His praise makes the heat rise again, and Levy’s eyes fall to my roasted cheeks. He raises his brow, brother-speak forwe’ll talk about this later.
Not if I have any say about it.
“That’s kind of you, Ant,” I say. “And Ig…Nacho, you look very handsome this evening.”
He acknowledges me with a confident smile and shy eyes as he holds up two bottles of wine.
“That’s so generous of you. You didn’t need to buy two bottles.”
He shakes his head. “One of these is a nonalcoholic sparkling dark grape. I looked up Shabbat dinners and wasn’t sure if you did anything with the wine or not.”
“How thoughtful.” I take them from him, noting that the alcoholic one is kosher. I show Levy, and we both smile.
“Should I chill these?”
“The guy at the store said to serve them at room temperature. Though—uh, did I choose the right one? I mean, for you guys?”
Levy chuckles. “Actually, I’m pretty sure it’ll be the only thing on the table that’s truly kosher. Which would make our mother very happy.”
My eyes track the nervous bobbing of Nacho’s Adam’s apple, and it makes me want to settle him, give him something to do to get him out of his head. Levy would definitely pick up on that, so instead, I usher him into the dining room just as Biyu quietly joins us, with Smokey as her little white shadow.
We’d all practiced with our translator apps before her first Friday night dinner with us, but then she begged us to stop trying to hold a conversation with her. Something her human translator eventually translated to, “Americans are too loud at dinner.”
Probably true.
Anyway, she seems okay to eat quietly with us as background noise, which I still view as a win.
Now that we’re all assembled, we stand around the table and, nervous, I begin the dinner the way I always do.
“Now that the sun has gone down and the work is done, we welcome a day of rest and the chance to appreciate all the good things of this week.”
I turn to Nacho. “We go around the table and say one good thing that’s happened this week, one thing we appreciate, and one thing we are leaving behind. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to.”
“I would love to participate,” he says quickly. Grimacing, he continues, “I don’t know if I’ll say the right thing, but I would love to participate.”
“Then we’ll go first, and you can see the kind of things we say. Would that be helpful?”
He nods, and I pat his back, wishing for so much more. His chest rises, and I linger for as long as I dare.
As is the Barlowe family custom, we start with the youngest person. Since Biyu doesn’t like to use the translation app at the dinner table, she emails her three things to her translator in advance, who sends them to me, and I read them aloud to the table.
Pulling up my phone, I read, “I slept through the night without nightmares. I appreciate Levy for finding the candy from home that I like, and I’m leaving behind—”
I stop, my voice catching in my throat. Biyu looks up, and I point to the part I’m translating. She quickly—so quickly—touches her chest, then refocuses on her plate.
“Uh. I’m leaving behind despair. I choose to hope that I will see my family again.”
My voice cracks a little at the end, and Levy squeezes my hand.
“Xiè xiè, Biyu,” I manage, thanking her as best I can.
“Xiè xiè,” Levy and Ant say to a modest smile from her.
She hates being the center of attention, so I’m grateful when Ant goes in with his three for the week.
“I got a free chocolate croissant and fancy coffee after I stood up for myself. I appreciate that we had a nice customer earlier this week, and I’m going to leave behind the resentment I feel about not being made a part of Justin and Charlie’s wedding.”
“Thank you for sharing,” Levy and I say in unison.
