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In the downstairs hallway, I ran a few steps in my socked feet and launched into a long slide on the slippery wood before hopping over the threshold into the kitchen.
“At your service!” I said, snapping a salute.
“You’re in a good mood.” Mom opened the microwave to zap the green bean casserole. She’d picked up the holiday dinner from a local restaurant yesterday, and it was now heating up in various pots and pans on the stove. The pre-cooked tenderloin warmed in the oven.
“Hungry,” I said, with a smile. “And my boyfriend comes home in two days.” I slid across the kitchen, singing, “Twoooo dayyyys!”
“See? Petey-boyismy son,” Dad said, from where he stood plating the sufganiyot and the latkes. One of his Jewish colleagues made them for him most years. “Singing with happiness.”
I grinned. “He’s really cute, and I miss him.”
“Really cute, he says. He misses him, he says,” Dad teased.
“What does your colleague think of you asking for his sufganiyot and latkes on the twenty-fourth when Hanukkah was earlier in the month? Does he know we did nothing for it?”
“He thinks I’m a man who makes his own choices,” Dad said. “And no.”
“Blasphemer is more like it,” I said.
“That’s what your friend Robert’s father, Dr. Michaels, thinks of me.” Dad shrugged. “If the others think it as well for different reasons, so be it. I’m happy with how we do things. Aren’t you?”
“I just think we should pay more attention to Hanukkah, too.”
His eyes lit up. “Are you finally interested in learning about your heritage? We could do it differently next year. Use the menorah for real instead of tying the pre-lit one to the top of the tree—or we could do both!”
I hadn’t meant that at all, but the light in my dad’s eyes made my happiness bubble over. “Sure, let’s each buy a menorah. One for you, and one for me, “I said. “And, yeah, maybe I am interested in learning.”
The idea of being at home with Daniel next winter, and lighting the menorah for eight nights was cozy actually. I thought I’d like it. Though I didn’t know if I could stand to learn the prayers. Maybe I’d just want to send good wishes into the universe for eight nights straight. I thought Daniel would like that, too.
After we sat down, Mom and I let Dad bless the food in his multireligious way before we dug in. We chatted, laughed, and talked about plans for the new year, enjoying each other’s company, until a clatter came from the kitchen door leading out to the backyard.
Milky Way barked. Mom twisted in her seat to look over her shoulder.
The door opened.
Dad thrust his chair back, rising quickly. Milky Way went berserk. I jumped up too, and all three of us stared, hearts racing, breath coming in gasps, as Adam sauntered into the kitchen.
Milky Way stopped barking and started dancing around his feet.
Despite a bloody lip, a rapidly swelling eye, and a dazed expression, Adam tried for his usual charming smile. “Merry Christmas! Mind if I join you for dinner?”
Words were caught in my throat, and Mom and Dad just gaped, too.
Adam walked around the table, dropping into the chair he’d always sat in when he’d eaten with us last year. He started to fill the plate I’d put there for symmetry.
“Adam? Son?” Dad asked, still standing with his napkin in his hand, and a white-knuckled grip on the steak knife he’d been using to cut the tougher-than-expected tenderloin. “Are you all right?”
“Great. Just had a big talk with my dad.” He grinned, his swollen eye squinting, and his lip bleeding again as the smile spread it wide. He licked the blood away and went back to spooning corn onto his plate with a shaking hand. Corn fell onto the table, but it didn’t deter him. “It didn’t go so well.” He laughed. “I didn’t really expect it to, though, you know? So…” he shrugged. “Yeah.”
“He hit you?” Mom asked, her eyes shifting from Adam to my dad and back again, as if trying to gauge what either, or both, of them might do.
As for me, I was motionless, standing there with a slack jaw and my pulse rushing so hard I felt faint. Adam had just—
And he was here and—
There were bruises.
From his father.
