We would have to wait and see, and what a vision to look forward to.
That night, we put on the Hanukkah play.
We dressed in the most elaborate outfits we could create. I wore a white blouse with long puffed sleeves cinched at the wrists, tucked into a red maxi skirt I stole from Aunt Liz’s closet, with a gold silk scarf wrapped around my waist. Abby and I drew dark eyeliner and dramatic lipstick on everyone who wanted it.
“I never knew a handmaiden could look so good,” Tyler said, giving me a small, conspiratorial grin. He’d spent the afternoon helping various cousins run lines or find last-minute details for their outfits. He’d moved furniture around the great room, setting up a temporary “stage” by the fireplaces, bringing out wobbly cardboard columns for the temple and moving potted plants. He even helped the littles hand out programs to the somewhat bemused adults. The audience barely outnumbered the cast: twelve parents, two grandparents (and baby Steffie)—along with Tyler’s parents, who Iris had magnanimously allowed him to invite.
The cast piled on couches with less direct views of the cleared-off area functioning as a stage, dressed in flowing skirts and cardboard armor and whatever non-denim pants the triplets had deemed historically accurate enough. Tyler sat beside me as the triplets strode out to enthusiastic applause. Lily wore a long skirt and a scarf holding back her hair. Rose, as a rebelliousMaccabee, wore... leggings and a white blouse? Sure. Iris, who should have been wearing General Holofernes’s armor, wore a black turtleneck.
“Here we go,” I whispered, squeezing Tyler’s hand.
“Welcome, everyone!” Iris shouted. “Welcome toThe Maccabees and Judith, a Hanukkah Story.” She looked at me, and I gave a slight nod. She took a deep breath. “We have a casting change to announce. The part of Judith will be played by Mrs. Helen Barbanel, and the part of General Holofernes will be played by Mr. Edward Barbanel.”
The adults gaped. My grip tightened on Tyler’s hand, and I tried not to break into nervous giggles. This had been my idea, after all, and maybe a terrible one, but what the hell.
Grandma looked like she very, very badly wanted a drink. “Oh no, dears,” she said, her voice diamond-hard. “We wouldn’t want to interfere.”
“But you have to,” I said, so wide-eyed and earnest I heard one of the boys snort. “It’ll make the play better.”
“We don’t know the lines,” she said flatly.
“Don’t worry,” David said. “None of us know our lines. We’re reading from the script.”
“Actually, I know my lines,” Ethan said.
“Do you know the kind of noises elephants make?” Oliver demonstrated with a long trumpeting noise. “I have other lines, but those are my favorite.”
Honestly, sometimes I thought I needed a whistle to keep my cousins’ attention.
Miri, at least, stayed on task, leaning forward from her seat to look at our grandmother. “Please, Grandma. We really want you to.”
“Please,” the middles and littles echoed. I deployed four-year-old Eva, giving her a gentle nudge so she would go forward and hug Grandma’s leg, staring upward.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, support came from an unexpected corner. “Why not,” Grandpa said. “Let’s have a go at it, Helen.”
Grandma narrowed her eyes, intensifying the human-melting beams directed at Grandpa. A silent standoff resulted, indecipherable on the outside, but perhaps they were using sixty years of history to read each other’s minds.
But then: “Fine.” She tossed the word out almost dismissively. “If you all insist.”
“This way,” Iris said. “We’ll get you into costume right away.”
“Costume?”
I got to my feet. “I’ll help.”
Grandma waved me off. “I don’t need your help.” She got to her own feet, but she didn’t brush me away as I followed her to her room. “I assume this is all your doing.”
“A collective effort,” I said. “We thought it would be fun for you to have a more active part in the play.”
“I don’t need an active part.”
“But you’ll get to murder Grandpa. Won’t that be fun?” I flipped through Grandma’s closet, which consisted of a lot of soft pants and structured jackets and sweaters. Cardigans and button-downs, everything exquisitely tailored. Not many dresses befitting a widow from two thousand years ago.
“Is this some sort of clever ploy? You think we’ll be on better terms just because I get the chance to enact a vengeful fantasy?”
“I would never go so far as to call us clever.”
If she’d been less elegant, I would have called the noise she made a snort. “Honestly, you children.”
