Vanilla. Megan Hart

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      He hadn’t called me that in a while. Heading toward thirteen, William had taken to calling me Elise without even an aunt in front of it, a habit that made me sad but one I didn’t denounce. Kids grew up. It’s what happened.

      “Sure, kid. Let me finish up my lunch, and I’ll be right there. Another fifteen minutes or so, okay? If your mom gets there first, text me.” I disconnected and gave Alex an apologetic look. “My nephew needs to be picked up from his Bar Mitzvah tutoring. I guess his mom’s late. I’m only a few minutes from the synagogue. Mind if I run to get him?”

      Alex shrugged. “Sure. Are we all done in the office?”

      “I am.” I gave him a significant look that he returned with a grin. “I guess you are, too. Thanks for the sushi. See you tomorrow.”

      It took me about ten minutes to get back to the parking lot in front of the office. Another ten to get to the synagogue, and only because I hit every red light on Second Street. I spotted William sitting on one of the benches at the shul’s front doors. He was tapping away on his phone, head bent, still wearing his kippah as was required by the synagogue for males while in the building, though he didn’t usually wear one outside it. He looked up when I pulled into the half-circle drive, his expression wary. I hated to see that on the kiddo’s face, not sure why he looked like that.

      “Hey,” I said through the passenger-side window. “Is your mom on the way or do you still need a ride?”

      “Yeah, I need one.” William slid into the passenger seat, backpack at his feet, and put on his seat belt without being reminded.

      God, I loved that kid. I had a strange and winsome flashback to the smell of his head when he was a baby. My brother and Susan had gotten pregnant and married at age twenty, one year before we all graduated from college. I’d lived with them for the last four months of her pregnancy and the entire first year of William’s life, both so we could all save money and to help them out with the baby so they could finish their degrees. I’d changed diapers and done midnight feedings, the whole bit. William would kill me if I leaned over to sniff him now, though, not to mention that I was sure the experience would not be the same as it had been when he weighed ten pounds and fit in my arms like a doll. Instead, I waited until he’d settled before pulling out of the synagogue driveway and onto Front Street.

      “Your mom didn’t get back to you?”

      “She said it was okay if you took me home.” William’s phone hummed, and he looked at it. “She says she was running late at yoga and to tell you thanks for picking me up.”

      “No problem, kid. My pleasure.” Traffic was still fairly light, though in another half an hour it might start to get heavier with rush hour commuters all trying to merge onto the highway. It was only late April, but one of the first days that promised summer after a bitter and seemingly endless winter. “Hey, you wanna go get some ice cream?”

      William shifted to look at me. “Right now? Before dinner?”

      “Yeah, of course, before dinner. That’s the best time to eat ice cream.” I shot him a grin that he returned.

      Instead of turning right to head over the bridge to get him home, I kept going a little ways so I could head across town to our favorite ice cream shack. Every year I figured would be its last, that competition from chain frozen ice places would put it out of business, but so far the Lucky Rabbit was still around. My twin brother, Evan, and I had both worked in the Lancaster location during the summers in our long-ago teenage years, flipping burgers and scooping the homemade churned ice cream into waffle cones. Time had weathered the Lucky Rabbit sign and left huge potholes in the parking lot, but that was what Pennsylvania winters did to all the roads, left them pitted and rough.

      I pulled into the gravel lot and avoided the ditches as best I could and found a spot near a splintery picnic table. We ordered not only sundaes but also onion rings. Not even a bare nod to providing a reasonable dinner, because aunties don’t need to do that.

      “So, how’s it going?” I asked around a mouthful of hot fried onion dipped in chocolate ice cream.

      William shrugged. He’d ordered mint chocolate chip with caramel sauce, a combination that made me shudder. “Okay, I guess. My Torah portion is really long.”

      “You have time. Another three months or so, right?” His Bar Mitzvah was scheduled for his birthday weekend in late July, which meant a sucky early summer of tutoring and attending services.

      He shrugged again. We ate mostly in silence after that—William devouring most of the onion rings, all of his ice cream and the rest of mine that the late sushi lunch had left me incapable of finishing. We talked a little bit about the school year that was coming to a close. His new video game. His best friend, Nhat, who might be moving to another school district. William lingered over the last few bites, drawing it out until I finally asked him what was wrong.

      “I don’t want to go home,” he said.

      “How come?” I gathered the trash and watched him from the corner of my eye as I got up to toss it.

      William shrugged again. It was becoming his favorite response. “Just don’t.”

      “Is something going on at home?” I sat again on the picnic table bench, wincing at the scrape of the rough wood on the back of my thigh below my hem. I’d be lucky to get out of here without a bunch of splinters in my butt.

      “No.”

      I knew he was lying, but I wasn’t going to prod him. William looked like his mother, but he was his father’s boy in personality. My brother had always held things close to the chest, and poking him to get him to talk never worked.

      “You have to go home, kid. It’s a school night. Your dad will be home soon, and I’m sure your mom is wondering where you are.”

      “I bet she’s not.”

      I paused at this, but decided not to push. “C’mon, let’s go. Hey, maybe you can come and spend the weekend with me. You haven’t done that for a while.”

      “Can’t,” William said sourly. “I have to go to services.”

      I loved that kid, but there was no way I was going to volunteer to take him to the three-hour Saturday Sabbath service. I’d fallen off the religion wagon long ago, a fact that killed my mother on a daily basis. Her angst about it had probably contributed a lot to my lack of observance. Sometimes you twist a knife because you can’t help it, even if you’re ashamed to admit it.

      “How about Saturday night? I could pick you up after services. We could go to the movies.”

      “I’ll have to ask my mom,” William said doubtfully.

      “Like she’ll say no?” I scoffed, but stopped myself from reaching to ruffle his hair. “I’ll talk to her. But it’s a plan. Okay?”

      That earned a ghost of a smile from him, which relieved me. In the car, just before we pulled into his driveway, I said casually, “You know, you don’t have to be perfect at this Bar Mitzvah thing. Nobody’s going to be expecting you to nail it without any mistakes, the rabbi and the gabbaim are there to help you if you need it. You’re not performing a play that you have to memorize. It’s okay if you’re not exactly perfect.”

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