Personal Narrative - My Dad, Formally Known as Superhero

My Dad, Formally Known as Superhero

When I was twelve, I started fasting on Yom Kippur. That was the year I had my Bat Mitzvah and the year I became a Jewish woman. In the few years before I turned twelve, I ate sparingly on that holiest day - no junk food, no breakfast. And in the years before that, I ate whatever I wanted. My mom too. She's not Jewish - she just happened to marry my Jewish dad.

My dad always fasted. He'd go to Temple in the morning, and we'd go with him - me, my sister, and my mom. My sister was a baby, and I sat on the floor and colored my coloring books on the metal chair I was supposed to be sitting in, which pleased my parents because I didn't make noise. At one or so, we'd leave Temple and drive home. The car windows would be rolled up tight, locking in the rays of the early afternoon sun, and I would bask, free and alive, dressed up and soaking in the sun's light. The sunshine really does look different in the very middle of the day.

When we got home, my mom would make me a snack, and I'd go off and play or something. I don't really remember. My dad would nap, or read. I do remember that. He was no fun on Yom Kippur.

A few years later, I think I must have been about nine. We got home from Temple, and the kitchen was lit by that hot and yellow midday sunshine. Our striped curtains hung eagerly. My dad lay down on the living room couch and picked up his book, and my mom flipped through some papers on the kitchen table. Or maybe she was downstairs. It doesn't matter.

I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the fruit drawer at the bottom. There were four granny smiths lying in wait. I picked the best one and rinsed it in the sink. It was the biggest, the roundest, the firmest. The grassiest green. It promised to be the juiciest. I grabbed the towel from the oven door and dried it. I slid on my socks across the kitchen floor and into the living room and bit down, hard. It was a huge bite. A huge cruncher! That bite echoed around the whole house - into the bedrooms and into the bathrooms; it attacked my dad on the couch, and probably even rocketed the neighbors.