Who Do You Love(122)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“You know you always tell, like, everyone in the world to come,” said Adele. “Remember the year we left the door open for Elijah and Mr. Hammerschmidt from across the street wandered in?”

“Wandered is kind of judgmental. How about we go with came in?” Mr. Hammerschmidt had gotten a little forgetful since his wife had died, and one of the things he sometimes forgot was which front door was his.

“And that creepy little kid from two years ago. What was his name? Jason?”

“Jared.” Jared was the five-year-old son of that rarity in my line of work, a single father. After we’d explained about the afikomen—how a grown-up would hide it, and how the first kid to find it would get a prize—Jared had, very solemnly, followed Jay out of the room and refused to return to the table, even when we explained to him that witnessing the hiding made the finding sort of beside the point. “And he isn’t creepy, just little.”

My eldest gave me a very adult expression, a little incredulity, a twist of disdain. I suspected I’d be seeing a lot of that look as she entered her teenage years.

“So if you let anyone in the neighborhood just show up, why can’t Dad come?”

“Let Daddy come! Let Daddy come!” Delaney chanted.

“The Haggadah says you’re supposed to welcome the stranger,” Adele pointed out. “It says, ‘Let all who are hungry come eat.’ ”

“Let me think about it,” I said. Once we were home I retreated to the little room right beside our bedroom. It had been the nursery, but once Delaney was out of diapers, I’d moved her into a bigger bedroom and turned it into a small office, with a little antique desk and a pink-and-green rug on the floor, and on the walls, the pictures I’d had a photographer friend take of a three-year-old Adele holding her newborn sister in her arms.

I talked with Marissa, who now ran a bakery in Burlington, Vermont. I spoke with Sharon, a colleague at FAS, who’d become my yoga buddy and post-Amy New York City best friend. The verdict: can’t hurt. “You should at least find out what’s on his mind,” Marissa said. “It’s good for the girls to see you as a team,” was Sharon’s take.

So, grudgingly, feeling conflicted in direct proportion to which Delaney and even Adele were excited, I draped the rented tables in the lacy white tablecloths Nana had given me for my wedding, and set them with the china that Jay and I had gotten for our wedding that he’d graciously agreed to let me keep. The girls helped me prepare the Seder plate—bitter herbs for sadness, salt water for tears, a mixture of apples and nuts and honey and wine to represent the mortar with which the Jews had built pyramids for the pharaoh, matzoh for the bread that hadn’t had time to rise. Nana was in the kitchen, tasting her brisket, my mother was stirring the chicken soup that I’d made and frozen the weekend before, and my father was setting out napkins and silverware and sneaking peeks at the score of the basketball game on his iPhone when the guests began to arrive. Brenda and Dante, who now towered over his mom, came first, then Jared and his father, Ron, and Taneisha and her daughter, Sondra, a poised and elegant twelve-year-old in a belted white dress and matching sandals. Delaney’s eyes lit up when she saw a big girl. “I will show you around,” she said, grabbing Sondra and, I suspected, dragging her to her room to show her each of the dozens of stuffed animals that she’d collected and named.

Nana untied her apron as I looked for serving pieces. “You look lovely,” she said. I thanked her, hoping it was true. I hadn’t agonized over my outfit, but I had spent some time thinking about it, determined not to wear anything more special than usual just because Jay would be there, but wanting to look good, to show him what he was missing. Ten minutes before the doorbell started ringing, I’d settled on a dress I’d bought on sale at Saks, a tube of coral jersey, and a pair of sand-colored sandals with a little bit of a heel. The dress had three-quarter-length sleeves and my preferred high neckline, but it was clingier than the things I normally wore, tight enough to show my shape. I had finally shed the last few pounds of baby weight after Jay had left when, for the first time in my life, I’d become a woman who forgot to eat.

“Hello, ladies!” Enter the ex. My mother kissed his cheek and my dad looked up from his phone long enough to deliver a baleful, albeit brief, glare. The girls mobbed him, Delaney sprinting down the stairs to throw herself against him, Adele permitting her father a single hug and kiss. Once Jay had greeted them, he approached me, with flowers in one hand, candy in the other. “You look beautiful,” he said.