by Lauren Stein

It’s time for the third glass of wine, and Bubbie is asleep.

At the kids’ table, my youngest cousin swings her party shoes into my overlong legs, and I don’t say anything. She shovels tiny bites of spongy matzah ball into her mouth, distracted by the older kids and their tablets.

Last year, I was pissed about being relegated to the kids’ table. I was twenty-one. I could drink all the glasses of wine. I could even buy them across the border. This year, my place card finally migrated to sit with the grown-ups. But without Uncle Meyer, it feels wrong. Like I just got it because a spot opened up. So I’ve placed myself back with the kids instead.

I watch my other uncles—once a triumphant trio, now a depressing duo—and the rest of my family go through the motions of the seder. This is the order of things. It’s been this way for thousands of years.

Tonight, it feels different. The vibe is off. Everyone is actually paying attention. Even to the umpteenth retelling of how our ancestors escaped from Egypt. The empty chair with my place card keeps catching my eye, expecting me to do something about it.

Dad harrumphs to clear his throat before starting the next prayer. Aunt Josie leans over my sister to pour the extra glass of wine in the middle of the table. It’s time for someone to open the door for Eliyahu.

Every other Passover, the uncles would be well on their way to wasted by now. Near-tipping off chairs, telling questionable jokes, trying to get the kids to stick things in Bubbie’s nose, and causing mayhem. Uncle Meyer let his brothers take the lead on the pranks, but when he stepped up and stepped in, he was the showstopper. He’d belt out “Dayenu” with Broadway flair, fork out the biggest reward for the kid who found the hidden matzah, and when the wine glasses needed a refill, he was on it. The best part of the night (besides finally, finally getting to eat) happened when Uncle Meyer would make a grand show of welcoming the enigmatic and invisible prophet.

I’d wait all night for Uncle Meyer’s one-man act. He’d grumble loudly to himself, knocking into chairs on his way to the foyer. Someone would yell that he’d had one too many, and he’d clap back with a sizzling roast that would send us roaring. You can’t see the front door from the dining room, but he spoke so emphatically I thought I could hear Elihayu’s replies. It was the stories my uncle made up on the spot, plus the long back-and-forth with someone who wasn’t there, that made it memorable.

Uncle Meyer and Eliyahu used to be roommates at university. Or they’d met by chance on a flight from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale. Or they’d both reached for the same last tub of the good chopped liver. Whatever the catalyst was of their meet-cute that year, it would escalate. They would always have some kind of disagreement. When Uncle Meyer would make the idle threat of not inviting the prophet into the house to do what he was symbolically meant to, they’d find a resolution. My uncle would leave the door open, come back to the table, and everyone who wasn’t in complete stitches or snorting wine out the nose would be applauding.

The seder would continue. The kids would flock back to their seats for dessert. Bubbie would wake up and ask what page of the Haggadah we were on.

But now there’s a lull where there shouldn’t be. The void a palpable silence that’s dry, words crumbling on the tongue like the round matzahs my dad always buys from the black hatters who go door-to-door. Out of genuine charity or guilt? We’re Jews, Uncle Meyer would say—probably both.

I’m not sure what prompts me to lurch up from my seat. Could be the savage kicks my little cousin is still delivering under the table. Could be the empty chair gaping at me. Could be that I’m still not sure how to miss the uncle who came to all my high-school volleyball games, who took me to my first concert, who let me be confidently wrong for a little before teaching me something new. The uncle who came in a three-pack, but only knew how to stand out.

I’m on my feet and grumbling before I can reconsider.

“Kids these days,” I mutter, too quiet. I cough a little which gets the attention of the kids’ table, but everyone else is mulling over their third glasses.

“Kids these days!” I try again. This gets more head turns as I shuffle towards the foyer. “Faces glued to screens, and they still won’t answer the phone!” It’s boomer nonsense, but my kid cousin, watching me with bright eyes, starts to smile.

I keep muttering things that just pop into my head. Things Uncle Meyer used to tease about: the house being too hot, my dad reading too slow, the aunts conspiring to cut him off too early.

“Why is this macher always late?” I ask, throwing in all the whine and any yiddishism I can muster. Dragging the “always,” stretching the “late,” shrugging my shoulders up to my earlobes, and spreading my hands out in exasperated supplication. “I want to get to bed already.”

“You tell him, Daniella!” It’s my Uncle Gerry.

“I just want Aunt Josie’s mocha squares!” Calls my sister.

“Tell that slow poke his wine’s getting cold!” Someone else shouts.

Then there’s a deluge of tittering and chuckling. A buzz of people speaking to and over each other. Everyone egging me on. I take their positive reinforcement and let it ferry me along.

“He told me he’d be early this year. So much for prophets, eh?” I’m practically yelling now since I’m behind the wall that splits the foyer from the dining room. My lips quirk up a little higher. I’m actually doing this. Maybe Uncle Meyer is here with me. I think I feel him pat me on the shoulder. I want to see him nod with that ever-present twinkle in his eye.

I unlock the front door, the niggling and ribbing from the dining room lets me step further into the role I used to watch and marvel at. Maybe the shoes are just my size.

“You wait all this time, and you start to wonder what kind of skeezy hope-fulfillment scam this guy is running.” I tilt my head back towards the dining room and open the door at the same time. “You’re late!” I say, turning to the top step beyond the threshold.

A man in a neon-orange vest blinks back at me with a familiar brown cardboard box tucked under his arm. Its printed black smile appreciating the fresh awkwardness of the situation. The man doesn’t say anything. He just stands there.

I don’t know what to do.

I wanted to go into this thing with full commitment, just the way my uncle would’ve done. I’d even come up with a bunch of ridiculous reasons to be miffed at a symbolic presence.

I don’t know why the delivery guy is standing there staring at me instead of handing over the box and going on his way. It occurs to me that he might’ve thought I was talking to him about being late. Maybe he’s not late. Maybe he’s right on time, and my comment is an affront to his professionalism. A gauntlet thrown at his reputation for being punctual.

I think about what Uncle Meyer would’ve done, and I know I’ve already skipped too many beats.

“Good of you to finally show! I didn’t think you would after you took off with my Leafs tickets,” I say. I would close the door on him, but he’s still holding the package—probably something my mom ordered—and our family tradition is leaving the door open until the seder ends. The man glances away to check the package label. I take the opportunity and turn my back on him to return to the dining room. He does the one thing I assumed he wouldn’t: he follows me in.

I lead him through the entrance way because I’ve gone too far to break now. I just keep talking at him. It’s like he’s trapped in the thrall of my voice.

“Sure, come in, pay your respects to the family. They miss you, you know, once a year is never enough,” I tell him. The voices in the dining room are loud, so I go louder. My friend, the Eliyahu stand-in, glances around, eyes darting, probably hunting for an escape hatch.

We go around the corner, and the chatter cuts out. My other two uncles are half-standing, my mom is frozen with one foot in the kitchen, the last bite of matzah ball drops out of my kid cousin’s open mouth. Everyone stares.

I think I hear Uncle Meyer’s wheezy laughter filter through the open front door.

“What? You see him every Passover. Somebody get this guy his cab sauv!” I say.

The Last Supper tableau of my family erupts into movement. Eliyahu’s ceremonial wine goblet—incidentally my dad’s bar mitzvah kiddush cup—gets shoved into my hands. I offer it to the man in neon. He stares at the goblet, then at my face, then back to the wine.

“Thanks, but I, uh, don’t drink,” he says, peering at the faces around the table.

“Of course not! What good prophet does?” I hand the glass back to whoever. “It must be time to move on,” I say, and I lead him back through the entrance hall. Back towards the gaping front door. Thankfully, he’s still following.

I’m so close to the end of this. To the moment when I can collapse from the embarrassment, like some kind of cathartic release.

My mom intercepts us from the kitchen as we reach the open door, a box of chocolate-covered matzah clutched in hand. She extends the matzah out to the delivery man. A consolation prize for playing along. He hands my mom the package he’s been clutching as he accepts hers.

He steps over the threshold, back into the April chill, and speed walks down the front steps to his white Sprinter van. Like he’s seen the ghost we carry with us.

I press my forehead against the doorframe. Mom gently strokes my hair.

“Sometimes, hope is bittersweet,” she says. I think I get what she means.

In the dining room, everyone is talking at once. I get some celebratory back slaps. My other uncles give my shoulders a tight squeeze. The mood is a complete reversal to what it was before. It’s light. It’s hopeful. Turns out the release isn’t embarrassment. It’s relief.

The fourth glass of wine is poured, and Bubbie wakes up.

“What page are we on?” She asks.

I plunk my body into the empty seat with my place card. My sister pulls me into a side hug.

Across the tables, my kid cousin smiles sweetly at me, her Concord grape mustache lifting. She tilts her bear-shaped plastic cup in my direction. A l’chaim. My wine glass is empty, but right next to it, Eliyahu’s isn’t. I pick it up and smile back at her, lean to the left, and take a sip.