Chapter Text
Ryan jabbed the button for the third floor and then slumped against the wall. He closed his eyes, grateful to have the elevator to himself for the time being.
It was hard to find a moment of quiet in the chaos of the hospital. As Seth put it, if nothing else, there was always something beeping somewhere.
Ryan heaved a heavy sigh.
It was maybe hard to find a moment of quiet anywhere.
Part of that was his fault, that he'd gone and messed everything up by having a breakdown in front of Kirsten.
When things were bad, Ryan's best move and his comfort zone was to fly under the radar.
Knowing how to stay out of the way was a skill that Trey could never quite master---he was always running his mouth with a complaint or a defense of himself that did far more harm than good---but Ryan was good at it, and he appreciated the value of being able to make himself invisible.
Only he wasn't invisible anymore---Sandy and Kirsten were making sure of that, sizing him up every chance they got.
He felt out of the loop too, no longer being able to pick up useful bits of information by staying close but unobtrusive. Conversations now ground to a halt when he came into the room, and updates about Seth were delivered with soft smiles and soft language and encouraging pats on the arm.
Ryan couldn't help but suspect that things would get progressively worse and he would be completely unprepared for it, because the Cohens thought this was better, trying to make him feel better.
And then there were the check-ins.
Sandy hadn't been lying about that; over the past few weeks, he'd turned up his parental check-in game to an eleven.
Seth had long ago prepared him for what he called the Sandy Cohen Special, sitting up in your bedroom, waiting for the parental heart-to-heart, Sandy walking in with a sympathetic smile and his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, patting the bed next to him, opening with something like "Can we talk for a little bit?"
For Seth, the waiting would come after he'd blown up in arguments about boarding school, after the principal had called home to say he'd been in another fight---"Meaning, I'd gotten my ass kicked again," when he'd been accused of pulling the fire alarm to get out of dissecting a fetal pig, and---perhaps most mortifyingly, in Seth's telling---when his English teacher took his fiction writing far too seriously and seemed to think he was at imminent risk of hurting himself---"If you ask me, it's on Mr. Wheaton that he couldn't recognize a clear homage to Frederik Pohl when he saw one."
And Ryan had gotten his fair share by then too, even before Seth's cancer diagnosis, but every time Sandy had come to talk about Seth, he hadn't been armed with any evidence that Ryan was struggling, and Ryan found it easy---if somewhat awkward and uncomfortable---to deflect attention elsewhere.
Heat flooded his body every time he imagined what Kirsten must have told Sandy about that night, when he got flashes of what he must have looked like, his head in her lap as he cried.
He couldn't look Sandy in the eye the first night he'd come up to his room after that, when he'd gotten that inevitable knock on the door and when his foster father walked into his bedroom, sleeves rolled up, that sympathetic smile on his face as he said "Hey Ryan, can we talk for a little bit?"
Ryan didn't know what to do with his interactions with the Cohens, Sandy's check-ins and Kirsten's soft, meaningful smiles and the little presents she left in his room, and Seth's declaration that he was a part of their tribe, that all those years that he'd been lost and alone, that they'd been in Newport and he'd been in Chino, that they'd both been feeling this unnamable absence that they learned was each other.
And each of the Cohens, communicating in their own way that he wasn't charity, wasn't something they'd picked up on a whim and kind of regretted, but they too were deep into it now, communicating that they wanted him, that he belonged.
Part of him knew it was a bad idea to let himself believe things like that, knew it was a better idea to keep pretending that the Cohens were just his kindly, over-involved-in-his-life roommates. That was a mental exercise that kept him in check, that kept everything at a safe distance for when it inevitably went down in flames.
Unfortunately, none of the Cohens would get onboard with that plan, wouldn't accept their assigned roles as roommates, and admittedly, part of him was tired of fighting them on it, and yet another part of him didn't want to fight it, liked the idea of being a part of their tribe, liked the idea of being a Cohen.
ooo
Ryan froze in his tracks.
He was down the hall from Seth’s room, but he could hear Sandy’s booming voice from where he stood.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Ryan winced. He wasn’t sure if continuing on to the room would rescue whoever was on the receiving end---he assumed Seth, although it also felt strange, as Seth would put it, Sandy Cohen yelling at a Cancer Kid---or if it would somehow make it worse.
He crept towards the slightly ajar door, intending to peek in to see if he could get a lay of the land.
Sandy's back was to the door, and Seth stood facing him, arms crossed over his chest, scowling.
Seth said something he couldn’t hear.
“You’d better watch it, mister. I'm about ready to have them confiscate your street clothes. Let’s see how eager you’ll be to run around the city in a hospital gown, huh?”
Seth's scowl deepened at that.
“Real nice, Dad. Take away about the only thing that makes a guy still feel like a human being around here.” Seth's voice hitched and he looked away, catching sight of Ryan. His eyes lit up. "Oh good, Ryan." Seth motioned wildly for Ryan to come in.
Ryan eyed Sandy warily as he turned around to look at him.
“Tell me you can reason with this man,” Seth pleaded, gesturing to Sandy. “And please tell me you've got a cake with a file baked into it in there,” he added, gesturing to the bulging tote bag in Ryan's hand.
“Not this time, sorry,” Ryan offered with an uneasy smile, eyes darting between Seth and Sandy. He dropped the tote bag on the bed, a few DVD cases spilling out onto the mattress. "What's up?"
Seeing that Seth and Sandy were sporting father-son matching scowls, Ryan wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
“The warden here busted me,” Seth groused, jerking a thumb towards Sandy. “I was this close to freedom,” he added, holding his thumb and forefinger close together.
“I caught Seth trying to make a break for the exits,” Sandy explained wearily. “Apparently trying to go to the comic book store.”
Ryan looked between Seth and Sandy, unsure of the wisdom of taking sides.
Sandy looked exhausted, bags under his eyes, and it looked like he'd skipped shaving again that morning.
Seth was cancer-ridden, looking slightly better than he when he'd been on oxygen, but still nowhere in the ballpark of good, and there was a different kind of animal intensity to him then, like of course everyone was a little edgy, but they hadn't realized that Seth had taken a flying leap off some kind of emotional deep end.
The silence stretched out.
“The comic book store’s like three miles from here,” was what he settled on.
“I was going to call a cab,” Seth explained, pleading his case.
“Seth, you can barely—-“ Sandy stopped abruptly.
Seth’s level of incapacitation was a thing that they all lived with and organized everything around and was also a thing that they hardly ever named aloud.
Sandy changed up his approach. “You know you're not supposed to leave, but more than that, you weren’t even going to tell anyone you were leaving."
“Because no one would let me go!” Seth's voice wobbled. “I can’t go anywhere or do anything. I’m losing my mind here and no one cares."
"We care. Of course we care, and we want to help you, but you need to talk to us." Sandy's voice rose again. “Did you even think about how worried we’d be, not knowing where you were?"
"You're all gonna be really worried when I die from actual boredom. Everyone's so focused on the whole leukemia thing, but the cabin fever is gonna be what kills me."
Sandy recoiled, looking like he’d been struck in the face, maybe at the even dramatic reference to Seth dying, or maybe at the use of the word leukemia, another thing they didn't tend to casually drop into conversation.
"You could take a walk around the—
"I can’t take another walk around the ward, Dad. I am losing my mind. Seriously." Seth's voice cracked and he looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Please. I’ll settle for being driven around the parking lot. I’ll stick my head out the window like a dog. Please.” He sank onto his bed, tired out from the exertion of the fight and his subsequent begging. His hands rose to cover his face and his shoulders shook, not able to stifle a frustrated, exhausted sob.
Sandy's shoulders slumped and his scowl softened.
“I’m sorry, Seth.” He approached Seth and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I really am. I know this is taking it out of you on so many levels right now, and I wish there was more we could do." He paused. "Now you see why your mom and I are making you talk to a therapist?"
Seth groaned, his face resurfacing from his hands. He wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand and waved away the tissue box that Sandy held out to him.
"Don't gloat, Dad. It's not very fatherly of you."
"It's actually extremely fatherly of me," Sandy pointed out, squeezing Seth's shoulder.
“At least you guys get to see civilization every now and then. I forgot what outside's even like." Seth swallowed, choking off another sob. "I don't know how much longer I can do this. It really is like I don't even feel human anymore."
Sandy rested a hand against Seth's cheek and swiped a tear away with his thumb. “Why don’t you hang out here a little bit and catch up with Ryan? I’ll see if I can find Haddie to check in with you, or maybe we can just all sit down and talk and get some ideas of how we can help. Okay?”
“Okay," Seth agreed glumly.
Ryan doubted they'd have many ideas. Beyond taking walks around the ward, Seth had related to him that their advice was to do things like change his clothes once or twice a day so it would help him feel more like he had a normal routine.
Seth hadn't thought much of that idea, which he'd expressed with some pretty choice words.
“I’m sorry I tried to bust out,” Seth muttered, abashed.
“It’s okay.” Sandy smiled fondly at his son. “I mean, it's not okay, it's really not okay, but I get it.” He pulled Seth into a hug against his chest and bent down to kiss the top of his head. “Just don't do it again, or we're gonna have problems." Sandy gave him one last squeeze before pulling away. He picked a few stray green threads from his lips, gifts courtesy of Seth's ever-present knit cap.
"I'm already effectively grounded here," Seth pointed out. "And I really don't think it's fair for a hospital punishment to carry over to home, so I'd better not be grounded when I finally get out of here."
A pained look flickered across Sandy's features.
That was another thing they didn't reference so much, the prospect of Seth coming home.
Not that they were so good at it now, but Ryan doubted Sandy and Kirsten would be able to ground Seth again. He was sure Seth would use it to his advantage, maybe worry aloud that a grounding would give him some unfortunate flashbacks to his time in the hospital.
"I don't think you need a punishment," Sandy said. "What you need is to tell us when you're about to do a nutty, so we can save you from yourself. You hear me, son?" There was a stern edge to his voice, but it was still much softer than it had been a few minutes earlier.
"I hear you, Dad," Seth said.
"Good. Now we can be done with it. I'll go see if I can find Haddie." Sandy gave Seth one last pat on the shoulder before turning and heading for the door.
ooo
“If I hadn’t mentioned it already Ryan, this cancer thing sucks,” Seth threw his head back onto his pillow and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. He looked as if his feeble escape attempt and the ensuing argument had pretty well exhausted him.
Ryan grabbed the bulging tote bag from Seth's bed and settled it into the floor, figuring they could go through it later.
More DVDs probably weren't the cure to what ailed him.
“So you got busted, huh?”
“Oh man.” Seth shook his head. “I got five steps outside the ward. Dude, I could taste civilization. And then I basically ran right into my dad.”
“Rough.
“I had to distract him from reading the riot act to Nurse Jessie for the lax security around here,” Seth explained. “Hence the reading of the riot act to yours truly.”
“I’m sure Nurse Jessie appreciates you taking the bullet for her,” Ryan said.
"You really caught the tail end of things there too, Ryan." Seth made a face. "Word to the wise: if Dad starts swearing in Yiddish, you'll wanna make a break for it."
“Appreciate the tip." Ryan dropped into an armchair. "Sorry the escape attempt didn't go so well."
Seth shrugged it off. “It wasn’t my best stealth work, to be honest. The cancer’s taken something off my game, if I'm honest. I mean, I considered going full drag, with, like, a candy striper outfit and one of the Cancer Kid wigs, but that felt like more energy than I had, ya know?” He looked thoughtful. “And besides, situation comedy rules would dictate that if I went full drag, I’d then catch my dad checking me out.” He shuddered. “I don’t think any of us are ready for that one.”
Ryan's lip curled at him. “You’re deranged, you know that?”
“Wish we could blame the chemo, huh? And am I deranged, Ryan, or am I just constitutionally incapable of not saying a thing that I find funny?”
“Neither one’s great," Ryan pointed out.
"But hey, we cracked Sandy Cohen, right? Next time you're about to get in big trouble, just start crying like a little baby, and he'll back right off." Seth gestured to his blotchy face, looking embarrassed. "You should try it."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna do that."
"Pride goeth before the fall, Atwood," Seth warned him. "Just promise me you'll keep it in your back pocket, in case you need it." He snorted. "But yeah, I figured. I can't imagine you crying."
Another flash across Ryan's mind, his shoulders shaking, Kirsten's hand running through his hair, her voice soft as she murmured to him.
"But can you believe it, Ryan? He yelled at me." Seth shook his head. "Dad yelled at me. An actual real-life Cancer Kid, and he yelled at me. I didn't even know he could still do that."
"Sorry, man."
"No, it was actually all right," Seth said. "All the pity and everyone being so nice all the time is starting to creep me out."
"Do you want me to yell at you too?"
"Would you?" Seth asked. "Or like, pee in my hospital-issued slippers, like for old time's sake? It's been far too long since I've felt properly despised." He shuddered. "It's unnatural."
"That seems more like Luke's department."
"Shy bladder, or do they just not urinate in footwear in Chino?" Seth asked.
"Nah, that's kind of a Newport thing." Ryan made a face. "Kind of a weird Newport thing, to be honest."
"Hey, so there's one thing Chino has going for it."
ooo
Sandy was startled awake by a very loud, very familiar voice.
"Sleeping through my arrival. How nice."
The woman in front of him did not smile, her expression instead a mixture of sentiments he could never quite place by name and that felt harder and more brittle than they did soft, but all the same, it was home.
"Ma," Sandy whispered. He rose from his chair by Seth's bedside and took two steps forward, letting himself stagger, still half-asleep, into her arms.
It startled him, how immediately choked up he felt, how much the real and full weight of his exhaustion seemed to hit him the moment he saw her, how much he just wanted to bury his face into her neck and stay there for a while.
He'd made do without parental comfort so often in childhood that he hadn't been aware he had any need or want of it, not until she presented him with her arms and he felt the vice grip he'd been holding on everything slacken just a little.
The Nana pulled back after a minute or two, taking a long look at his face.
"You look like you could use a break," she informed him, planting a kiss on his cheek. "I had to take care of a few things, but I got here."
"Did I--did I know you were coming?" Sandy asked. "And is it all right that you're here, with everything---"
"Bah." The Nana waved him away. "I'm all right."
"Your treatment's going--"
"It's going," The Nana responded cryptically. "You don't need to be worrying about me."
"I know Ma, but--
"And anyway, I've led a good long life." She gave him a wry smile. "Or I've led a long life anyway."
Sandy closed his eyes for a beat, mouth curving into a little smile at that.
It had been so long since he'd been home in any substantive way, and home hadn't always felt like home in any substantive way, and yet somehow this woman would always be home for him.
"Our boychik here though..." The Nana jutted her chin at Seth, sprawled out in a tangle of gangly, too-thin limbs, snoring softly. "Not so much yet with the long life."
"No, not yet," Sandy conceded, voice a rasp, chest heavy.
"We'll just have to see to that, hmm?" The Nana wrapped an arm around Sandy's waist and he threw his arm around her shoulder, hugging her to him.
There was a beat of quiet, the two of them looking down at Seth, The Nana's hand rubbing circles on Sandy's back.
"Our boychik," Sandy said softly, liking how the words felt rolling around his mouth, liking how they felt like home too.
"Our boychik." The Nana snorted. "He's giving you a helluva time, huh?"
ooo
The Nana placed a firm hand on Seth's chest and bent down close to his ear.
"Setheleh, sweetheart, Nana's here," she said.
"Nana?" Seth blinked, groaning. He sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
The Nana was giving him that laser beam knowing look she had, the one she aimed his way on her infrequent visits, when he spent all of his time in his room, when he came home with a black eye, when she asked him about school and his life and his replies were limp and vague and he sensed that his dad got an earful about something later, probably that his parents were neglecting to give him any kind of Jewish upbringing and community---somewhere where he wouldn't be considered such a neurotic weirdo---although, to be fair to his parents, Jewish community was something of a big ask in Orange County.
The Nana always gave you that sense that she didn't need to be around all the time to know the score, to know what was what, and certainly not to give you her opinions.
"Hello, dear." The Nana kissed him on the cheek. "I almost didn't recognize you without those locks of yours."
"The Jewfro's on hiatus," Seth acknowledged. "The men of Newport are grateful that I've leveled the playing field for the time being. I was stealing far too much female attention from the rest of them."
The Nana's mouth quirked up in a little half-smile, the closest Seth had seen to uproarious laughter in his memory of The Nana.
"Well that sense of humor has stayed intact then, hasn't it?"
"You bet, Nana."
The Nana kissed his cheek again and gave it a few firm pats with her hand. "Well that's all you really need, anyway."
ooo
Sandy and The Nana sat on the couch, the room otherwise abandoned except for nurses and doctors bustling through every now and then.
Sandy found it strangely hypnotic and strangely peaceful, watching them pass by, knowing that none of them had anything they were trying to talk with him about or update him on, that none of them even knew who he was or knew that they should've been giving him their best "I'm sorry your kid has cancer" sympathetic smiles.
After the doctors had come on to say they needed to borrow Seth for a few tests, Sandy and The Nana had gone on a mostly silent and meandering walk around the hospital before he'd started heading back in the direction of Seth's room.
It was The Nana who had halted him, grabbing him by the wrist and directing him to a waiting room a few departments away from Pediatric Oncology. She'd sat them on the couch and pushed his head onto her shoulder, ordering him to stay there for the time being.
Sandy felt surprised and more than a little guilty to find that it was nice, having some distance from Pediatric Oncology and some distance from Seth's room, being able to find some mental and emotional distance from being Seth's dad for a few moments, from being expected to provide comfort or project strength or perform any number of tasks that he felt weighing on his shoulders at any given moment.
He wasn't ready to go back to that, not yet.
He heaved a heavy sigh.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Sandy shrugged. There was something that had been nagging at him since yesterday, one of the almost certainly many reasons that could account for why the stress of being Seth's dad was weighing on him so heavily, why he was relieved to be somewhere else at the moment.
"I yelled at him, Ma."
"Who?"
"Seth."
"Eh, so what? He probably deserved it."
"I yelled at my kid," Sandy said. "My kid who has cancer."
He'd yelled loudly and at length and in multiple languages, at his kid who was barely functional, at his kid who---in his own words---barely felt human.
And yes, Seth had terrified him, his little stunt making him imagine his son wandering the streets, getting mugged or picking up an infection that risked his life or set his treatment back by weeks or months or fainting in a crosswalk and no one being able to identify him or being able to understand the medical peril he was in, and yes, all of those scenarios had been running through his brain on a loop since Seth had walked smack dab into him a half dozen steps outside the Pediatric Oncology ward, but it was also unfair to expect Seth to be in his right mind at that moment, and maybe for the foreseeable future.
And it was part of his job as a dad, protecting Seth and Ryan from themselves, from their individual and very different brands of doing a nutty that he should've known enough to expect.
That he did know enough to expect.
He'd known Seth would get stir crazy. He remembered coming home from work to find him doing tricks on his skateboard with a 102 degree fever, face red and flushed, eyes glassy, words stumbling and unfocused as he argued that he couldn't take it anymore, being laid up in bed---he needed to move or he was going to lose it.
So he'd known it would be a problem in the hospital, but it wasn't a problem with any real solution, so he'd pretended that a walk around the ward every now and then and the feeble encouragement to create a daily routine for himself would suffice for Seth, and he'd hoped for the best, hoped that Seth would somehow deal with six weeks or longer in a hospital bed when he couldn't handle the four days that he'd needed for that fever to break.
"My Setheleh ever make you mad before he had cancer?"
"Obviously." Sandy couldn't help the hint of irritation that crept into his voice, knowing what The Nana was getting at.
"So he'll make you mad before and after, and during too," The Nana said. "They say not to take a moment for granted like that's so easy, like a teenage boy isn't going to be annoying. Now add to that a sick and tired and grouchy and scared teenage boy, and I don't envy what you've had on your hands lately."
Sandy let that sit between them for a few moments.
"Was I an annoying teenage boy?" Sandy asked.
"My darling, you were the most obnoxious child who ever lived," The Nana replied, a smile in her voice.
Sandy laughed.
The Nana threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed the top of his head.
"And everybody acts so phony when you're sick, you probably did our boychik there a favor."
Sandy smiled at that, imagining the staff at The Nana's treatment center treating her with kid gloves, treating her like they imagined a single older woman with cancer might like to be treated. He shuddered to imagine how they'd been set straight on that subject.
"You think I should go yell at him again?"
"Nah, you've gotta really mean it, or it won't work." The Nana paused. "But what you have with him, you can't undo that so easily. I see how he looks at you, how both of your boys look at you." She put a few fingers under Sandy's chin and tilted his face toward her so they were looking each other in the eye. "You won't mess that up."
Sandy could hear the "Not like I did," at the end of her sentence, delivered matter-of-factly, never a hint of self-pity from Sophie Cohen.
They'd never really hashed it out, the way he'd left at sixteen, their fights leading up to it, her absences for large chunks of his childhood and adolescence, and what had felt huge and incomprehensible and impossible for him to fully touch or face head-on with her, the person she'd been able to be for everyone's kids except her own.
And despite all that, he didn't think he realized until he had Seth how hard that might've been for her, the way that one day he was gone and the way that he'd barely ever looked back.
In another family, maybe it would've been the time to hash that all out, to tell his ma that he loved her and that he was sorry for the way things had happened, but he wasn't entirely sure that he was sorry, and he knew for certain that his ma didn't abide by perfunctory apologies and insincere sentiments.
He wasn't sure what he'd ever say about him leaving, if they were ever to really talk about it. He wasn't sure what would feel true.
Sandy settled his head back on his mother's shoulder, taking a long slow breath there.
"I'm glad you're here, Ma," was what he settled on, for the moment.
ooo
Sandy poked a bobby bin through the threads in Seth's knit cap and squinted at it, adjusting the kippah as best he could atop his son's head.
With Seth neither embracing the Cancer Kid wig lifestyle nor comfortable putting what he called his surprisingly misshapen bald dome on display, a kippah pinned to the his cap would have to suffice.
The Nana pulled a small loaf of challah out of a Ziploc bag and placed it on Seth's tray table, using the Ziploc bag as a makeshift challah board. She dug around in her bag, and Sandy smiled as she came away with a familiar white and blue and slightly yellowed embroidered challah cover.
"I'm uh, not sure I'm doing this right," Ryan announced, and Sandy looked up to find Kirsten already swooping in to help him adjust his kippah.
"I'm shocked Atwood doesn't know his way around a bobby pin.” Summer arranged two battery-powered candles next to the challah and looked to The Nana, who gave her a nod and arm pat of approval, high praise from Sophie Cohen.
"Hey, I've been a Jew my whole life and it still takes me a few tries," Seth said.
"That's all right; I don't mind helping you out." Sandy smiled to himself, it being one of those things he secretly enjoyed getting to help with, especially as both Seth and Ryan had pretty much mastered the art of tying a tie. "Do you remember doing this when you were little, preparing for Shabbat?" He asked Seth.
"We used to do Shabbat? I only remember doing it when The Nana was around and trying to make it seem like we did it all the time."
The Nana snorted.
Sandy narrowed his eyes at Seth. "My own son, selling me out."
"I remember," Kirsten chimed in. "It was when you were really little and Dad started his first job out of law school. He worked such long hours, and it was the only way we could come up with to get him to slow down and stop working when he got home on Friday night."
She looked up and traded smiles with Sandy as they worked on their sons and wrangling their respective kippot in place, each of them thinking back to that time, Sandy coming home from work harried and always with one or two more things to get done before remembering their deal, putting away his briefcase, and pulling out the candles.
They didn't observe Shabbat in the strictest sense, though Sandy loved to call Kirsten his Shabbos goy, and it was a part of their ritual for Sandy to find new and inventive and increasingly goofy ways to indirectly ask Kirsten to do things like turn off the lights at the end of the night, but they made the weekends their family time, and sundown Friday was their starting point. It helped Sandy to transition his focus from work to home and to officially mark the end of his week.
"We kind of fell off doing it, but maybe we should bring it back," Sandy suggested. "We get to do my favorite part after we light the candles."
"Well let's get to lighting them." Seth patted his stomach. "I think I might actually be able to handle a few bites of challah tonight."
"It's too bad we didn't make this challah," The Nana said. "I've never seen anyone braid a challah as nicely as my Setheleh does it."
"A true natural," Sandy agreed proudly.
"So that's why you're so good with Princess Sparkle." Summer giggled. "Her tail always looks flawless after you get done with it."
"What's a Princess Sparkle?" The Nana's gaze bounced between them, brow furrowed.
"You're salting my game here, Nana," Seth grumbled, face flushing a light pink.
"I don't know what that means," The Nana said flatly.
"I still don't," Kirsten piped up.
"I think your game is just fine, son," Sandy said, raising his eyebrows at his son pointedly, grinning as Seth's face turned a deeper red.
"Can we just light the candles already?"
"Such as they are." The Nana looked to Kirsten and Ryan. "Can someone get the lights?"
As the lights dimmed, The Nana took each candle in turn and flicked the switch on before replacing them on the tray table. She passed her hands over the candles a few times and then held her hands in front of her eyes.
Sandy and Seth joined in as she sang the blessing.
"Barukh atah, Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu, l'hadlik neir, l'hadlik neir, shel shabbat."
The Nana uncovered her eyes and looked at the candlelight as if for the first time.
"Shabbat Shalom," she murmured, and she smiled to herself as "Shabbat Shalom"s filled the room.
"You said it's time for your favorite part?" Ryan asked, sounding a little apprehensive as Sandy beckoned Ryan and Kirsten over to him.
"Oh, I remember this," Seth said. "It's the blessing of the children, right?" He smirked. "Classic Sandy Cohen sentimentality right there."
"You know you love it too, son." Sandy placed a hand on Seth's head and then looked at Ryan, silently asking permission before placing his other hand on his head. Kirsten came up beside him, resting her hands on top of his.
"Just go with it," Seth encouraged Ryan.
Sandy's eyes found The Nana's, and he dipped his head towards her.
"Blessing all the children tonight." He closed his eyes for a beat as his ma's warm hand found a spot on his crown. "We start with the male children, and then it's your turn," he explained, eyeing Kirsten and Summer in turn.
"Nobody gets away from a Cohen family Shabbat unsanctified," Seth added.
Sandy and The Nana recited together, voices blending:
"Yesimcha Elohim k’Ephraim v’chi-Menashe. Yivarechecha Adonai v’yishmerecha. Ya’er Adonai panav eilecha vichuneka. Yisa Adonai panav eilecha v’yasem lecha shalom."
Sandy hadn't always understood it, The Nana's insistence on some of the ritual, her disappointment when he barely scraped by in order to get bar mitzvahed. He pointed out that she was agnostic to the point of indifferent to even the question of a higher power, that she barely made it to services herself, that she seemed to pick and choose what worked for her and what didn't, and how did that not make it okay for him to do the same? And he'd had a point---of course he'd had a point, and it was in their blood to argue and wrestle with it---but over the years, she'd come to suspect that he'd started to understand it more, see what she was wanting to pass on, see what she'd been afraid would end with her or with him. There was the phone call when her heart eased a little, when it became clear that Seth being bar mitzvahed was a given, that there'd never been a second of doubt in Sandy's mind on the matter, and there was that moment in the hospital room, Sandy whispering something in Ryan's ear and then kissing him on the cheek before trading places with Kirsten and bending to whisper something in Seth's ear and then kissing him on the cheek, his eyes tired but his smile soft.
"Shabbat Shalom," she whispered to herself, one hand rising to press against her chest.