The Middlesteins(26)

*

After the Four Questions (asked, with great sincerity, by Daniel’s youngest cousin, Ashley, a nine-year-old girl with a booming voice), after the Plagues (Daniel’s father, earnest, blocky, bushy-browed, dipping his finger dramatically into his wineglass), after a noisy rendition of “Dayenu” (to which Robin found herself quickly remembering the words), after the gefilte fish and the matzo-ball soup and the brisket and the chicken and the chocolate-covered matzo and the caramel-covered matzo and the honey nut cake (all of which Robin ate too much of, which made her feel guilty and bad and then sad), there was the slow exit, everyone jamming themselves into coats, negotiations, good-byes, promises, wishes, dreams. A crowd of Jews trying to get home.

Who would drive Danny and his girlfriend to the train station? What a pleasure you are. How nice to see your face around here.

I’m not his girlfriend, she wanted to say.

When Robin saw two stray dishes on the dining-room table, an escape plan quickly formed, and she slid into the kitchen. Dishes, she could do dishes until it was time to leave. Daniel’s mother was in there, yelling at his father.

“All night I had to listen to her complain,” she snapped. “I cannot tolerate another second. Just f*cking drive her home. She’s your aunt, not mine.”

They both looked up, reflexive smiles skimming momentarily across their faces, ripples across a pond. They were too tired to pretend that it had been anything less than an extremely long night.

“Dishes,” said Robin, and she lamely held up the cake-stained plates. Daniel’s mother took them from her. “It was a very nice night,” Robin said.

“You are welcome in our home anytime,” said his mother.

“I’ll give you a ride to the train station,” said his father.



*

Somehow, he had conned her into this night with his family even though she was certain she had been trying to keep an emotional distance between herself and Daniel for months, since that first night they were together when she had whispered in his ear, “This doesn’t mean anything.” He had said nothing in return, which she took as an agreement, or at least an admission of acceptance. He was her neighbor, he was her friend, and she did care about him, but she never wanted to be in a relationship ever again. Because relationships were the worst. So many obligations. So many compromises. So many arguments. Someone always got destroyed in the end. Sometimes everyone got destroyed in the end.



*

They weren’t the only people returning to the city from suburban seders that night, but they ignored them and slunk down in their seats. Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out two of the rubber frog finger puppets, took Robin’s hand, and put one on her pinkie, then put one on his own. He banged the head of one frog against the other.

“I walked in on your parents arguing in the kitchen,” she said.

He shrugged and said, “Sometimes they don’t agree.”

“It was shocking.”

“Not all fighting leads to divorce,” he said. He pulled the frog off his finger and looked out the window.

“You’re an expert now?” she said. Suddenly everything about her was out of control: She wasn’t saying what she meant, her heart felt hot, her limbs were loose.

“Have you considered the possibility that your parents are better off without each other?”

Only every day since her mother had told her that her father was gone.

“Never,” she said, red-faced, sweaty, bloated with untruths. She had eaten too much of his mother’s brisket. She had a Tupperware container of it sitting in her lap that she planned on dumping out the moment she got home. Maybe she would dump him out along with it.

“Look, everything was fine up until then. It wasn’t an all-bad night, right?” He poked her. “Being Jewish for a night isn’t completely terrible.”

“I tuned a lot of it out,” she said.

“What is wrong with you?” he said. “How can you possibly hate it?”


“I don’t hate it,” she said. “It just seems to me like if you’re going to utter those words, be devoted and present and worshipful, be committed, then you should really believe in it. Really love it. And I don’t get why I should love it. Why it’s the right way and everything else is the wrong way. I never understood.”

“It doesn’t have to be that complicated,” he said. “You could just participate in order to feel connected to something bigger than yourself. It makes me feel safe. Not alone.”

“That’s what your friends are for,” she said.

“Sometimes friends aren’t enough,” he said.

“I remain unconvinced,” she said. We are going to argue about this for eternity, she thought.

“Can you just stop being so tough for a minute?” he said.

“No,” she said.

And would you hate her if she started to cry? Did she have you convinced that she really was that tough? Would you find her weak, a weak, pathetic girl, crying because she was losing an argument, losing herself, losing herself into him, and she hadn’t let herself feel that way in so long? Would you still want to know her, could you still respect her, if she was the kind of girl who cried when she realized she was falling in love?