Love You a Latke

Chapter 23

23

I didn’t think about where I was going, I just raced blindly from the room. Fortunately, not in the direction I’d come from, because I think the sensory overload of that ballroom might have made me full-on collapse. Honestly, I didn’t even remember the journey or how I got there; I just found myself in the hotel gym, the lights flickering on above me as I burst inside. It was empty, but it still smelled like sweaty socks and rubber. Trying to slow my heart rate so that it wouldn’t explode, I set myself down on one of the weight benches.

My phone buzzed in my clutch. I didn’t want to look at it, but I did. It was Seth. Abby, where are you?

Just as I let out a deep, shaky breath and started preparing myself to respond, the gym door creaked open. I jumped to my feet and braced myself for whoever was going to come in, so tense the weights on this machine could have fallen on me and probably just bounced off, but it was only Seth. “There you are,” he said. “What was that? Those were your parents?”

I nodded, unable to speak. And then, because it seemed very important to ask, “Did you believe them? When they said I had trouble with the truth?”

Seth’s face pinched with concern. “Of course not. After what you told me, I’d never believe a word they said.” He was quiet for a moment. “Did you think I might?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I shook my head. “My parents spent years warping everything around me. Playing games with my head, making me think I was crazy, punishing me for breaking rules I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know what was normal, and what wasn’t. All I knew was that it was safest—not safe, nothing was ever safe—if I didn’t share anything with them, because anything extra they knew they could use against me.” I wasn’t talking about this specific meeting anymore. I wondered if Seth knew that. I wanted him to know that. “So I was always afraid to share things with people. With friends. With you.”

Something glittered in Seth’s eyes. It took me a second to realize it was fury. It took me another second, one where I almost shrank away, to realize it wasn’t aimed at me.

That gave me the courage to go on. “And I think it became a habit I couldn’t break. One I didn’t want to break. Because what was the point? I never thought it was worth it to let people in. Or maybe it’s that I never found anyone worth it.”

“You’ve opened up to me,” Seth said softly.

I had. Maybe not as much as he would have, or a “normal” person would have, but I’d opened up and let him in. “And I think that’s why I freaked out so much when we kissed,” I told him. “The first time. Because I knew I was letting myself open up, and I panicked that I’d get hurt. But I…” I took a deep breath. “I’m starting to think it might be worth it. At least a little bit. With you. And I don’t want to close myself off again.”

“Oh, Abby.”

But I wasn’t done. “Losing my parents and closing myself off from the world didn’t only mean losing my family,” I said. “It meant losing the community I’d grown up in. It meant not feeling Jewish anymore. And it felt like a part of me was missing, like I’d lost a leg without noticing and just accustomed myself to hobbling around without it. But coming back to the community through you didn’t just make me want to be with you; it made my leg grow back. Or maybe gave me a really good prosthetic. This Hanukkah made me remember everything I was missing. And I don’t want to lose it again.”

Seth cupped my chin between his hands. “Abby,” he said tenderly. “Whether or not you choose to be part of your family, or whether you’re part of my family, you’re always part of this family. The Jewish family. You can never lose your place here. You can’t get rid of us. You’re home .”

It had been years since I’d cried for real, anything beyond a few tears while slicing an onion or getting teary when I was panicking really hard. But now the tears welled up and overflowed, spilling down my cheeks and splashing onto the rubber mats of the floor. My instinct was to duck my head and turn away, like somehow I could make it so that Seth hadn’t seen, but I forced myself to stay upright. Stay strong. Let him see. I knew he wouldn’t think I was weak for it. Hell, he’d probably say something inspirational about how strong I was being.

“Crying is a sign of strength, you know,” he said earnestly, and the tears melted into laughter. I nestled my cheek against his chest. He’d already have to get the tux dry-cleaned; a few tears—okay, a lot of tears—wouldn’t permanently stain. “It’s a scientific thing. The tears move stress hormones out of your body or something. It makes you feel better.”

These tears must have been transporting years’ worth of built-up stress hormones, then, because I could feel the tension in my body melting away. Not all of it, obviously—crying wasn’t some kind of black magic. But enough of it where I felt like I could be a little vulnerable again. “I don’t know if I want kids.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve never felt a superstrong urge to have them, but I don’t know if that’s because the only way I know of raising kids is how I was raised, and I could never do that to a kid.”

“I don’t know if I want kids, either,” Seth said. “If I do, it won’t be for years, at least. So we can figure that out later.”

I backed away a step so that I could look him in the eye. His hands fell from my cheeks to his sides. I missed their warmth. “Does Bev know that?”

Seth huffed a laugh. “You’d know if my mom knew. You’d have been able to hear her head exploding all the way from Vermont.”

I couldn’t handle not touching him for one more moment, so I took his hands in mine. “Then, you and me…”

“You and me,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. I matched it with one of my own.

Which faltered after I remembered what was waiting for us out there. “My parents are still here. I can’t…” I’d cracked myself open. I was vulnerable. Who knew what they might be able to dig out of me? It would probably be bloody. I imagined them cracking open my rib cage, inspecting my heart and lungs and viscera. As much as I wanted to go before them and show them how well I was doing without them, there was a significant chance I’d just crumble and revert back to my old self. I’d already panicked when I heard my mom’s voice.

Seth squared his shoulders. “I got this. Thanks to you.” He squeezed my hand. “Wait here. I’ll tell them you want nothing to do with them.”

He wouldn’t have been able to do that before. Maybe he hadn’t been kidding when he said I’d influenced him for the better. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

He gave me one last hug, and then he was gone. I sat back down on the weight bench, then gave in to the exhaustion tugging at my limbs and laid down all the way, staring up at the weights hanging above my head. This was probably dangerous. I didn’t care.

From my supine position, I heard the door creak open again. That was fast. I turned my head, expecting Seth, finding instead an elderly man wearing a sweatband and shorts so short I was treated to a full outline of his package. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me on the weight bench, my sparkly dress brushing the floor. “Wow. That’s dedication.”

Dedication. I snorted a laugh and swung around so that I was sitting back up. “I’m just taking a break from out there.”

“I get it,” the old man said, stepping up on the treadmill and turning it up higher than I could’ve gone on a good day. “It seems like a lot.”

But it was only a lot because of my parents. I hadn’t felt that overwhelmed by the rest of it, I realized. On the contrary, it was really nice to be surrounded by my culture and people, to not have the menorah and Hanukkah music be a small side plot to the usual giant Christmas trees and endless permutations of “Jingle Bells” or “Silent Night.” If anything, that was dedication, getting an event like this off the ground.

An event like my Hanukkah festival. I knew suddenly what I had to do.

I didn’t expect Lorna to pick up this late, but she did on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, Lorna,” I said, tone brisk and professional. “I have to talk to you about the Hanukkah festival.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “I’ve actually had some more ideas I wanted to talk to you about. There’s this guy who does ornament decorating, and I know that Hanukkah trees aren’t a thing, but I do know a lot of people have Hanukkah bushes, so I think—”

“Lorna,” I interrupted. “When I said I have to talk to you, that’s what I meant. Not that you have to talk to me.” I stopped, both a little shocked and thrilled I’d dared to say that to her face. Well, to her ear.

She must have been shocked, too, because she didn’t say anything in response. So I forged on. “Listen. This is what we’re going to do.”

When I hung up the phone, the old man on the treadmill, legs still pumping faster than they had any right to, looked over his shoulder and gave me a slow clap. “That’s right. You tell her.”

He had no idea what was going on, but it felt good anyway.

Seth chose that moment to return. His square jaw was even squarer with determination than it usually was. “All right. It’s done.” He held out his hand.

I took it. “Conflict looks sexy on you.”

He twirled me. My skirt fanned out in a circle, catching the gym lights and twinkling like the stars. It would’ve been magical if I hadn’t almost tripped over a stray barbell. “Come on. Let’s get back to the ball.”

And, as the bright lights of the gym transformed into the twinkling golden lights of the ballroom, as the sound of the old man puffing on the treadmill turned into the most beautiful violin moaning “Light One Candle” that I’d ever heard, as the entire ballroom’s voices rose up in song to fill each arm of the golden menorah with even more golden light, I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy.