THE SECOND NIGHT of Chanukah. Three candles ablaze, the helper candle and then one for each of the nights. She’d invited Ben upstairs to her apartment to light the menorah and then to nosh on appetizers while they waited for the flames to extinguish. And then, on another date. Not dinner this time.
Something else.
“I don’t know the songs,” he warned as she handed him a small faded booklet from the pile she’d pulled from the closet. “I can try to hum along, but . . .”
The home had more visitors this time of year than any other—church and school and scouting groups often scheduled craft activities or caroling with the residents. Tonight, Amanda had brought Ben in to help her with a large group activity of making reindeer tree ornaments out of candy canes, felt, and google eyes.
“There will be plenty of people singing, so you’ll blend in. It would be great if some of these groups spread their visits out,” she told him. “Or at least the cookies and candy deliveries. I always crave a good peppermint chocolate sugar cookie in the middle of the summer, but guess what, all we can rustle up is tapioca pudding.”
She looked up to see him staring. “What?”
“You love your work.”
She didn’t have to think too hard about that. “Yep. I do. It wasn’t what I thought I’d end up doing. I wanted to be a teacher. But midway through my sophomore year of college, my grandma moved in with mom and dad. She had dementia. I decided that one of the things I really wanted to do with my life was be there for people like my grandma, at the end. Making crafts might not be the most meaningful thing, but . . . I like to think that it gives people some joy.”
“Giving people joy is meaningful. Maybe one of the most meaningful things anyone can do. Don’t sell yourself short. I didn’t have any aspirations so selfless. I just wanted to travel,” Ben said as he sorted out the carol booklets in preparation for the group that would be singing. “See all the places I’d read about in the books I wasn’t supposed to be reading.”
“Did you go to college?” Amanda dumped half a package of google eyes into a bowl and set it on the long table set up in the rec room, then glanced at the clock. It was almost time for the program.
Ben shrugged. “I went to yeshiva. I had a couple years in business college. My father wanted me to join him in the family business. Get married. Start a family.”
“Your father sounds like my mother,” Amanda said lightly. “She’s very focused on becoming a grandmother. What’s your family business?”
He gave her a glance. “He owns a string of kosher supermarkets.”
“And you didn’t want to work for him?”
The double swinging doors nudged open for the first arrivals, a small pack of schoolkids that already looked sugared up and hyper, followed by a few chaperones and one or two of the residents. Amanda hadn’t even finished putting out all the craft supplies. If previous years were anything to go by, she knew she’d better hurry. The kids had a way of swooping in like locusts, decimating the refreshments and tossing everything all over the place.
“I’ve worked for my dad since I was a kid,” Ben told her. “Long enough to know that as much as it meant to him, the last thing in the world I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing was running a supermarket. “And then, as it turned out, getting married wasn’t going to happen, either.”
Amanda looked up, surprised, but there was no time for her to ask what he’d meant. The first kids were sliding into their places at the table, jabbering, already messing up the carefully arranged bowls of supplies and getting into the glue. The residents who’d come to join the activity were finding their places, some of them laughing with the rambunctious group of children, some looking sour.
“I’ll pass out the songbooks,” Ben offered.
Amanda gave him a grateful nod, then turned to help start the simple craft. Nothing about it should’ve been difficult, but in about ten minutes there was glue everywhere, google eyes scattered every open surface, and some of the kids were tearing off the wrappers of the candy canes to eat them without even making them into reindeer.
“Is it time to sing yet?” one of the adult chaperones asked. “Or how about the cookies and punch? We said we’d have the kids home before nine.”
With a defeated sigh, Amanda gestured toward the table at the back of the room where the kitchen staff had set out the refreshments. “Sure, you can have everyone grab a snack and then we can start the caroling.”
“Miss?”
Amanda turned to see a small boy in a blue sweater and brown corduroy pants tugging at her sleeve. He had glue all over his hands and a google eye clinging to his cheek. She plucked it off gently. “Yes?”
He pointed toward the room’s sole window, which was on the far side near the decrepit piano nobody ever played. “Are we gonna light the m’norah?”
She straightened, looking at the electric menorah. It was dark. She hadn’t even noticed it was there, honestly, as the Christmas tree mostly hid it. “Sure. Absolutely . . . ?”
“Josh,” the kid said.
“Do you light the menorah at home, Josh?”
“No. But my cousin does.” The kid gave her a grin missing his two front teeth. “She gets eight nights of presents. I think that’s cool, huh? So, can we light it? It’s Chanukah now, isn’t it? We’re going to my cousin’s house tomorrow to eat hash browns and sour cream.”
“Latkes.” Amanda laughed and caught Ben’s gaze over the top of the kid’s head.
“I like them with applesauce,” Ben said.
Amanda grinned. “Yeah. Me, too.”
With the refreshment table well on its way to destruction and the candy canes either gobbled or transformed into an army of Rudolphs, Amanda had only a small amount of trouble wrangling the group into place in front of the menorah. Ben, she saw, was great with the kids, encouraging them to settle cross-legged on the floor and hush while she plugged in the menorah. It was brand new, still bearing the price tag, none of the orange bulbs dusty or worn. Much nicer than the older one she’d left in the closet the past few years because she’d been afraid it would short out and start a fire, and because nobody in the home had seemed interested in lighting one.
“Who can tell me about what holiday we’re celebrating right now?”
Cries of “Christmas” and “Jesus’ birthday” and “Frosty the Snowman” rang out, but the kid who’d asked if they could light the menorah stood up and waved his hands around until everyone looked at him.
“It’s Chanukah,” he said proudly.
“Who knows the story of Chanukah?”
No hands went up this time. Amanda looked around the room, thinking of how best to condense the story of the Maccabees and the miraculous vial of oil, when Ben stepped up and began speaking, mesmerizing kids and adults alike with his richly detailed retelling. He laced the story with humor and drama, keeping everyone’s attention until the very last, when he turned to show them the menorah in the window.
“So, we light the menorah for eight nights to commemorate the oil that burned, and to celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over their enemies.”
“And eat hash browns! I mean latkes,” Josh cried out.
Amanda stepped aside to let the kid turn the bulbs to light the candles. Then, as everyone grabbed a song booklet and broke off in groups to carol in the hallways, she hung back and snagged Ben’s sleeve. He turned with an expectant expression, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.
“That was great. You really had all the kids’ interest.”
He shrugged. “I like working with kids.”
“They’re all set to go sing. Do you want to go along? Or head out? I have to stay and clean up here.”
“I’ll help you.”
They worked in efficient and companionable silence to tidy up the leftover craft supplies. She caught him looking at the menorah, its light bright and cheery reflected in the glass alongside the twinkling, multicolored glow from the tree behind it.
“Did you ever wish you could have one?” he asked her with a glance over his shoulder.
She joined him to look at both sets of lights. “What. A Christmas tree?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged, thinking about it. “No. Not really. I had plenty of friends with trees, and it’s not like I didn’t get my fill of it in school or the mall or, you know . . . everywhere. You don’t have to work too hard around here to experience Christmas, not when it’s basically the default setting. My parents never made a big deal out of it. Other people had Christmas, and sometimes we went over to the neighbor’s house for it, but we had Chanukah, with eight nights of presents and latkes and dreidels and stuff like that. What about you?”
Ben had put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, rocking back and forth on his heels. “No. It never occurred to me that I could have a tree. Just that I definitely shouldn’t want one. They’re pretty, though.”
“This whole time of year is pretty. Everything about it,” Amanda said.
Ben, without looking at her, said quietly, “You’re pretty.”
From behind them came the soft shush of slippers on the tile floor. “Oh! You’ve lit it.”
Amanda turned to see Norma. “Hi!”
“I had my grandson bring it for me. They won’t allow burning candles in the rooms, you know,” Norma said as an aside to Amanda, though her eyes were focused firmly on Ben. “Hello, I’m Norma.”
“This is Ben,” Amanda said.
Norma beamed. “Oh . . . Ben. Your neighbor, Ben?”
Amanda laughed. “Yes.”
Norma nodded and gave them both a thumbs-up. She waved at the menorah. “It looks nice. I didn’t want to keep it all for myself, so I brought it out here. My grandson and his wife are bringing my great-granddaughter here tomorrow so we can open gifts. Will you be here tomorrow night, Amanda? I’d like you to meet them.”
She wasn’t scheduled for the evening shift, but Amanda nodded anyway. “Sure, Norma. I get off at three tomorrow, but I’d love to meet them. What time?”
“Oh, around seven. The baby’s only two, she can’t be up too late. And you, Ben. Will you be back with our Amanda?”
Ben let out a small, huffing noise of surprise and shot Amanda a look. “Ummm . . .”
“Say yes,” Norma prompted.
“Yes. That sounds great,” Ben said with one of those looks at Amanda. “I’ll be here.”