Why is this night different from all other nights?

Why is this night different from all other nights?

My sister Sarah is lighting the candles, and her hands tremble when she turns to cover her face ina gesture of piety. I am thirteen years old, and we are gathered at my house for the Passover seder ("order" in Hebrew) and my whole family is here: mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, and two cousins. Did I say my whole family is here? That is not entirely correct: my father is absent. My parents split five years ago, and he doesn't celebrate holidays with us anymore. We don't really talk about this, though, and instead my mother's boyfriend, a Gentile from Colorado, takes my father's place at the head of the table, and leads the seder, reading the phonetic Hebrew I secretly scribbled in the margins of that Haggadah ("telling" in Hebrew) several years ago, when Sarah could read Hebrew and I couldn't yet. I can now.

While Sarah's hands are trembling over her closed eyes, Nettie's hands tremble as well, as she carries out the heavy silver tray containing the seder plate, wine, matzot, and bowls of salt water. This tray belonged to my grandmother, and, as I'm told each time we use it, it's an antique, worth a lot of money. Earlier this afternoon, I saw Nettie polishing it in the kitchen, along with the matching silver serving pieces, silver salt and pepper shakers, silver pitchers, and of course, the ornate silver wineglass we put out for Elijah. This is an impressive collection of silver, all monogrammed with my grandmother's initials, and when Nettie was polishing the pieces this afternoon, she spread them out neatly on our kitchen counters.They took up the whole room.

Nettie is our maid. She's been with us since I was three and Sarah seven. She comes to our house three days each week, all day, and sometimes she watches us when my mother goes out at night and on the weekends. She is a black woman, somewhere around sixty years old, and while she has been with us for years, I cannot seem to remember her aging visibly. Her skin isdark and smooth, and smells faintly of the rosewater and glycerin lotion she applies daily. Her hair, I'm told, is very long, although I've never seen it in any style other than wrapped in a tight bun on the top of her head.