He looked almost embarrassed. “Sometimes when I’m here, I drop by.”
Wow, wasn’t this a dinner full of whiplash. Dad did Shabbat without me? I couldn’t remember the last time Dad did Shabbatwithme. This felt as bizarre and unlikely as him announcing he moonlighted as a unicycle juggler at a circus. “Shabbat,” I said again, carefully. “Hm.”
Dad tugged on his neckline, the way he did when flustered. “I thought you might enjoy it.”
I probably would enjoy it. I liked Shabbat; I liked feeling part of something bigger than myself. But Dad rarely suggested doing anything religious. We went to Aunt Lou’s for the holidays and to temple on the high holidays, but after Mom died, we’d fallen off the Shabbat bandwagon. Mom had been raised Conservative andDad cultural; they’d landed on Reform Judaism for our family. But Dad—on his own—disliked organized religion, so now our observances were restricted to holidays.
Which was usually fine by me. Except—every so often I wished I’d had more exposure. At Aunt Lou’s, I hated how I was always a step behind everyone for each prayer and gesture. I was embarrassed how I needed to read the transliterated Hebrew, that I never knew what was kashrut or what the minor holidays were. I hated how I felt like I was bluffing my way through anything Jewish.
I’d never really talked to Dad about this because if I did, he’d feel guilty, and besides, what would be the point? We couldn’t change the past, and I was basically an adult now. If I wanted to be more involved with Judaism, I could be.
I’d never expectedDadto be the one to suggest it.
And the idea of Shabbat with the Barbanels made me nervous. They were proper Jews, who wouldn’t accidentally mix up the prayer for bread with the one for wine. I didn’t even know the handwashing one. God, I was getting sweaty just thinking about this. And Ethan Barbanel would see me being a disaster. Great.
“Cool,” I said, because what else could I say? I had no other plans all summer. “Why not.”
After Dad brought me back to Golden Doors, I borrowed a yoga mat from Ethan’s mom and took it to the widow’s walk. (“The roof walk,” she corrected me; maybe there were no widows on Nantucket? Maybe it was like Disney and no one could be declared dead on the property.) I spread the mat across the wooden boards, listening to the roar of the waves in the distance, takingin the glittering ocean under the darkening sky. This was the perfect place for yoga. I could watch the changing colors of the evening as I cycled through the poses, the buoyancy of the backlit clouds as they shifted from yellow to blue, the sky itself turning pink and yellow and orange.
Yoga reminded me to breathe and gave me something to think about—hips tucked, belly pulled toward the spine, head over heart. I liked poses so challenging they pushed every other thought out of my brain, so all I could think in revolved chair pose wasThis hurts so muchand in crow,Hope I don’t fall. Sometimes I didn’t want to think. I wanted a blank brain and a body wrung out like a washcloth.
But tonight, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t completely clear my mind.
Maybe it was good Dad occasionally spent Shabbat with the Barbanels. Maybe it gave him a sense of community. It clearly meant he’d healed enough from losing Mom he could do things that reminded him of her.
I was only four when my mother died of complications from open-chest surgery. I’d been told she downplayed the surgery to her friends. One year, when I was eleven or twelve, my mom’s old friend Irene had come over to see my dad on the anniversary of Mom’s death. She’d started crying. “I didn’t know it was so serious,” she’d said, over and over. “I didn’t know it could be the end.”
Irene, like many of my mom’s friends, treated me like a delicate flower. Pain and longing filled their eyes when they stopped by. I hated it because it made mefeeldelicate, when I was in fact all steel and edges. Though that night, with Irene, I only feltfury. Howdareshe make my father comfort her, this night of all nights?
Mom’s death was one of the keystones of my existence, but to my secret humiliation, I barely remembered her. Mostly, I remembered the afterward. I remembered the black velvet dress I wore to sit shiva, still folded in a tiny square in a box in my closet at home. I remembered Dad, red-eyed. I remembered how I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast for months when I’d never been allowed sugary cereal before. I remembered the pity.
But we’d made a good life, Dad and I. I liked our life, and I felt happy and complete and whole. And I thought Dad did, too, for the most part. I thought he’d healed enough for another relationship—but he hadn’t had one. I worried he focused so much on me, he forgot to focus on himself. I worried he used me as an excuse to not try to form romantic relationships.
Three months ago, we’d been at my aunt’s for dinner, and most everyone had been in the dining room eating dessert. I’d popped into the kitchen to refill my water and had come across Dad and Aunt Lou. Dad gazed out the window while Aunt Lou put away a few dishes. They hadn’t seen me—the kitchen was funny shaped.
Also, I’d frozen and backed up when I heard my name.
“—anything to upset Jordan,” Dad had said.
“She’s seventeen,” Aunt Lou had replied. “I don’t think she’d be upset.”
“It’s been the two of us for so long. I don’t want to introduce any complications…”
“Tony. I’m not suggesting you spring a mail-order bride on her. Just sign up for an app.”
“I don’t even know what apps to use.”
I could practically hear Aunt Lou rolling her eyes. “It’s not that hard. You want a romantic relationship, right? You’ve said so before. It’s not going to drop into your lap. You have to be active about it.”
Dad’s voice had quieted. “Jordan needs me. I get nervous about her…”
So that had been horrifyingly alarming to hear, and it made me realize I had to get my act together, stat. No more unstable hookups, no more crying jags after bad breakups. Just nice, happy Jordan. Stable, mature Jordan. No messiness.
So I wouldn’t be messy about Shabbat, either. It would be another point in favor of me being normal and healthy.
How hard could it be?
***
