Rebecca shakes the canister. The thudding sound is comforting. She imagines peeling off the top later, the macaroons tumbling out in clumps, mildly squashed. Looking like they need some attention before being eaten. She spent more than an hour going up and down the aisles, beginning with the crackers and then moving on to the “international foods” section. Nothing. Then she did a systematic inspection. Nope. There was no Passover shelf in the grocery store. No more macaroons, no matzah. She was too self-conscious to ask someone about it.
She hadn’t had matzah in a few years. The last macaroon she’d eaten hadn’t had anything to do with Passover. It had been during a baby shower for one of the nurses, held in the second floor lounge as part of an extended mid-afternoon break. Half of them hadn’t known the rituals. The macaroons were huge, as wide across as the cute baby bibs. The woman who’d brought them worked in reception at the blood clinic. She smiled ferociously, telling them about her two children who had helped her bake. Rebecca had nibbled on her macaroon and thought about when she could go back to the clinic.
Rebecca was tired of her memories but also recognized how their textures were worn down. Her flat sentences diminished all the other stuff. The ridges of the macaroons on her tongue teased her with their softness, bringing her back to her bubbe’s kitchen where she would sit at the small table and talk, her glasses becoming misty with steam and...
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