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“Like I said,” she said, shrugging her shoulders to show it was no big thing, “it wasn’t a high drama, really. I took it too seriously, probably.”
“Shoshana, please,” he said, and there must have been something in his voice because she froze, looking at him with something close to uncertainty. David swallowed, leaning forward to press his forehead to her temple. He tasted the salt tears on her neck.
“When I said I wasn't going to go to the synagogue anymore--I think I was maybe nineteen, I don’t know. It was around the time I came out. The two aren’t related, he didn’t care that I was bi, but they happened around the same time because I was home for the summer, so we had to talk about stuff. Does that make sense?” she asked, then didn’t wait for him to respond, just sniffed hard and coughed before continuing. “He said if I cut myself off from the community, I was a shanda. That I had always taken the community for granted and I deserved to be alone. That it was the worst thing a Jewish person could do.”
David sighed, understanding dawning, but also a sense of relief that her father was no longer in her life.
Oh, he’s still there, David. Look at her, he’s right there, Moshe said, sage until the end. David hated that it was true. That he had no doubt she heard these words every day.
“You didn’t cut yourself off from your community,” he said, working to make his voice as calm as possible. “Your community is small, but you still have one. Abi, Leah, Baxter--”
“Bax is Presbyterian,” Shoshana said miserably. David laughed.
“Everybody has problems,” he said. She rolled her eyes, chuckling a little. Good, that was good. “It’s true, we encourage people to stay connected. There’s another teaching--don’t look at me like that, there’s a teaching for everything--that we shouldn’t close ourselves off from community. Because again, humans need connection. Connection to other humans and connection to purpose. So, if a person is cutting themselves off, they should seek out community. Not because they’re a disgrace if they don’t, because everybody needs support.”
“So, it doesn’t have to be shul?”
“When we’re persecuted and all we had was each other? Sure, then it probably has to be shul,” David said, lifting his shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. “But that doesn’t always work for everybody. You created your own community and that’s okay. That’s what you needed. You said earlier that you weren’t kind to your father. I have to be honest: it sounds like he wasn’t exactly kind to you either.”
“How do you do this every day?” she asked, sitting up on her elbow, mirroring his position so she could look him fully in the eye.
“What, this?” he said, gesturing between their bodies.
“No, this is easy,” she said. He wondered if she meant sex or being with him specifically and decided it was best not to think too hard about that, because that was his ego. “I mean the religion thing. How do you do that every day? How does this all make sense to you?”
“The religion?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Or do you mean God?”
“Yes,” she said, quietly. David considered the question. It wasn’t exactly one he’d never gotten before. In fact, it was pretty common from anyone who was going through a difficult life event. He had the answer he gave to congregants. It was one he could rattle off in his sleep. But he could tell from the careful look in her eyes she would sense if he chose to give her a rote answer. He lifted a section of her hair and considered the myriad of colors in it for a long moment, choosing his words carefully.
“I don’t, always,” he said quietly, “There are a lot of reasons not to, if I’m completely honest. It’s… difficult to believe in a loving creator when there’s so much pain and bullshit happening around us. One of the things I had to do when I was given my first pulpit in Maryland was to preside over a funeral for a child.”
Shoshana made a sound that wasn’t a sound. David met her eyes.
“Three-month-old baby. He had adoring parents and there was no reason for him to be dead. It just happened during the night. How do I rationalize a kind and benevolent God in the face of that?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. It was just a sound. “So, the short answer is that I don’t. I struggle with this. I question. I get angry.”
“David--”
“It’s okay,” he said, reaching for her hand. Lacing his fingers through hers, his thumb moved in slow, easy circles on her skin. “I believe there is the possibility of holiness in all of us. I believe we have the capacity to struggle, and learn and grow and understand, and that when we do these things we tap into that holiness. When we work to be the best versions of ourselves, we are exhibiting holiness. I believe we find the holy in unexpected places. And it can appear very differently than we expect. Is that God? When we’re together, when I touch you, when you say my name, is that neshama? These are questions I don’t know the answers to, Shoshana.”
“When we’re together, you see God?” she said, and he heard the gentle challenge in her voice. It would be very easy to turn such a thing into a joke. He wondered if she wanted him to. If she would prefer that they return to more solid, less esoteric ground. David decided it was probably best to compromise.
“When we’re together, I see you,” he said, dipping his head to brush her lips with his own. Shoshana sighed against his mouth, opening her lips to him and he took the invitation, allowing her to deepen the kiss as she chose. After a long moment she lifted her head, meeting his eyes.
“So do you charge by the hour, or…?” she said, a small, less-sad smile playing at the corners of her mouth. David wanted to laugh. Instead he kissed her again. Offering comfort because he needed it as much as he needed to give it. She kissed him back.
Twenty-Four
“Hey, Sho.” The words were loud enough to be heard over the sound of Shoshana’s shop vac and she looked up from the mess she was cleaning, surprised at the interruption. It was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, and usually now would be the time she had her workroom to herself.
She had other support staff, people who helped with the upholstering because often the job couldn’t be done by one person. But they were not in the store on a regular basis. Unless she specifically scheduled someone, she had this space to herself to create. Because of Baxter’s impending exit (she hadtwo daysleft!), she’d been neglecting her time back here and the mess was proof of that. She was annoyed with herself that she needed to do this at all when she could be pouring over Baxter’s Work Bible with him a little longer or trying to suss out QuickBooks.
“Hey, Chris. It’s good to see you!” she said, surprised and pleased to see Baxter’s partner. It was rare he came to the shop. Not because he didn’t support Baxter and what he did, but because he was one of the people who found the oddities, they sold in the showroom genuinely creepy. According to Bax, Chris had an actual phobia of taxidermy.
“Baxter said you probably hadn’t eaten, so I brought wings,” Chris said, offering her a bag from a local drive-in restaurant. Shoshana grinned. She wasn’t sure why Bax regularly bribed her with food, but that his habit had rubbed off on Chris wasn’t something Shoshana was going to complain about. He had a drink caddy in his other hand and turned it toward her, letting her take the second full cup from it.
“Is this cherry limeade?” Shoshana said, digging a straw out of the bag.
“You know it.” Chris put the drink caddy on the long worktable and cast around for something. After a moment he grabbed a roll of paper towels from a shelf and came back, laying out a kind of placemat for them to lay the food out on. Shoshana retrieved a few rolling stools and brought them to the table as well.
