A Small Miracle Happened (6 page)

Dan laughed and said it would take a lot of doughnuts to make a dent in that hard body, rubbing Chris’s flat belly as he spoke. Chris just muttered something about having to take care of what little you had.

Chris seemed to think he wasn’t very attractive, which was absurd. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but his uneven features held so much humor and personality that Dan found them more compelling than many prettier faces. And he was built like a freaking thunder god. He must hit the gym on a regular basis even when doughnuts and kugel weren’t on the menu.

That was another thing. The guy cooked like Gordon Ramsay, but without the profanity and screaming. Tonight he was planning to produce a dish that sounded like the fried fish of the gods, along with the kugel. And he was amazing in bed.

These were all points very much in Chris’s favor, but it occurred to Dan he didn’t really know much else about him. Finding out struck him as a good project for a lazy Sunday.

After breakfast, he took out his tablet for a video chat with his parents, his sister, and her husband, Rich. Sharon looked okay, considering, and Rich seemed to be holding up. They tried to show off the baby, but all Dan could see was something red and scrunched up between a hat with a bobble on it and an ugly blanket decorated with baby footprints.

“Never mind.” His mother correctly interpreted his tepid praise. “You need to come visit so you can hold her. Then you’ll see her as a real person.”

“Just a few weeks more. I’m looking forward to it.”

Some chat followed about exactly when and how he’d travel, and the cost of airfare. Then his father took over and said how sorry he was that Dan hadn’t made it home for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.

“It’s okay. This guy at work invited me over on Thursday, and my neighbor’s been lighting the candles with me each night.”

“Yeah? You have a Jewish neighbor?”

“No, but he makes a mean latke anyway. Chris, meet my dad.”

Unfortunately, all animation dropped from Chris’s face the moment he picked up the tablet. He had a stilted conversation first with Dad and then Mom. Dan almost sighed when he took the tablet back. Maybe his family would have to hug Chris too before they could appreciate him.

After that, Chris wanted to go back to his condo so he could marinate the fish for dinner, and Dan joined him. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and football naturally consumed the afternoon, but Dan didn’t object when Chris hit the Mute button on the TV remote. They were lying facing each other, their backs to the arms of Chris’s couch, their legs up on the cushions and interlaced.

Chris explained the furnace’s behavior was erratic, and there were days when no matter how much you fiddled with the thermostat, you had a choice of two temperatures: freezing or tropical. They’d chosen the warmer alternative, and dressed in boxers and T-shirts. Every few minutes one of them would rub the other’s thighs with the soles of his feet, and lust would stir a bit. But their stomachs were full of lunch and beer, and they’d been up late the night before, so they kept settling down to lazy conversation instead. There were plenty of hours left in the day, and sex would find a place on the agenda sooner or later.

At one point Chris asked Dan what foods were allowed at Hanukkah and other times. Although Dan’s idea of keeping kosher was remembering not to order a ham-and-Swiss sandwich on Yom Kippur, he complied, thinking that if his Uncle Aaron could hear the explanation, he’d be correcting every third sentence.

“So you can’t eat meat and dairy together?” This instruction seemed to boggle Chris more than any of the others.

“A lot of the rules are about not mixing different things. Like wearing clothes made of more than one kind of fabric.”

“In that case you’d think they’d worry about opposite-sex marriage more than same-sex.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Dan snorted. “They also hated things that didn’t fit into clearly defined categories. Pigs bothered the people who made the laws, because they have cloven hooves but don’t chew their cud. Shellfish bugged them because they live in the ocean but don't have fins. At least that was how they rationalized it. But it probably made sense to avoid pork and shrimp in a hot climate with no refrigeration available. Food poisoning must have been rampant. They just didn’t understand why those foods made people sick a lot, so they came up with what they thought was a logical explanation, and it got fossilized into law.”

Chris thought about this for a while. “So if I ever invite your parents for dinner, I shouldn’t serve meat and cheese together?”

“They’re not much stricter than I am, although they toe the line a little more around the holidays. Cheeseburgers are fine, but you probably shouldn’t cook latkes in lard.”

Chris looked insulted. “I don’t cook anything in lard! It’s very unhealthy.”

Dan suppressed a smile. So bacon was apparently okay, but lard wasn’t? Of course, you could make a tasty dish without lard, but bacon was, well, bacon. There wasn’t really a decent substitute. But all he said was, “It’s supposed to be hard to cook in a real kosher kitchen. Fortunately I can’t cook anywhere, so I’ve never had to worry about it.” He paused to stretch, trying to remember details. He took the opportunity to snake one foot up so it rested against Chris’s hip. “My grandmother tells this great story about a friend of her parents. It’s almost certainly fake, but it’s a good story.”

“Then tell it.” Chris reached down to grab Dan’s foot, but instead of pushing it away, he began to massage it gently.

“Okay. Once upon a time, there was a Jewish couple living in New York City. The wife was devout and kept a kosher home. The husband couldn’t care less.”

“Change the religious affiliation and it sounds like a lot of families I know.” Chris’s thumb found a spot on the arch of Dan’s foot, then rubbed it with just the right amount of pressure.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah, keep doing that. So one night the guy comes home from working late, and his wife is in bed. So he goes to the kitchen and makes himself a sandwich.”

“Uh-oh. I can see where this is going. Meat and cheese?”

“You’ve got it. The wife comes down, sees what he’s done with her knife, and insists he do what needs to be done to make it kosher again.” He sighed. Chris had lifted Dan's foot onto his lap and was paying attention to stiff calf muscles. “So he goes out to the backyard to bury it.”

He thought Chris would be incredulous, but he nodded. “Because the earth purifies. That’s not as common a theme as burning, but I can see that becoming a ritual.”

Hmm. It wasn’t the first time Chris had surprised Dan this way, quickly accepting and even interpreting something that most gentiles found incomprehensible. “Yeah. So he’s outside in the dark with a flashlight and this knife he used to cut roast beef, and he’s digging a hole with a trowel. And then he sees a pair of shoes. Someone is standing over him.”

“Not the wife, I’m guessing.” Chris slid his hands down from the now wonderfully relaxed calf back to Dan’s foot.

“Nope. It’s an Irish cop checking out what’s going on out there in the dark. So the husband, still holding the knife, says, ‘It’s okay, Officer; I live here. And my wife made me do this.’”

Chris laughed. “I bet the cop took that well!”

“According to my grandmother, the cop’s wife was a friend of the Jewish guy’s family, and all was explained without any arrests.”

“Nice ending, but I agree with you it probably never happened. It sounds more like a joke that someone turned into a fable.” Chris slipped Dan’s foot back onto the couch and then began attending to his other leg.

Dan sighed in bliss before replying. “There are too many things wrong with the story. For one, I don’t think you actually bury a knife to make it kosher again. You just stab it in the dirt a bunch of times.”

But Chris’s eyes were alight. “That’s not the point. The point is it’s a
good
story with a funny punch line, so people keep telling it. And all the misunderstandings are sorted out, although maybe the wife trying to keep the kosher kitchen is still pissed off. But the moral is about accepting each other’s cultures, even when their rituals seem weird. You may laugh at the strange things your neighbors do, but it’s in a friendly way, so it’s a comforting story too.”

“Does my ritual strike you as weird?” Dan looked at the menorah on Chris’s windowsill.

“Lighting the candles? No! I like it. The little miracle of one light that grows to eight over a week until on the last day it’s a great miracle? It’s charming.”

“That’s a really poetic way to put it. Where did you read that?”

Chris just blushed. He was so fair his skin reddened easily and often, and Dan knew that flush spread over his whole torso when he was aroused. But why would he be embarrassed because he’d said something Dan found poetic?

Dan’s gaze moved to the bookcase. He’d taken time earlier to look at some of the titles, and he’d discovered Chris was one of those people who not only read the classic literature assigned in high school and college, but kept some of the books. And likely bought others. “How come you didn’t get a degree in literature?”

Chris was beet red now, trying to sink down into the sofa cushions. “It wasn’t practical.”

“Hmm.” Dan remembered how Chris moved around a kitchen, tasting the food, deciding to add an ingredient not in the recipe, or make a substitution. He seemed so happy when he cooked, and everything he’d produced so far had been delicious. Dan wondered if there were other outlets to Chris’s creativity. He hoped that tech job he never spoke about allowed a few.

He wanted to learn more, but didn’t want to make Chris uncomfortable. So he tried another topic. However, he thought the one he picked might be related, because a guy didn’t learn to be ashamed of his artistic bent without help. “Why didn’t you go home for Thanksgiving? Does your family live far away too?”

“No. Just under an hour’s drive. But there’s too much…tension if I show up when the extended family is there. Instead my parents have me over for dinner a couple of times a month.”

“But if your parents are accepting…”

There was a long pause while Chris’s hands pressed hard on the sole of Dan’s foot. It wasn’t painful, but Dan was sure Chris didn’t realize how much pressure he was using.

Chris spoke at last, carefully not meeting Dan’s eyes, but throwing a glance up through the fringe of hair that fell over his eyes. “They’re not so much accepting as resigned. They know I’m not going to change, but they’re not happy about it. And some of the other relatives haven’t come that far yet.” He must have seen something in Dan’s face, because he added in a defensive tone, “My uncle’s a minister.”

“And my uncle’s a rabbi.” One who kept reminding Dan there was now an established ceremony for joining same-sex couples. Dan didn’t know if Uncle Aaron was eager to try it out or if he’d run out of other members of the younger generation to nag about weddings since his youngest son had gotten married the previous year. Uncle Aaron loved officiating at ceremonies. According to Dan’s mother, Officious should have been his middle name.

Chris shrugged. “It’s partly my fault. I didn’t come out to them until after college. If I’d been braver, they might be used to it by now.”

“That’s bullshit. People come out when they’re ready. If you know your family is going to react badly, that’s good reason to wait until you’re independent.”

Chris shook his head. “I could have done it sooner. They’d never disown me outright.”

No, they just won’t own you publicly
. Dan bit his lip. There was no point in making Chris feel worse about his family.

He gently pulled his foot from Chris’s grip, then crawled up his body, intent on making him feel very good about other things.

Chapter Six

Sixth night—Monday

Chris finished slicing vegetables, then contemplated the results. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, green beans, peppers, and carrots were spread out in bowls and on his big wooden cutting board. Good as far as it went, but…

He opened the fridge and rooted around until he found half a yellow pepper. That would do. With that additional color and taste added to the mix, the stir-fry would work. The chicken was already cut up and marinating, so as soon as Dan arrived, he could start cooking.

He checked the clock on the microwave before glancing out the window. It was already full dark. He’d expected Dan earlier. But offices tended to be busy the first day back after a holiday, and Friday really hadn’t counted as a workday, with most places minimally staffed.

Still he felt a foolish wave of relief when the doorbell rang. He wiped his hands on a dish towel, then went to answer it. His smile of pleased anticipation faded the moment he saw Dan’s face. “What happened?”

Dan grabbed him like a lifeline and held fast. “My father just called. The baby’s sick. Something about jaundice. I don’t know.”

Chris had heard of people with hepatitis being jaundiced. Was there something wrong with the baby’s liver? He suddenly felt cold in spite of his overactive furnace. “Come on in. Sit down. We’ll look it up.”

“I checked on my phone before I came over. The site I looked at said it can cause brain damage.”

Chris pushed Dan onto the couch. “What did your dad say?”

Dan took a deep breath. “That the doctors weren’t going to let Arielle go home from the hospital, because she had serious jaundice and they had to treat it. I could tell he was trying not to upset me, but his voice was shaking.”

Dan’s voice was shaking too, as were his hands. He was still clutching his cell phone. Chris took it away, then reached for the laptop he’d left on the coffee table. Awkwardly, with one arm around Dan, he started to search for information on jaundice.

The first thing he saw was that lots of babies had it. The second was if it was bad enough to be treated, it was bad enough to cause serious problems. He set down the computer, then hauled Dan close, rocking him a little. “It sounds like they caught it early. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Dan started to relax a bit, but tensed at the sound of his mother’s ringtone. He pulled out his phone and had to try three times before he could swipe the screen correctly to accept the call. “Mom? How is she?”