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The apron readI’m Not Irish Kiss Me Anyway. It was new since he’d left, like so much was. Spontaneously, he bussed her cheek and she giggled. His heart lifted. She was his idol, everything he wanted to live up to, and she was handing him the matzo ball soup and laughing alongside him in the kitchen.Don’t cry, Matthews.
That night they had a less formal second seder, more raucous, and it gave him a chance to take in the glittering, transformed space. It was spotless, as was customary for Passover. Even without Passover, the space was different than the one that existed in his memory. Cass Carrigan had been a pack rat. Hannah Rosenstein made clutter terrified of her. The great room, which had once been home to a great deal of marginally uncomfortable, dusty furniture, was now a premier event space.
This was the first time Levi was seeing Carrigan’s All Year in action. When he’d left, the inn had been nominally open for business during the spring and summer months, but all their energy and resources went toward the Christmas festival, which started on his birthday, November 1, and wrapped up on New Year’s Day.
Now Hannah planned and coordinated weddings, reunions, local fashion shows, charity events, and a huge array of other creative offerings. The Carrigan’s calendar was never empty, and he knew because he had a Google alert for when it got updated. She was a brilliant whirlwind of precise organization. He wasn’t surprised by the fact that she was a terrifying genius. He was mad at himself, because she’d tried to tell him she had big dreams for this place, and he hadn’t believed her. She’d proved him wrong, whilehe’dbeen trying, apparently unsuccessfully, to proveherwrong.
She’d made Carrigan’s so much bigger. So much bigger that it excited him, made him want to see all the things it could be, but also so much bigger that all the room for him had been squeezed out.
“There’s no space for you at the table,” Hannah told him, walking up behind him, looking at the seder preparations.
“There are two empty place settings right there.” He motioned.
“One of those is for Elijah the prophet, and one is for our lawyer Elijah. None for you.”Hannah smiled, smug.
She walked away, and he sank into a chair (not one designated for an Elijah, corporeal or otherwise). He closed his eyes. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her, and every time he did, he saw the worst of his mistakes reflected in her eyes. Had he honestly thought he could swoop in, blow his bangs out of his eyes, smile at her, and she would embrace him? He had spent so much time focusing on how he’d changed and so little worrying about how she had.
At the head table, his mother’s mother’s mother’s painted enamel seder plate sat, as it always had, with a place of pride, already filled with bitter herbs, boiled egg, and maror. Along the tables were benches, couches, seats for lounging. On this night, they reclined.
His dad came up behind him.
“The furrow on your brow is scaring the children, Levi,” Mr. Matthews said. “Also, this isn’t your seat. Come sit with your parents and make a horrifying sandwich out of charoset and horseradish.”
“Charoset and horseradish are delicious together, Dad. The sweetness complements the heat.” He followed his dad to where his mom was already sitting. She looked up at him and her face lit up.
“You look beautiful, Mom,” he told her honestly. “You clean up nice.”
“Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the room no matter what she’s wearing,” his father said smugly.These two.Levi smiled to himself.
He loved Passover, loved the ritual and the meaning and the gefilte fish. He dipped parsley in saltwater and remembered that his faith stretched so far back through time and so far forward. He had been to seders in North Africa and South America and Poland, and every year he pretended he didn’t want to be at home.
He looked around at the table. There were spots for his siblings, which they would love, since they’d worked so hard to avoid him last night, and he hadn’t seen them at all today. There were also spots for Hannah, Miri, and Noelle.
“Oh, the owners have deigned to let us sit with them,” he remarked.
“This table is for the Carrigan’s family,” his mother said, tugging at him to sit down and glaring. “That’s us.”
He sighed. His parents refused to admit that, to the guests and the Rosensteins, they weren’t the Carrigan’s family; they were the hired help. And, in the end, that had been true of Cass, too. If they had been family, she would have left the business to his parents.
“Also,” she reminded him, “you’re one of the owners.”
He scowled. That wasn’t better. Cass hadn’t left it to him out of love, but out of some Machiavellian manipulation only she knew. If he was certain of anything, it was that Cass Carrigan had not loved him.
“Charoset alone is not a meal, son,” Joshua said to his son, Grant. Joshua had stuck Levi’s nephew and sister-in-law, Lydia, between them, in a move Levi had to assume was intentional.
He’d never been close to Joshua growing up, although he liked Esther. The twins had always had each other, and he was older and had Hannah and Miriam, so they hadn’t bonded much. Still, there was a level of animosity now that he didn’t really understand. Whathadhe done to his younger siblings, other than be himself? They hadn’t even talked much for four years. How mad could he have made them?
“Fine, but I’m not eating gefilte fish,” Grant replied, poking at his plate.
His mother grinned and speared his fish from his plate. “More for me!” she cried. He made a fake gagging sound.
Esther was across from him, refusing to meet his eye, talking to a Rosenstein cousin about the incredible new off-off-Broadway show she’d seen, predicting it would be the next big hit, and where to get the best shakshouka in the city.
“You know the best shakshouka in New York State is in my kitchen, baby sister.” He couldn’t stop himself from needling her. “I’m happy to go to shows with you whenever I’m in the city.”
Her face turned to ice, and she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
His siblings had always been more successful than he was, both in their careers and at generally existing on the planet with other people. He felt a strong urge to growl at everyone that he was (sort of) famous in Australia. He didn’t, because he refused to be the kind of person who told people he was kind of famous, even if he wanted to.
