Thirty-one
The Donnellys, the family hosting tonight’s Seder, live in a large sprawling white stucco house with a makeshift soccer pitch out front. When we arrive, several blond people spill out the front door, including three boys who Yael has told me she can’t tell apart. I can see why. Aside from their height, they are identical, all tousled hair and gangly limbs and knobby Adam’s apples. “One’s Declan, one’s Matthew, and the little one, I think, is Lucas,” Yael says, not so helpfully.
The tallest one bounces a soccer ball in his hand. “Time for a quick game?” he asks.
“Don’t get too muddy, Dec,” the blonde woman says. She smiles. “Hi, Willem. I’m Kelsey. This is Sister Karenna,” she says, gesturing to a weathered old smiling woman in a full Catholic habit.
“Welcome, welcome,” the nun says.
“And I’m Paul,” a mustached man in a Hawaiian shirt says, bundling me into a hug. “And you look just like your mama.”
Yael and I stare at each other. No one ever says that.
“It’s in the eyes,” Paul says. He turns to Yael. “You hear about the cholera outbreak in the Dharavi slum?”
They immediately start talking about that, so I go play some soccer with the brothers. They tell me how they’ve been discussing Passover and the Exodus all week long as part of their studies. They are homeschooled. “We even made matzo over a campfire,” the smallest one, Lucas, tells me.
“Well, you know more than me,” I say.
They laugh, like I’m joking.
After a while, Kelsey calls us inside. The house reminds me of a flea market, a little of this, a little of that. A dining table on one side, a chalkboard on the other. Chore charts on the wall, alongside pictures of Jesus, Gandhi, and Ganesha. The entire house is fragrant with roasting meat.
“It smells wonderful,” Yael says.
Kelsey smiles. “I made roast leg of lamb stuffed with apples and walnuts.” She turns to me. “We tried to get a brisket, but it’s impossible here.”
“Holy cow and all,” Paul says.
“This is an Israeli recipe,” Kelsey continues. “At least that’s what the website said.”
Yael is quiet for a minute. “It’s what my mother would’ve made.”
Yael’s mother, Naomi, who escaped the horrors Saba had lived through only to be struck by a delivery truck on the way back from walking Yael to school. Universal law of equilibrium. Escape one horror, get hit by another.
“What else do you remember?” I ask hesitantly. “About Naomi.” She was another unmentionable when I was growing up.
“She sang,” Yael says quietly. “All the time. At the Seders too. So there was lots of singing at the Seders—before. And people. When I was a child, we had a full house. Not after. Then it was just us. . . .” She trails off. “It wasn’t as joyful.”
“So tonight, there will be singing,” Paul says. “Someone get my guitar.”
“Oh, no. Not the guitar,” Matthew jokes.
“I like the guitar,” Lucas says.
“Me, too,” Kelsey says. “Reminds me of when we met.” Her and Paul’s eyes meet and tell a quiet story, the way Yael and Bram’s used to, and I feel a longing pull at me.
“Shall we sit down?” Kelsey asks, gesturing to the table. We take our seats.
“I know I railroaded you into this again, but Yael, would you mind being the leader?” Paul asks. “I’ve been studying up since last year and I’ll chime in, but I feel you’re better qualified. Otherwise we can ask Sister Karenna to do it.”
“What? I do it?” Sister Karenna jerks up.
“She’s a little deaf,” Declan whispers to me.
“You don’t have to do anything, Sister, but relax,” Kelsey says in a loud voice.
“I’ll do it,” Yael tells Paul. “If you help.”
“We’ll tag-team it,” Paul says, winking at me.
But Yael hardly seems like she needs the help. She says an opening prayer over the wine in a clear strong voice, as if she’s done this every year. Then she turns to Paul. “Maybe you might explain the point of the Seder.”
“Sure.” Paul clears his throat and starts a long meandering explanation about how a Seder is meant to commemorate the Jews’ exodus from Egypt, their escape from slavery and their return to the Promised Land, the miracles that ensued to make this happen. “Though this happened thousands of years ago, Jews today retell the story every year to rejoice in the triumphant history, to remember it. But here’s why I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Because it’s not just a retelling or a celebration of history. It’s also a reminder of the price and the privilege of liberation.” He turns to Yael. “That sound right?”
She nods. “It’s a story we repeat because it’s a history we want to see repeated,” she says.
The Seder continues. We say blessings over the matzo, we eat the vegetables in salt water, and then the bitter herbs. Kelsey serves soup. “Not matzo ball, mulligatawny,” she says. “I hope lentils are okay.”
While we’re eating our soup, Paul suggests that since the point of the Seder is to retell a story of liberation, we all take a turn and talk about a time in our lives when we escaped some sort of oppression. “Or escaped anything really.” He goes first, talking about his life as it used to be, drinking, drugs, aimless and sad before he found God, and then found Kelsey and then found meaning.
Sister Karenna goes next, talking about escaping the brutality of poverty when she was taken in by a church school, and going on to become a nun to serve others.
Then it’s my turn. I pause. My first instinct is to tell about Lulu. Because really that was a day I felt like I escaped danger.
But I decide to tell a different story, in part because I don’t think this one has been told out loud since he died. The story of one hitchhiking girl and two brothers and the three centimeters that sealed all our fates. It’s not really my escape. It’s hers. But it is my story. The founding tale of my family. And as Yael said about the Seder, it’s a story I repeat because it’s a history I want to see repeated.