A Small Miracle Happened by Mari Donne Read Free Book Online Page B

and there were days when no matter how much you fiddled with the thermostat, you had a choice of two temperatures: freezing or tropical. They’d chosen the warmer alternative, and dressed in boxers and T-shirts. Every few minutes one of them would rub the other’s thighs with the soles of his feet, and lust would stir a bit. But their stomachs were full of lunch and beer, and they’d been up late the night before, so they kept settling down to lazy conversation instead. There were plenty of hours left in the day, and sex would find a place on the agenda sooner or later.
    At one point Chris asked Dan what foods were allowed at Hanukkah and other times. Although Dan’s idea of keeping kosher was remembering not to order a ham-and-Swiss sandwich on Yom Kippur, he complied, thinking that if his Uncle Aaron could hear the explanation, he’d be correcting every third sentence.
    “So you can’t eat meat and dairy together?” This instruction seemed to boggle Chris more than any of the others.
    “A lot of the rules are about not mixing different things. Like wearing clothes made of more than one kind of fabric.”
    “In that case you’d think they’d worry about opposite-sex marriage more than same-sex.”
    “I never thought of it that way.” Dan snorted. “They also hated things that didn’t fit into clearly defined categories. Pigs bothered the people who made the laws, because they have cloven hooves but don’t chew their cud. Shellfish bugged them because they live in the ocean but don't have fins. At least that was how they rationalized it. But it probably made sense to avoid pork and shrimp in a hot climate with no refrigeration available. Food poisoning must have been rampant. They just didn’t understand why those foods made people sick a lot, so they came up with what they thought was a logical explanation, and it got fossilized into law.”
    Chris thought about this for a while. “So if I ever invite your parents for dinner, I shouldn’t serve meat and cheese together?”
    “They’re not much stricter than I am, although they toe the line a little more around the holidays. Cheeseburgers are fine, but you probably shouldn’t cook latkes in lard.”
    Chris looked insulted. “I don’t cook anything in lard! It’s very unhealthy.”
    Dan suppressed a smile. So bacon was apparently okay, but lard wasn’t? Of course, you could make a tasty dish without lard, but bacon was, well, bacon. There wasn’t really a decent substitute. But all he said was, “It’s supposed to be hard to cook in a real kosher kitchen. Fortunately I can’t cook anywhere, so I’ve never had to worry about it.” He paused to stretch, trying to remember details. He took the opportunity to snake one foot up so it rested against Chris’s hip. “My grandmother tells this great story about a friend of her parents. It’s almost certainly fake, but it’s a good story.”
    “Then tell it.” Chris reached down to grab Dan’s foot, but instead of pushing it away, he began to massage it gently.
    “Okay. Once upon a time, there was a Jewish couple living in New York City. The wife was devout and kept a kosher home. The husband couldn’t care less.”
    “Change the religious affiliation and it sounds like a lot of families I know.” Chris’s thumb found a spot on the arch of Dan’s foot, then rubbed it with just the right amount of pressure.
    “Yeah. Oh, yeah, keep doing that. So one night the guy comes home from working late, and his wife is in bed. So he goes to the kitchen and makes himself a sandwich.”
    “Uh-oh. I can see where this is going. Meat and cheese?”
    “You’ve got it. The wife comes down, sees what he’s done with her knife, and insists he do what needs to be done to make it kosher again.” He sighed. Chris had lifted Dan's foot onto his lap and was paying attention to stiff calf muscles. “So he goes out to the backyard to bury it.”
    He thought Chris would be incredulous, but he nodded. “Because