Model, me and Abigail heard my father’s car in the driveway. The trunk slammed. Abigail quickly turned off the TV. Gregor Samsa was taken care of by his sister, initially. Abigail was pretty squeamish. I couldn’t ever imagine her being nurselike with me.
‘I hope I like her,’ whispered Abigail, bouncing both her knees.
Grete was the only one who ever accepted Gregor as a bug.
‘This is where the kids put their shoes, na’alayim.’
I cringed. My father was trotting out his Hebrew.
Abigail jumped up off the couch then abruptly sat down again, jamming her head onto her knees, smothering nervous laughter.
My father kept speaking extra loud and extra slow. ‘Can I take your coat, your me’il? No? Lo? Okay, keep it on, but it’s hot today, right? This is where we hang our me’ilim. It’s going to be a wet summer this year, so you’re lucky we’ve got an extra raincoat – me’il, me’il geshum, right? Sometimes it rains here even in the summer. Don’t worry if you don’t have a cooler me’il. Ruth will lend you one of hers, or we can get you a new one because you’re not the same size.’
My father laughed. God, it was embarrassing. Abigail, for some reason, punched me in the arm.
‘You ate on the flight, ken?’
My father was now in the kitchen. Me and Abigail stayed in the family room. The doe-eyed headshot had not said a word.
‘The weather’s not bad here,’ my father rambled, ‘but the traffic is ayom. Dreadful! I’m sure you have bad traffic in Israel, too, of course.’
God, was this my father acting like the saviour?
‘Do you want to sit down, Barbra? H’bayit shli, oo h’bayit shlach. My home is your home.’
Fuck. I bet he’d practised that.
I stood up. Abigail kicked the back of my knee.
‘Don’t!’ she hissed.
I tiptoed up the half-staircase toward the kitchen.
‘Hungry, Barbra? At re’eva?’
My ears got plugged with a rapid heartbeat. A six-foot-tall woman loomed over my father. I only saw her from behind. Maybe my mother was right. My father, multi-armed, waved the bundle of my mother’s tuna fish. The woman had shiny black hair slicked back into a bun and a puffy black plastic bomber jacket. I thought of duct tape. Female boxing. A giantess.
‘At re’eva? You understand?’
I knew she spoke English, my dad said she spoke fine.
My father, undaunted, unwrapped the plastic and bit off a hunk of black bread smeared with fish.
‘We’re going to get you set up so you can rest. Yashen, shluf.’
I could hear the cracking in my father’s jaw. He could not stand still or stop talking in front of this giant.
Suddenly, Abigail scampered past me out of the family room. The six-foot-tall headshot spun around. She had this big blue vein in the middle her forehead, a pushed-out lower lip. Her face in real life was more amazing than any model.
‘I’m Abbi,’ my sister said. ‘That knob there is my bro.’
I could not believe Abigail was not afraid. My father chucked out his crusts. I leaned against the doorway and nodded in her direction. I started breathing too fast. I had cramps in my gut.
‘Are you going to babysit me?’ Abigail asked, fawning.
‘We’re not going to make you work here, don’t worry,’ my father interrupted. ‘Come sit, guys, come eat. This is a meal. We should eat.’
‘Drink,’ said the headshot. She had a gruff Hebrew voice.