Sweeter Than W(h)ine Read Online Free Page B

Then he took them all out of a brown paper bag – eight presents. She thought of the Chanukah song, “Oh, Chanukah!” Instead of candles, there were eight presents. One for each night…they shed a sweet light… Every gift but one was small, and they were all meticulously wrapped.
                  “Did you wrap these yourself?” she asked, positive that a guy would never have such nice presentation when it came to presents.
                  She didn’t miss his sheepish grin and shrug of his broad shoulders. “Guilty. I got to be good at that when I wrapped presents for my niece…” He held back, as if wanting to say more, but not knowing how. Dina didn’t miss the catch in his voice. Something had happened to his niece and he didn’t want to talk about it.
                  Message understood, she thought, slipping into grief counselor mode for a moment. “They look like you had them wrapped at Macy’s or something. I feel bad because I’m not exactly able to go out and buy you anything.”
                  “That’s all right,” Rafe said, back to his teasing. “Money will be fine. Or a good bottle of wine, or some expensive chocolate.”
                  “I’ll get right on it as soon as I’m out of here.”
                  “Don’t you want to open your gifts?” Raphael asked.
                  She sat in her wheelchair at the small round table and started tearing off the paper, with its pictures of dreidels and stars of David. She put the blue and white ribbons around her neck like an ID lanyard. The first gift she opened was a small, wooden dreidel.
                  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Just the thing.” She wished they had candy or pennies there so they could play the childhood game where each Hebrew letter stood for putting candy in the pot, taking some out, putting in half, or getting the whole jackpot. She put the dreidel down on the table next to the small menorah her friend, Krysta, had given her. Raphael’s next gift was some wrapped chocolate coins, but not just any kind. They were big, thick round orbs of dark chocolate, the kind he must have gotten at a specialized candy store.
                  “Thank you,” she said, savoring one as she bit into it. “I probably shouldn’t be eating this…”
                  “You can make an exception just this once. Doctor’s orders.”
                  “I like the way you think. At least you aren’t going to make me eat one, and throw the rest away.”
                  “Someone did that to you?”
                  “Yes,” Dina said. He looked so sympathetic that she couldn’t help sharing her tale of woe. “My neighbors came to the hospital to visit me almost every day. If they weren’t there in person, Bev always called. She asked me if there was anything I wanted while I was there and I knew there was a place in Hanover that has the best frozen custard. This was before I found out I was borderline diabetic.” She talked as she opened the third gift, a paperback novel by Babe Carter, one of her favorite authors. “Bev and Jim showed up one day with a huge serving of custard, peanut butter chocolate chip flavor if I remember.”
                  “That sounds wonderful!” Rafe said.
                  Dina could almost taste the custard as she sat there, recalling every bite of the sinful dessert. “The hospital dietician had come to see me a few minutes before Bev and Jim showed up. She was talking to me about testing my blood sugar, and different things I could eat because I wasn’t eating much. Everything tasted off, but oh, I wanted that custard.”
                  Her gaze met Rafe’s; he looked as if he understood exactly what she was saying.
                  “Bev and Jim handed it to me, but the dietician looked