Weather Girl(74)

“It’s my favorite necklace,” I say, grazing the lightning bolt with my thumb, and the warmth in her deep brown eyes takes me back to the day I graduated. When she hugged me, pressed the jewelry box into my hand, and told me she couldn’t wait to see me on TV. “Wherever you end up,” she promised, “I’ll eat breakfast or dinner with you every day.” I was still an intern then, hadn’t even locked down a job—but she knew I’d make it.

Somehow, I’d forgotten that.

While we’re waiting, and in part so I can prove to my mother that I can be very patient when it comes to food, thank you very much, I take Russell on a brief tour of the house.

“Unfortunately, she converted it to a guest room a few years ago,” I tell him as I open the door of what used to be my bedroom. “But just imagine some posters of Zac Efron, a star map, and a few more posters of Zac Efron, and you’ll get the idea.”

Meanwhile, Alex’s old room has been turned into an exercise room, a Peloton in one corner and a rack of free weights in the other. For a while, we squabble-joked about whose room got the better upgrade.

“I hope this isn’t too awkward for you. Meeting everyone like this.” I lean against the wall outside Alex’s room. I want Russell to be here, I do, but I can’t let go of what he said at the jazz club. “I just . . . don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

He settles himself next to me, grazing my arm with a few fingertips. In a perfect world, that light touch would be enough to convince me everything is okay between us. “I’m not. Are you?”

I shrug, because the answer is yes but it’s too complicated to explain all the ways in which I am uncomfortable in this house. “I was kind of hoping we could talk—”

“Dinner’s ready!” my mother calls from downstairs.

“Or eat,” I finish.

“We’ll talk,” he says, giving my hand a quick squeeze, and he must be able to sense my insecurity. “I promise.”

Shabbat dinner wasn’t a weekly tradition for us growing up, but every so often, we’d get out the candles and the good tablecloth. I’ve always loved the prayers over bread and wine, grape juice when we were kids, and as much as I’d have rolled my eyes about it when I was younger, the togetherness. The instant sense of community.

I take a seat between Russell and my mother, Alex and Javier and the twins squeezed onto the other side. There have never been this many people at our table.

As is the custom, my mother waves her hands and then covers her eyes after she lights the Shabbat candles. “Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat,” she recites, and I’m struck with another memory. Alex and me as kids, trying to write out the transliterated Hebrew words, our ridiculous spellings making my mother laugh until tears streamed down her cheeks.

All my memories of the holidays we observed—they were mostly good things. Even if these days, I only make it to temple during the High Holidays, Judaism is an integral part of my identity. My history.

My depression has warped so many of those memories.

“Where do you go to temple, Russell?” my mother asks between bites of lasagna.

“Technically, I don’t,” he admits. “Not regularly. But my daughter’s bat mitzvah is at the end of next month. This is delicious, by the way.”

Javier beams. “Thank you. I tried something new, adding the braised eggplant. We’re always trying to sneak more veggies into the kids’ food.”

Cassie and Orion are oblivious, their mouths already painted red with marinara.

“Have you been to Honeybee Lounge?” Alex asks Russell. “In Capitol Hill? That’s his restaurant.”

“Are you kidding? I love that place.”

Javier brushes this off, but I know he’s pleased, and I can’t deny that I am, too.

My mother assesses Russell with a furrowed brow. “Your daughter’s preparing for her bat mitzvah? You’re . . . very young.”

I stare down at my plate, wincing.

“It doesn’t always feel that way,” he says with a good-natured laugh. He must be used to deflecting.

“No judgment,” she says, and there has to be a limit to the number of times this evening can shock me.

Once I’ve relaxed enough to enjoy myself, something in the living room catches my eye. It’s a woven piece of art hanging above the couch, natural colors with pops of turquoise, and it definitely wasn’t there the last time I was. “Is that new?” I ask, motioning to it with my fork.

An odd flush covers my mother’s cheeks. “I started playing around with a loom when I was . . .” Her eyes land on Russell, and I can tell she doesn’t want to explain where, exactly, she was. “Away,” she finishes. “And I loved it. I’m not very good or anything, but it’s so calming.”

“Mom, no. It’s amazing.”

“Really? I’ve always admired the way you do your jewelry, and I thought it would be fun to have a hobby like that. There’s gardening, of course—did you see the flowers?” I tell her I did, and that they look great. “But the weather doesn’t always cooperate, as you know. I could make you one, if you want. Once I get a little better. In fact, it’s probably for the best if all of you take some off my hands so I don’t end up living in a house made entirely out of yarn.”