Page 74 of The Photograph

“Give me a chance to get better at all this.”

I nibble his finger, smiling. And why am I being so impatient? I’m enjoying slow. “One day,” I say, “I want you to talk dirty to me.”

He laughs. “I’ll try,” he says, “but I can’t guarantee I’d know what to say.”

28

ALEX

It’s always been compulsory to be around on Friday evening for Shabbat dinner in our house and Nana pats my arm as I place a gin and tonic in front of her. “You’re a good grandson, Alex.”

I grin at her. “And you’re the best grandma.”

Tutting, she flaps her hand at me.

“Who’s looking after the terrors today?” I ask.

She grimaces. “Anna is taking Betsy to the vet’s.”

“Oh no, Nana. Is she okay?”

“Betsy’s fine. I think she might have got something in her paw; she was limping yesterday.”

I press my hand to my chest. “What would I do if something happened to her? She’s my favorite attack dog.”

“Oh, she’s a sweetie.”

“You didn’t think that when she destroyed your best sweater.”

“Alex, come and take the chicken to the table, please!” my mom shouts.

Making a face at Nana, I head into the flurry that is my four elder sisters with my mom in the kitchen. A beautifully braidedchallah sits on the bench. Rachel is stirring the gravy, Hannah is transferring potato to a serving dish, and Becs is hammering a masher through something in a pan. Cara is scowling at her mobile phone. My mom, her face flushed from cooking, is frowning as she strains greens through a sieve. She and Nana have never had an easy relationship. Rumor has it that Nana resisted her wedding to my father because she thought my dad could do better, and my mom has never got over the sting of this. And I get it, when Nana gets hold of something, she’s like a dog with a bone. I’m lucky I’ve never fallen out of favor with her, no matter what I do.

My sisters all feel a different kind of family pressure, though, that of being judged and found wanting. If my father had his way, we would all be working in finance. And in our own ways, we’re all trying to escape the narrow career options we were forced into. Cara moved out of home a couple of years ago and has managed to shift into a marketing job from the accounting role she once had. She hasn’t told my parents. Hannah teaches at the local school but would like to be an artist, not a profession that Mom and Dad consider a worthwhile occupation. Rachel is training to be a lawyer. Becs is closest to me in age, angry because she never performed well at school, and is secretly running a craft business on Instagram under an assumed name. Our father also forced her into being an accountant, but she only just scraped through her exams and hates working with numbers. It’s depressing that I’m still sitting at that research desk. But maybe I have also tried to keep the peace for too long, to meet all the expectations.

After we’ve sat down and Dad has said the blessing over the bread, we all tuck in. Mom starts asking us about our work, and my father sits at the head of the table—curly hair like a halo around his bald head which gleams in the overhead light—as hewaits for her to serve him. Can he not help himself for once in his life?

“So have your family met this nice young friend of yours?” Nana asks, lifting a forkful of potatoes to her mouth with a shaking hand.

And I raise my head from the tureen where I’m spooning honey-roasted carrots onto my plate, stomach churning. She’s not really going to talk about this, is she?

“Which one, Nana?” I say, as I swallow down a sawdusty throat.

“Des, that lovely guy you brought to meet me?”

Thank God. Thank God she didn’t say any more. Maybe she didn’t pick up on the fact that Des is as gay as they come. God bless my sheltered grandma—it wouldn’t even occur to her. My mother turns and smiles.

“Bubbe has met a friend of yours that we haven’t?”

The implication is clear here: This person is not from the synagogue. You have friends who aren’t Jewish, Alex?

“Yes, yes.” Nana says, nodding. “So handsome he was, too … reminded me of my Nate.”

I can almost detect Mom’s eye roll. She hates all the stories of the wonderful Nate, chiefly because Dad is an asshole who rules the entire household with an iron fist, and she thinks Nana is responsible.

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s got women falling all over him, just like Grandpa.” I wink at her, and the hot sweat dissipates as fast as it came.

She frowns at me. “But I thought he was gay?” she says.

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