All I Love and Know Read Free

in Daniel’s head. Like a tornado, he imagined, whipping trees up from their roots and slamming them into cars. He remembered an educational segment he’d recently seen on the Weather Channel, where the quiz question was: During a tornado, where is the safest place in a mobile home? After a commercial break they returned with the answer: NOWHERE; leave immediately . It had shocked him, the cruelty of the trick question; wasn’t it bad enough that these people had to live in mobile homes? They were advised to go outside and find a regular house— some wealthier person’s decent home , he had acidly glossed to Daniel—and failing that, to find a ditch to lie in. He had been indignant. “ ‘Yeah, you pathetic trailer trash, go lie in a ditch!’—that’s basically what they’re saying, isn’t it?”
    He set aside his roll and piece of chocolate cake for Daniel, hoping he’d be able to choke down food that was mild and sweet. He looked at Daniel’s sagging head. NOWHERE , he thought, that’s where it’s safe to be . Leave immediately, go lie in a ditch.
    AFTER DINNER AND A long wait in the bathroom line, Matt read the movie and TV reviews in Entertainment Weekly and drifted off with the magazine in his hands. He was awakened by murmuring voices and the jingle of a bracelet. Lydia was standing over them, bringing in the sweet musky smell of her perfume, which Matt always smelled on his ears and collars for a few days after they spent time with her. He looked at Daniel and saw that he’d awakened too, and had a cup of ginger ale on his tray table. He pressed his hand, which lay on the seat between them, against Daniel’s knee, in a discreet hello.
    â€œDarling,” Lydia was saying to Daniel, with a hollow trace of her old intensity, “for the shiva, I think we should pick up some bourekas at that little bakery on Joel’s street.”
    Daniel laid his head back. “Okay, Mom,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and he brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. His shirt was open at the neck, the curls in the back of his head flattened.
    â€œIt’s just that Ilana’s parents are utterly useless in this regard.”
    â€œOkay,” Daniel said. His gray face shifted into something like its usual life as an idea came over it. “Actually, I think the visitors bring the food—the mourners aren’t supposed to have to cook. And are we even sure the shiva’s going to be at Joel and Ilana’s? Maybe the Grossmans will want to have it.”
    Lydia blinked. “That’s out of the question.”
    â€œWhy?” Daniel asked. “Wouldn’t it be better for the kids to have a place to come home to where there aren’t a million people sitting around?” Gal and Noam were with their sabba and savta , Ilana’s parents, now, but the plan was to bring them to their own house when their uncles and other grandparents arrived.
    Matt could see the struggle break out on Lydia’s face, and the stubbornness. “Don’t you think the people who loved Joel and Ilana will want to gather one more time at their home?”
    Daniel shrugged, and Lydia’s eyes welled up. “And don’t you think I’m thinking about those children?” she hissed. “I think of nothing else!”
    â€œWhat are bourekas ?” Matt asked.
    Lydia looked down at him incredulously, and Matt was sorry for the silly question. In front of Lydia, he was a chronic blurter, and he knew that she didn’t like him very much. Apparently she’d loved Daniel’s first boyfriend, Jonathan. Matt—much younger than Daniel, eye candy, a goy, a lover of television rather than art or opera—was clearly the inferior and less appropriate partner.
    â€œThey’re small triangular pastries in filo dough,” she said.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œThey’re savory, not sweet. They’re