Page 26 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

Startled by the shift in him, though she shouldn’t have been, given the history that he had shared, Miri said slowly, “Figuratively. None of us came from Jewish families,” eyeing him as she did. She knew now why the concept of orphanhood was a literal one for him.

Immediately his posture relaxed, the stiffness that had come to him exiting almost as suddenly as it had entered.

“That’s what you had meant by joining,” he put together now. “You’re a convert.”

He said it like it suddenly made sense, and she tried not to take it personally.

Going through any religious or sacred process was not part of the general modern experience of most people—it stood out and she was used to the fact.

Just like she was used to the fact that most people didn’t expect a Black woman to be Jewish.

So while she wouldn’t have minded if people could have been a little less weird about both, she understood.

Nodding, she said, “I did, early in college.”

She braced herself for the typical question that came next: Why?

But Mr. Silver instead concluded, “So no sweet family Hanukkah stories because your family is not Jewish, not because you don’t have a family. I had wondered when you said that.”

The deduction also wasn’t what she had expected.

Shaking her head, she confirmed, “No. My family is alive and well and growing by the minute, it seems. My sisters keep having kids and my parents love to have their grandbabies around. I swear their house is louder now than even when we were all little.”

“And none of them celebrate Hanukkah with you?” he asked, his opinion on what the answer should be clear in his tone.

Bristling on behalf of her family, Miri replied primly, “None of them are Jewish.”

Mr. Silver was unimpressed. “Hanukkah is an easy holiday to celebrate in solidarity. Many non-Jews take part. Kids love it.”

Miri snorted. “Not my family.”

Lifting an eyebrow, he challenged, “Why not your family? Shouldn’t your position as a convert make them even more likely to take part?”

Miri had thought so, privately, in the deep recesses of her mind, but she would never say so.

Not to her family, or anyone else.

“They’re pretty stuck in their ways, but it’s not like they’ve shunned me or anything like that. We get together regularly, once a month for big family dinners at my parents’ house. They still don’t really understand my choices, but they support me as best they know how to.”

“What’s so hard to understand about becoming a Jew?” he asked. “The food is great, and we know how to have a good time.”

Miri laughed, saying, “Clearly, I was convinced,” even though once again, his question was a penetrating one that she had privately asked herself more than once.

But unlike her family, she had a better understanding of what was going on beneath the surface.

She encountered it a lot more than they did, and because she had transitioned from a non-Jewish to Jewish identity, she had unique insight into the fact that many people thought anti-Semitism had ended with WWII.

Most people, her past self included, had no idea how many of their own ideas of Jewishness fell between incorrect and vaguely uncomfortable to outright anti-Semitic.

Encountering Jewish people directly, born or converts, confronted and agitated those below-the-surface ideas.

Even when there was no doubt they loved you, she reminded herself.

And from her vantage point, able to see what was going on, she could forgive them for it.

She didn’t get the impression that Mr. Silver would be so forgiving. He would challenge it directly, every time he encountered it, ice in his veins.

But not, perhaps, his soul.

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