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Russia or wherever . . . Poland. Didn’t you once put gefilte fish in a bowl of matzah ball soup during a seder?”
    â€œThis is not a negotiation. You broke the trust. You betrayed me. Call your father and tell him. No one is going.”
    I walk to the phone and dial my father’s number. There is no answer. I hang up and my mother hands me one of her leather-bound books and points to a paragraph. I know this one well. The thirty-nine categories of verboten activities on the Sabbath:
sowing, plouwing, reaping, winnowing, spinning, weaving, making two loops
. . .
    â€œ
This
is your defense? A book from the sixteenth century?”
    . . . trapping, slaughtering, flaying, writing two or more letters
.
    â€œNot everything that is thought should be said,” she says in her pious, calm tone. “And not everything that is said should be repeated.”
    â€œJust stop.”
    â€œI love you, David.”
    â€œYou
love
me?”
    â€œBut you’re pushing me in ways I won’t be pushed.”
    â€œI
apologized
for being late.”
    â€œI want to go,” Debra says. “I want to see his apartment.”
    â€œWe’re going,” I say. “You should be able to see your father, regardless of what
I
did.”
    My mother walks out of the room, into the bathroom. I wait for the door to slam but it doesn’t. Upstairs I grab my shoes, a sweatshirt, my mother’s car keys off her dresser, and my camera. I run out to the car, start the engine, and my sister opens the front door of the house. I roll down the window to hear her.
    â€œMe too. I want to go.”
    I know it’s stupid but I open the door and she’s in.
    â€œI can’t believe I’m doing this,” she says.
    I am my father. A kidnapper. I pull out of the driveway just like yesterday, just like he did.
    â€œWhat am I doing?” she says.
    â€œHe wants to take you to lunch. Lunch! Okay, Deb? He loves you!”
    â€œShe loves us too,” she says, looking back at the house.
    â€œIt’s going to be
fun
. Forget all the other crap and let’s just feel good. It’s Saturday and it’s nice out. Right?”
    She doesn’t answer me.
    â€œDeb?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI won’t take you if you don’t want to go.”
    â€œJust don’t ask me,” she says. “Just go.”
    â€œOkay. I won’t ask anymore.”
    She nods, still staring out the window. I turn the radio on—“Crocodile Rock”—and face her. “She’ll get over it.”
    â€œShe’ll hate me.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’m nervous,” she says.
    â€œStop thinking about it. Wanna play twenty questions?”
    â€œNo.”
    I lower the music. “I’m thinking of an animal.”
    â€œDo you think she knows we’re gone by now?”
    â€œIt’s not a crime to see your father.”
    â€œWe took her car.”
    â€œShe’s not using it. I’m thinking of an animal. Not a human. Please. Do it. Guess.”
    I look at the back of her head, her long dark ponytail. A sinner today, a villain, an accomplice to a crime. She tugs on her seat belt.
    â€œHello?” I say.
    â€œOkay, okay,” she says. “Is it a zebra?”
    â€œNo. It isn’t. Ask if it lives in or zoo or something.”
    â€œDoes it live in a zoo?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI don’t care. A monkey. Do you think she knows by now?”
    â€œNo. It’s not a monkey.
    â€œIs it a cat?”
    â€œIn a way.”
    â€œIs it a tiger?”
    â€œYes. Wow. That’s it. That was fast. It’s a tiger. All right, your turn.”
    â€œI don’t want to play. I have a stomachache.”
    â€œDoes it live in Africa?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDoes it have a tail?”
    â€œNo. It lives in New Jersey and its yelling my name right now, running around the house looking for me.”
    I laugh. “Trust me,”