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The smell of cooking oil was thick in the air as Mel approached the stove, where Viktor stood before a sizzling pan.
“They aren’t right,” he murmured. She wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear until he followed it with, “I’ve tried this three times, and they still aren’t right.”
Mel frowned and took a step closer, tucking Celia’s blanket tighter around her in case the oil popped. The latkes were golden-brown and crisp looking— and they smelled wonderful. “They look perfect to me.”
“No. My mother’s were thinner, like lace at the edges, but I can’t…” He let his voice trail off with a frustrated sigh. “I should have written it down.”
“Well, if it helps, I have absolutely no standard of what they should be like, and neither does anyone else here,” Mel pointed out.
“It decidedly does not.”
“I know.” She shifted Celia in her arms so that she could press a hand to the small of Viktor’s back. “You’re doing a wonderful job. Tell me what I can do to help.”
“You should sit and relax. I have plenty of assistance from my esteemed colleagues.” Viktor flipped a latke with, perhaps, more force than necessary. “Are the rest of the potatoes finished yet?”
Sky laughed from the table behind them, and Mel turned to see her holding up Jayce’s attempt at peeling one— gouged, really, rather than skinned. “He got into the wine already. But almost.”
“You have a plate of them finished. You could take a break, and light the candles.” Mel focused her attention back on Viktor, who was glancing back and forth nervously between the pan and the quickly-darkening window. “Celia is awake, too; I’m sure she’ll enjoy it. She likes watching any kind of fire.”
“I’ve noticed. It’s concerning.” For as dry as his tone might have been, he still managed a smile when he looked at their daughter.
“She likes the sound of your voice, too,” she reminded him, more quietly this time. Their eyes met, and his hand found her hip— thoughtless, unconscious, in a way that never failed to make her heart flutter. “And she’ll love your cooking, once she’s old enough to try it.”
Ximena took a break from supervising her son to chime in. “Your applesauce is excellent .”
Viktor hummed with a soft satisfaction and, after a second’s hesitation, cut the gas on the stove and scooped the remaining latkes out onto the waiting plate.
“Alright, then. Clear the table.”
A brief bustle activity before they gathered around the brass candelabrum that Viktor had insisted he could never, would never, replace. Mel had never pressed the issue after her first inquiry into getting him a new one. In that moment, as he cast a lingering look at Celia before sparking the match, she was glad she hadn’t.
Celia, still learning to hold her head straight, turned toward the sound and light with as curious an expression as a two-month-old was capable of. Where their skin touched, Mel could feel it— a flicker of something that could only be described as wonder.
Viktor began the blessing in a melodic, low voice, somewhere halfway between speaking and singing. A language that she only knew from his half-remembered prayers, that he didn’t even fully understand, but felt so familiar to her now.
A sound cut him off partway through, as he touched the flame of the extra candle to the first in the row. Small and bright, bubbling up from the bundle in Mel’s arms like water from a spring.
Not a coo, or a sigh. She was giggling . It was unmistakable.
Mel’s breath caught.
“Oh,” Viktor whispered.
“Shit,” Jayce said, then grunted when Ximena nudged him in the ribs. “Sorry.”
Celia laughed again. Mel realized, faintly, that she was crying even through a grin so wide it hurt.
Viktor reached out for them, his palm coming to cup the back of their daughter’s head, his thumbs tracing her cheeks as she kicked her feet. Mel felt him tangle himself in the magic that bound them, and she was happy to let him in— to let him feel the echo of their daughter’s joy.
He made a choked, almost wounded sound, his forehead dropping to rest against Mel’s shoulder. “My girl.” His voice cracked. “My beautiful girl.”
“You should finish the blessing,” Mel said, after a quick kiss pressed to his hair.
Viktor cleared his throat and turned back to the menorah— but not without pulling Mel and Celia in closer.
—
Four years later, Celia clutched a shamash of her own in tiny fingers, and looked at Viktor with a flicker of doubt in his eyes as he held out the lit match.
“It’s alright, Stella,” he murmured. “We’ll do this together.”