Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,49
student sharing his first kiss with a boy from his chem lab. And then he was a husband who held hands with another man and pushed their daughter in a small bucket swing.
He supposes somewhere deep inside, behind all the darkness and ache, that man still lives. He’s starving and pale and afraid, but he’s there. And as long as Alejandro breathes, that man will never die.
For the moment, he drops his hands to his sides and rolls his shoulders back so they relax. He wishes he wasn’t in his suit, but he doesn’t really have anything other than the fleece pajamas his mother sends every year, and he’s not quite sunk that far yet.
“Eh,” Avery says then shrugs, “it’ll do.”
It’s then Alejandro realizes he’s holding something behind his back because he’s got his menorah clutched in his hand, and he walks over to the window to set it on the sill. It’s a bit beat up and old, scuffed in places and covered in wax residue.
He’s seen intricate ones in the windows of shops, but this is simple and silver and without adornments. It looks old and very well loved. “How long have you had it?” he asks.
Avery peers over his shoulders with a brow raised.
“Your menorah,” he clarifies.
“Chanukiah,” Avery says as he turns back. “It’s the menorah for Chanukah. It’s…never mind,” he says. “Semantics.”
Alejandro comes to stand next to him, and pulling up what little courage he has in the moment, he brushes his fingers along the small of Avery’s back. “Don’t make it sound so small. It’s important.”
Avery scoffs and waves his hand a little out the window, and Alejandro sees why. Everything it lit up in red and green fairy lights, garlands strung, Christmas baubles hanging from lamp posts. There’s a billboard in the distance with a big fat Santa selling auto parts. He understands that Avery probably feels like he’s drowning in a world he never asked to exist in.
“It matters,” Alejandro says. “I should have paid closer attention before.”
Avery’s jaw works, then he swallows quickly. “Menorahs are six candles, but Chanukah burns for eight nights, so we use a special one called a chanukiah. Most people don’t call it that, though.” He turns and then leans against the arm of a chair that Alejandro thinks no one has ever sat in the entire time he’s had it. Maybe Louis—once, when he was drunk, but seeing Avery there looks so right. “My mom gets annoyed because as a historian, I know the ins and outs of the history behind it rather than the cute story they tell kids.”
“Why does she mind?” he wonders aloud, and the corner of Avery’s mouth turns up.
“My mom loves things that have hints of magic, you know? Miracles, angels, burning bushes with the voice of god.” His mouth twists into a wry grin. “She used to put up fairy houses in the garden when I was younger. She didn’t give a shit about mixing cultures, she just like things that were other.”
Alejandro jolts a little because it’s not often people enjoy differences. But he supposes magic is a little easier to swallow than death or mental illness or trauma. “Can’t you have both?”
Avery’s mouth softens into a full smile. “That’s what I tell her.” He reaches out with a finger and traces the edge of the chanukiah. “Our history is full of people capturing us. Of exile and pain and loss and death. Over and over, strangers march into our land and impose their laws and language and religion. Sometimes they forced conversions, and sometimes they offered a choice. Hebrew was eradicated and merged with Aramaic, and we’ve tried to take it back, but it’s hard when you have hundreds and hundreds of years that pass between then and when you want to reclaim your lost culture.”
Alejandro blinks. “That sounds…” Tragic, he thinks, but he’s not sure that’s the right word for it. “Do you know Hebrew?”
He laughs. “Less than I’d like, considering I’m a history major. My family speaks more Yiddish.” He shrugs and leans back again. “They’re both important, but one of the things I learned about first in history is that the best way to steal someone’s culture is to take the language first. You break that link, you can re-write history in whatever narrative you want. They did it to the Native Americans, they did it in Turkey when the Ottoman Empire fell. There was even a really advanced society of ancient Mediterraneans who almost disappeared