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told that to the police. Do you remember how our seder began, Chris? With the four questions?”
    “I remember very well. All the children asked them.”
    “The first question is: ‘Wherefore is this night different from all other nights?’ I must have asked myself that question a thousand times in the weeks and months that followed. What was different about that night? What was different about Iris? What was different about the people at the table? And the answer was always nothing. It was the same as the year before and the year before that. What was different was that Iris walked out of the apartment when she opened the door for Elijah.”
    “Do you remember her leaving the table?”
    “Yes, I remember. I was sitting near her, not right next to her, maybe two seats down. And somebody said, ‘It’s time for Elijah,’ and Iris said, ‘I’ll go.’ And she pushed her chair back from the table and walked out of the room.”
    “How long did it take for people to notice that she hadn’t come back?”
    “It took a while,” Marilyn said. “We just continued with the Haggadah. I don’t think anyone really noticed she wasn’t there. People get up and sit down all the time. I know when it happened,” she said as if she had just remembered. “The reading went around the table and then it was her turn and her seat was empty. Mom called her. Then maybe my brother did. Then maybe I got up to look for her. Nobody was in the bathroom. The bedrooms were empty. Only the children were at the children’s table. So I went to the front door. It was still open just a crack. No one was in the kitchen. I closed the front door and went back to the table and I said I couldn’t find her. I didn’t think for a moment she had left the apartment. I just thought she was somewhere and I didn’t know where.”
    “Do you remember what happened then?”
    “I think everyone started calling and looking for her. Pop was furious. He wanted to continue the reading. But Mom was a little nervous. And then Aunt Sylvie started to cry. Do you remember Sylvie?”
    “I remember.”
    “She’s a very delicate little woman, very emotional. Her husband died years ago, but she can’t talk about him without getting teary. Not that I blame her. He was a wonderful man and he was very good to her. But when she started to cry, I felt scared.”
    “How long did you look for her?”
    “I don’t know, another five minutes, maybe.”
    “Did anyone go outside to look for her?”
    “Not right away. Who would imagine she would leave in the middle of the seder?”
    “Do you remember who the first person was that suggested it?”
    “No. All of a sudden it seemed to occur to all of us at once. My brother put his coat on and went out to look for her, and we kept looking around the apartment like crazy people, looking under beds, looking in closets. And then my father said, ‘Call the police.’ ”
    “How long do you think it was from the time Iris left the table till the police were called?”
    “A long time,” Marilyn said. “Fifteen minutes, anyway. Maybe more. It’s because no one noticed she wasn’t at the table for so long.”
    “What happened when the police came?”
    “It was chaos. My husband had called and he told them over the phone that Aunt Iris had been grabbed by a man in the hall, which wasn’t true, but he wanted them there right away and it worked. Two officers came, they talked to us, they asked us some questions, and then one of them said, ‘What color coat was she wearing?’ And that was the first time we thought to look for her coat in the closet. It wasn’t there.”
    “I can imagine what the officers said.”
    “They said that she probably went out for a breath of fresh air. By that time, they had pretty much straightened out the story and they were angry that my husband had lied to them over the phone. They said we should call her at home, that she’d probably be there soon, and let them know what