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Kristine immediately pulls me into a hug, her blue eyes warm with affection. Her honey-brown hair is now streaked with gray, but she’s more or less the same as I remember. “Oh, Norah, look at you. I’m so happy we’re family!”

Over her shoulder, I see Henry, lingering on the top step of our porch. He laughs a bit at his mother’s gushing, but honestly he doesn’t look like he wants to be here any more than I do. He holds up the bottle of Manischewitz he’s carrying.

As Kristine breaks away, she giggles, taking the bottle and handing it over to me. “Happy Hanukkah, sweetie.”

I take the bottle from her as politely as I can and usher them inside.

I walk to the built-in bar on one side of the living room and quickly shove the Manischewitz in a cabinet where it won’t be discovered. It’s a cute gesture on Kristine’s part, but there is no way in hell I am going to sit through this dinner with Henry fucking Cole drinking some syrupy sweet nonsense. I covertly grab the first red wine I see, uncork it with ease, and pour it into a decanter. I know, without question, that my mother exclusively stocks her house with good wine, though truly anything would be better than the Manischewitz I was handed. I carry the decanter and some glasses back over to the couch, desperate to dive in.

I’m pouring myself a glass after passing one over to each of our guests when my mother calls out, “Not before we do the blessing!” and I almost drop the glass in my hand.

I think she’s expecting me to hold off, but I have never in my life seen Mom insist on blessing the copious amounts of wine this household has consumed over the years. So I hold up my glass, and loudly say, for Mom’s benefit alone, “Baruch ata Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olom boray peri ha-gafen,” the words coming back as muscle memory on my tongue. I raise my glass in cheers to Kristine and Henry and take a large sip. They look confused, but do the same.

“Wow, this is much better than I thought it would be,” Kristine exclaims, going back for a second sip.

Hannah comes downstairs finally, and Kristine rushes over to her. I watch my sister and the bane of my existence exchange a wave, and the smile on Hannah’s face makes me nauseated.

I stand to go check on Mom in the kitchen, but I feel Henry’s large shadow looming over me.

“You switched the wine, didn’t you?” he asks quietly enough that only I can hear.

I turn to him but do not respond.

“This is from Sara’s collection?”

I keep my face stoic, not wanting to give him anything, but he tips his glass toward mine with a simple “Well, thank you.”

It’s almost…affable, the way he says it, and it catches me off guard.

Henry Cole and I are not friends.

We haven’t been in a long time.

I feel a strong urge to send the clearest message I can that we are not in this together. We’re not anything at all.

“If I did switch the wine, which I’m not saying I did, it would have only been because I knew I would never get through tonight, having to share a meal with you, without something I could easily chug.” It comes out with perhaps more hostility than I’d planned, so I take another long sip from my glass.

Henry’s eyes shift over me, turning icy. I’m frozen in front of him as his gaze swoops past my messy hair, the too-high-waisted jeans I found in a drawer that barely still fit, the sweater I’ve definitely had since I was fourteen.

“I take it your suitcase is still lost,” he says, raising an eyebrow, all of the warmth drained from his voice.

Good. That’s exactly what I wanted—to know what to expect from him. Without another word, I turn on my heels and finish my mission to the kitchen.

* * *

As the last sliver of sunlight fades, we gather by the bay window in the living room. Most other families on our street, the Coles included, display their Christmas trees in this space, but we have an end table we use to prop up the Tree of Life menorah my parents received as a wedding gift. I always loved the way the eight silver branches wove around each other, the gold cups that hugged the candles in place, the rooted base that held the shamash after lighting its cousins.

Hannah retrieves the box from our freezer, nudging me affectionately with her shoulder as she opens it and hands two candles over to Mom. Mom twists one dip-dyed blue candle into the far right branch of the menorah, and then Kristine strikes a match, holding it up to the candle in Mom’s hand.

The brief look that Mom and Kristine share in the glow of the shamash makes my heart swell. It’s been a tough couple of years for all of us, but the last few, since Hannah went to college and left the house especially, have been hard on Mom. I should come home more. But I’m glad that, in our absence, there was a wonderful person here to take care of my mother, look at her so adoringly, laugh with her. They are so blatantly and obviously in love.

Mom starts the first of three blessings as she lights the other candle, placing the shamash down in its home at the base. I mouth along with her. I probably haven’t said these prayers in almost a decade, but they come back like second nature, words rooted in my core, in who I am.

We finish reciting the third blessing, the Shehecheyanu, and I can only hear my dad’s uproarious laugh. “The blessing of firsts!” he’d always exclaim, the first day of school every year, the first time Hannah lost a tooth, the time he caught me scrubbing off my lip gloss after my first Spin the Bottle party. Whether a rabbi would deem the ancient blessing situationally appropriate or not, my dad would chant Shehecheyanu v’ky’manu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.

Hannah takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “The blessing of firsts!” she belts softly in my ear, and knowing she’s also thinking about him helps.

We sit down for dinner, Mom only insisting on one more prayer before we can finally eat.