something, whatever it is,” she said, knowing that all she’d been doing was carting it around the country with her, not opening it. She hadn’t actually looked at it, didn’t even know what condition it was in since she’d wrapped it up the first time one week before the infamous high school breakup.
Which was a problem.
“Right,” Naomi said, interrupting Leah’s train of thought. “I need to meet Livvy in Briarwood before Shabbas so it’s a good choice.”
“Good. I’m glad. Meet me at my place as soon as you can.”
Of course a few hours later, she was settled with her cousin in the car on the way to Briarwood, the painting strapped in the back. “Thank you,” she managed. “I appreciate this.”
Naomi said, “I have one question.”
“Okay?”
“What’s this for?”
Which wasn’t the question Leah expected her cousin to ask, but she went with it anyway. “It’s a very long overdue gift to someone who I’ve always been tied to.”
“Tied to?” Naomi said. “Um…”
“Did you ever know that strings and being tied together are cross-cultural when talking about relationships and people?” Leah asked instead of admitting it. “Tangled webs that tie people together, red string of fate, the strings that tie you to your bashert, invisible strings that connect people? They’re all slight variations on the same idea, and I think it’s very cool.”
“You’re seriously talking about philosophy right now?” Naomi asked. “That could only mean one thing.”
“What?”
“Samuel. You’re really feeling things about Samuel.”
Instead of denying it, she nodded. “And hopefully this painting will also be what reminds him that I don’t just have them now. That no matter what’s happened between us, no matter how much I’ve tried to deny it, I always have felt things about Samuel.”
“Who are you and what happened to my cousin?”
Leah laughed. “Yeah. I don’t know. Life? Miracles? Fate…”
“If you say some variation of fate one more time…” Naomi quipped. “Now, to avoid the fate conversation, I have another question for you.”
“What?”
“Why am I here and not Judith?”
There were so many reasons, but Leah focused on the important ones, the positives. “You and Shayna have been there for me through this whole adventure. You didn’t judge me, didn’t stare and hope for more when I told you what I thought was going on. So I called you.”
Naomi nodded. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” And as they turned in to Shayna’s house, Leah realized that she was looking forward to whatever was coming next.
And she hoped she knew what it was.
*
Challah, candles, wine, dinner, not in that order, but those things combined with a white tablecloth and good people around the table made for the perfect Shabbas.
Tommy had his tsimmes, Aaron had to be stopped from taking most of the kugel, and there was soup, and his father’s favorite matzah balls, that started everything off. There was even gefilte fish that reminded him of the conversation he’d had with Leah on a Queens night.
But after all of those appetizers and some amazing chicken, Samuel needed to go. “I love you all, but I need to head out for a brief second. You won’t miss me,” he said.
“You need the car keys?” Aaron asked under his breath.
Samuel appreciated that his brother was trying to be subtle, but this wasn’t subtle on a Friday night, not to mention that Samuel had stashed the package upstairs in preparation for the need for a quick departure. “No,” he said. “It’s fine.”
Aaron nodded, but the expression on his brother’s face when he turned back toward Samuel looked like he’d been caught eternally silently screaming, jaw seconds from hitting the table. Because of course, it was Friday night and their father had a look on his face. Not just any look, but the indescribable look of incredulity, reserved only for the impossible.
His mother was the one who spoke; maybe she could be reasoned with—respect was necessary on a Friday night, no matter how old you were. Not only to family, but also the tradition.
“Where are you going?”
Samuel could almost hear his brother whispering to Tommy, probably something like ‘this is going to be interesting’ in not so dulcet tones. And yet at the same time, Samuel was very well aware that things would have been vastly different, and louder, had he not informed his brother and brother-in-law what was going to happen.
“To the Nachmans’,” Samuel said. “I need to talk to Leah.”
Predictably, his father, unimpressed, raised an eyebrow. “Before we’re done you have to leave?”
And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? Nobody left Shabbas dinner so quickly. But things were going to be different, and miracle of miracles, his mother smiled. “What, and not watch you sleep in front of the baseball game?”
“It’s appointment viewing,” his father replied, focused as usual on the years of tradition Samuel was about to break. “I can’t sleep without his dulcet tones yelling about how annoying the announcers are.”
Which they often were, unless the game was being broadcast on the home network. But that was another conversation for another time.
“Games on Union Sports,” Tommy interjected. “So the announcers are fine.”
“Let him go,” Aaron added. “He’s got to get his girl.”
“You’ll bring her back?”
Which was a question from his mother but could have been anybody asking.
“I might. But if there’s news to tell, I’ll tell you.”
“Good,” his mother said as his father and Tommy went off to watch the game. “I always liked her, and I never understood what happened. I hope the two of you can figure this out.”
“Me too,” he said, as he left the dining room and headed upstairs to grab the package, looking briefly in the mirror to make sure he didn’t look awful.
Fixing that took some time, but when he was ready, he was clear that presentable was fine.
At least he thought so. All he knew, as he managed to get himself down the stairs and out the door into a beautiful Briarwood summer night, was that he couldn’t make a mistake. Not one.
Thankfully the location of Leah’s family’s Shabbas dinner wasn’t that far, which meant a nice walk toward a very uncertain future. And he’d do this, he’d convince her. Step by step.
*
Everything had to be perfect.
She barely managed to choke down dinner, Shayna’s attempt at creating her version of a beef stew she’d been eyeing for years.
It might have a place in Jewish culinary history, but this version did not deserve a place on Shayna’s regular menu. It was, to put it mildly, horrible.
“I don’t understand,” Shayna said. “I followed the instructions, used the perfect cuts of meat…and yet.”
Thankfully, as everybody was discussing how to pronounce the name of this dish, Leah got up and left the room, grabbing the bag she’d left just outside Shayna’s study.
Wine. Glasses. And the painting, perfectly propped up against a bookcase, still wrapped.
She stepped back and looked at her handiwork.
Perfect.
It had to be.
Of course, there wasn’t even a knock, but the slight creaking of door hinges.
“What…”
“So,” Judith said, looking around. “What’s going on?”
“This is private,” Leah said. “Can you…”
“Go back to the rest of the family?” Judith shook her head.
Getting her sister out was going to be impossible.
“In fact,” Judith continued as she barged her way into the room, “I’m wondering why you’re creating what looks like a presentation area or, specifically an art gallery in Shayna’s office?”
Answering the question without creating havoc meant giving more information than she actually wanted to. But Leah knew that she’d never hear the end of it if tonight happened, when Samuel showed up, if she didn’t brief her sister in advance.
Which meant Leah had to start her tale at the beginning. “What you may or may not know is that after the expo, Samuel and I fake-dated. Contract, the whole deal.”
Judith laughed, a deep belly laugh, with sparking eyes Leah hadn’t seen from her sister in years. Which should have annoyed her, but for some reason it made Leah relax a bit more. “Are you kidding? Are you living HeartPix movies now?”
“HeartPix movies have people who didn’t know each other fake-date,” Leah explained, not arguing with her sister about why it felt so important to mention HeartPix movies. “Same with dramas. And in both cases, the couple ends up as fake-dating fails because all these people know is the good side of the person they’re contracted to…or otherwise fake dating. Samuel and I figured we’d stay fake and end with the contract because of our past. Anyway, don’t mean to go into detail, but suffice to say, we dove in, partially because you’ve been on this ‘everybody needs love’ thing, and also the gossip after the expo.”
“So it’s my fault you’re in the middle of a real-life yid-drama?”
Leah laughed despite the situation. “I figured that when Samuel and I broke up for good, you’d be happily married and your attention would be elsewhere, and not on me.”
“There is a lot to unpack there,” Judith said, “but you need to understand that I’m not going to stop worrying about you just because I’m married, or getting married. You’re my baby sister, and you matter. Your life matters to me.”
“Which I appreciate,” Leah said with a grin. “As long as you worry about me less than your wedding or your marriage, I’m fine.”
“Good. Glad to hear you appreciate my concern.” But then Judith sat up in her chair and folded her arms as if she was getting ready to hear some kind of admission or confession. “But now what’s this about the fact you’re now also a fake-dating fail?”
“Yes,” Leah managed. And so once again, she had to find words that would explain the situation she and Samuel had been through, up until the point. “I think that like so many of the couples in the dramas, especially the MCs with busy lives, it’s hard to see that it’s not the quantity of free time but the quality of it, and who they spend that free time with. So basically, I need to explain to Samuel that I’ve always cared about him and that the feelings I’ve caught for him aren’t recent. They’ve always been there.”
“Wait,” Judith managed amidst laughter that came out of nowhere. “Hold on a second. What is this? What are you saying?”
“I don’t want to say that Samuel’s my bashert, but what I will say is that it makes sense that so many cultures talk about relationships and couples through metaphors of tangled webs and strings that connect people. The private showing in here, you know, which is supposed to be private…”
“Yes,” Judith said. “I realize you need your privacy.”
“Thank you,” Leah said. “So are you leaving?”
“I will, but you need to tell me that you’re going to be as clear with Samuel about how you’re feeling as you’re being with me.”
That was easy. “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to be honest and vulnerable and lay my cards on the table, which is why I need the private showing.”
“I’m impressed,” Judith said.
Leah didn’t know exactly what to say, so she went with the basics. “Thank you?”
“You can do this,” Judith continued, making Leah feel…things she wasn’t ready to quantify. “And also, I’m right behind you. Even if you might not believe it.”
“I do,” she said, the words coming easily from a place deep inside of her. “I really do.”
“And after you fix things?”
Leah raised an eyebrow; this conversation had gone way too easily and way too well for that statement. “Yes?”
“You might want to thank your nephew and your brother-in-law. And you might want to get the door before they do.”
And as she left the room, Leah realized she’d never been so angry and yet thrilled at her sister’s meddling.
*
Samuel walked down the street, made the turn. Her parents weren’t living there now; they were in Florida most of the time, but he’d made this walk often.
Same street, the one with the dead end that curved when you weren’t paying attention. Her parents had kept their house in the single-story ranch style, but her brother had added a second story to his own house. On the same street as his parents.
His mind was going, recycling childhood memories and moments where he’d taken this walk on this street. He needed to focus.
And when he arrived at Nathan’s house, where Leah was, his heart started to slam against his chest, so hard he was afraid it was going to push through. But he stopped on a neighbor’s grass to try and collect himself package in hand.
As he headed up the driveway, he wondered if she’d be happy to see him or whether she’d slam the door in his face. Both were possible options, but he wanted to hope that if her family members were involved—her nephew and her future brother-in-law had both encouraged him—then there wasn’t going to be a slam.
Even if there was, he wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t walk away. She was too important to walk away from. Finally, he was standing in front of the doorframe, wood and glass separating him from Leah.
He rang the doorbell, took a few deep breaths and waited.
The squeak of the door opening made his heart pound again, but Nathan’s clear and obvious smile made him feel better.
“Oh good,” Leah’s older brother said. “You’re here. I’ll get…”
“Not necessary,” Asher said as he appeared as if out of nowhere. “She’s on her way; I hear the footsteps I think. All we have to do is look like we’re talking and she’ll…”
“What the heck is going on?”
And there she was—resplendent and gorgeous.
“You’re here,” she said.
“I’m here,” he began, the words he wanted to say tripping on his tongue, wanting to get out. “I…”
And that was when Leah shook her head, her hair flying back and forth.
“We’ll let you take over,” Asher said, making his presence known as if he’d turned invisible for a moment.
“I’ll deal with you two later,” Leah said as he watched Asher and Nathan leave, Nathan giving a weird-looking thumbs up as he left.
“Don’t mind them,” she said.
And now he was alone with Leah, in the alcove of her brother’s house, for the first time since the museum.
*
It was the noise she heard first as she emerged from Shayna’s study, voices: Nathans and Asher’s and Samuel’s. There were people separating them but none of them mattered in this context.
She somehow managed to convince Nathan to leave, though Asher’s involvement in this and that tie back to Judith had something to do with it for sure. But there she was, standing in front of him, his eyes wary, quizzical.
Samuel had never been quizzical before.
And he was holding a package.
“Leah,” he said, “I…”
“Don’t say anything,” she said, “let me talk. Because if you start talking I’ll never be able to get this out. And I have no idea what my brother-in-law or nephew did to get you here and I don’t want to blow this.”
He was silent, which was good.
“Come with me.”
She didn’t want to reach out her hand because hands before conclusions would always make her a terrible deal. So she took it for granted that he was following her through her brother’s house, tried to focus and not listen to his footsteps.
Except this wasn’t working either.
So, like Orpheus, she held out her hand. “Not looking back,” she said, “but I’m hoping for a better ending.”
Once again he didn’t respond, but she did feel his fingers wrap around hers, giving her this ridiculously false sense of security because she knew that at any second, all of it could fall apart and no amount of armor would fix that.
Finally, she arrived at Shayna’s study and she walked in, his footsteps behind her, her fingers wrapped around his because she didn’t want to let them go. Or him go, even.
And in the end, because she knew he needed to let go, she said, “You could close the door, if you want.”
He let her hand go, and the door closed and because she wasn’t looking, she didn’t see his face.
Until he turned and met her eyes. “Leah, what is this…?”
“I need to get this out,” she repeated, drawing the tears and the rest of the emotions she was feeling back inside of her. “I said that I was too busy, that I couldn’t spend time with you, be with you for real because I didn’t have time. And that was wrong.”
She paused, looked at him, watched his face. Watched for something .
“It was wrong because it’s not about how much time you have but about what you do with it. Because I got a promotion at work, the one I’d wanted. And yet it felt like garbage because I couldn’t tell you. And I couldn’t call you and I couldn’t…because I told you that you didn’t mean enough to me to fight.”
She heard his sharp intake of breath.
“Fight for us,” she continued. “Fight for what you said was bashert. Yes. Bashert, and I see that now.”
Silence.
Nothing.
“You probably don’t believe me,” she said. “And you have every right not to believe me, but—” she gestured toward the wrapped package “—you would probably believe this, something I got for you two weeks before we broke up in high school. I’ve been carrying it around with me for years now. I haven’t opened it. I haven’t done anything with it because I couldn’t have. I probably always knew I was going to give it to you, watch the expression on your face as you saw what I’d done…”
His jaw was tight, as if he was keeping it from falling and she didn’t know what to expect.
She forged ahead anyway. “So this is for you, for the past, for the present and for the future. And for the strings, tangled, tied, invisible, and ones that connect me to you.”
She watched, waited as he moved toward the desk, where she’d laid out the package. He cut through and opened the butcher-paper wrapping, slowly revealing and opening what was inside.
“You got me…” he managed, “a print from the hockey comics collaboration they did all those years ago. For graduation.”
She nodded, trying desperately to hold back the tears that were threatening to exit out of her, a geyser of unexpected reactions and upsets and nerves.
“Leah,” he managed. “You can do anything in the world. You don’t have to hide. I’m here. I always have been.”
And as he walked toward her, his arms opened, she had the feeling of coming home.
*
Samuel held Leah as she broke down completely in his arms. Upset, angst and nerves turned his shoulder soaking wet.
But he didn’t care, not at all. Because she wanted to be there.
“I’m here,” he said rubbing the back of her head, letting her cry. “I’m here. Here and now, as long as you want me to be.”
“How about forever?”
He smiled up at her. “I think forever might be in the cards. But.”
She raised an eyebrow, and there she was, his fighter. “What do you mean but?”
“I brought us something. Something symbolic. Something that says we can write our own story. Together. Starting anew.”
She nodded. And his heart was full. “I like that.”
And as she opened the paper to reveal the simple frame from his mantel, the simple drawing of white blossoms on snow, framed by a circle of branches.
“You remembered,” she said, tracing the ketubahs design with a finger. “An open playing field. Victory after crossing through the brambles and thorns.”
“Nobody else’s,” he said. “But ours.”
And then he did the most important thing. He stepped forward, put his arms around her and kissed her.
Hours later, after conversation over a very belated Shabbas dessert and a babka that Shayna had ready to go, he looked up at her. “How about we do this next week, with my family?”
“I like the idea. Not better than babka. But a lot.”
And all she could do was laugh, and close his mouth with a kiss that tasted like cinnamon, chocolate, and forever.
The End