The Choice

meticulously that I will prove what a mistake has been made by cutting
me from the team. On the day that my mother and Klara are due back
from Budapest, I cartwheel my way down the red-carpeted hall
toward our apartment, imagining my replacement as my understudy,
myself the headlining star.
My mother and Magda are in the kitchen. Magda’s chopping apples
for the charoset. Mother’s mixing matzo meal. ey glower over their
work, barely registering my arrival. is is their relationship now. ey
ĕght all the time, and when they’re not ĕghting they treat each other
as though they are already in a face-off. eir arguments used to be
about food, Mother always concerned about Magda’s weight, but now
the conĘict has grown to a general and chronic hostility. “Where’s
Klarie?” I ask, swiping chopped walnuts from a bowl.
“Budapest,” Magda says. My mother slams her bowl onto the
counter. I want to ask why my sister isn’t with us for the holiday. Has
she really chosen music over us? Or was she not allowed to miss class
for a holiday that none of her fellow students celebrates? But I don’t
ask. I am afraid my questions will bring my mother’s obviously
simmering anger to a boil. I retreat to the bedroom that we all share,
my parents and Magda and me.
On any other evening, especially a holiday, we would gather
around the piano, the instrument Magda had been playing and
studying since she was young, where Magda and my father would take
turns leading us in songs. Magda and I weren’t prodigies like Klara,
but we still had creative passions that our parents recognized and
nurtured. Aer Magda played, it would be my turn to perform.
“Dance, Dicuka!” my mother would say. And even though it was more
a demand than an invitation, I’d savor my parents’ attention and
praise. en Klara, the star attraction, would play her violin and my
mother would look transformed. But there is no music in our house
tonight. Before the meal, Magda tries to cheer me up by reminding me