magic of my own by Ava Frankel
I pictured it bubbling in a stainless steel pot, releasing enchanted fumes into the air like a brew straight out of Hocus Pocus. In a way, it was my family’s magic. My grandmother’s secret power was the way the matzoh balls melted onto my tongue, my mother’s was the balance between rich poultry and delicate herbs in the broth. Sitting in the middle of the long oval table, I’d found myself caught between the conversations taking place on the women’s and men’s sides, but both sides had become instantly boring once the soup was brought out.
I was so entranced by the soup that it took my grandmother reaching over and tapping my shoulder to snap me out of my reverie. “Ava, what do you think? Should we have Passover at my house or yours?” she asked.
“Wherever there’s soup!”
This earned a hearty laugh from my mother, who just minutes ago had been turned into a ball of stress by the task of watching three ovens at once. Now, the soup had melted away all of the tension in her shoulders. Maybe it actually was magical.
“I think we’ll do it at our house this year,” she declared.
“That puts you on soup duty,” my grandmother warned, drumming her red acrylic nails on the table assertively.
My mother reached for the spiral decanter in the center of the table, pouring my grandmother another glass of wine before responding. “I promise we can handle it.”
As the words settled a slight scowl on my grandmother’s face, pride swelled inside me. We can handle it. My father, my mother, and me. I longed for the day when we’d prove we could handle it.
As September drew to a close, the soup danced in my mind. In November, a boy in my nursery class kicked me and I dreamt of the soup as I napped with a bleeding nose in the school nurse’s office. When my parents asked me what I wanted for Hanukkah, I wished that soup was an option. How could another create-your-own jewelry kit rival the secrets of my family’s magic? I was sure the wait was over when matzah began to appear on the shelves of Whole Foods that March.
Until my hopes were dashed by six simple words out of my mother’s mouth: “You can help when you’re older.”
I stalked upstairs, blinking back tears at having been banished from the kitchen. I sat down in the center of my fluffy pink rug, looking around at the toys in my bedroom until my gaze settled on a cherry red plastic shopping cart.
What if I could make my own soup?
I gathered my ingredients: a bushel of plastic carrots, a rubber chicken, a wooden cucumber. All that was missing was the base of my soup: the broth. I skipped to the bathroom to fill the pail with sink water, vaguely remembering my mother explaining that the broth was just water that had been flavored by infusing herbs and meat bones. I certainly had water.
I placed the ingredients into the shopping cart, my own personal cauldron. But as I poured the water in, realization of my mistake crashed over me. Of course the cart failed to hold the water, it was covered with holes.
Tears streaked my cheeks as I watched a puddle conquer my carpet. When I heard a knock at the door, I flinched, prepared to receive my punishment.
“What happened?” my mother asked, eyeing the carpet warily.
My heartbeat practically burst out of my chest as I stuttered an explanation: “I was just trying to make soup.”
It took a solid minute of watching in awe for my nerves to process their reactions. My dad’s laughter shook his entire body as he wrapped his arms around my mother, catching her before her giggles knocked her to the ground.
Five years later, I was allowed to help for the first time. My mother handed me a peeler, a few carrots, and a pair of gloves composed of steel threads. I slid the gloves on, savoring the way their threads tickled my fingers, soaking up the joyful aura of the kitchen. I no longer believed it was magic, but that didn’t make it any less magical.
Those carrots became the most evenly peeled, vibrant carrots you will ever see.