A normal seudah. A seudah where Mama’s cousin made Kiddush and passed out the wine 

Dovid

The mood this year on Rosh Hashanah seemed even more intense than usual, if that’s even possible. Or maybe it just felt that way because of everything that happened this year. But I felt it. I felt it in the silence and in the chazzan’s davening, and it made me walk home quietly, Elka at my side. We could hear our footsteps clattering against the street, and we hardly said a word the whole walk home.

“How was davening?” Mama asked, handing Miriam the baby when we walked through the door.

“Good,” I said.

Mama nodded. She knew what it was like, I didn’t have to tell her. “We’re almost ready to go.”

I nodded and watched Elka help Leiba get ready. We were going to eat the Yom Tov seudah with Mama’s cousin. I couldn’t say I was looking forward to it; they don’t have any boys besides their baby, and at two years old, he wasn’t much company. But it would be better than staying home and taking Papa’s place as the one leading the seudah. A lump began to form in my throat at the thought of it, and I swallowed hard a few times. We’d be at a regular seudah. A normal seudah. A seudah where Mama’s cousin made kiddush and passed out the wine and would ask me what I was learning. I didn’t have to focus on what we wouldn’t have.