The attraction with his daughter was instant, and made me very, very anxious.

Her father’s courtship of me was a month in progress when he invited me to a Seder which she and other relatives would attend.

It felt way too soon. Meeting a man’s family in the first trimester of a relationship, an attachment could form with folks I might not see again. Unmarried all my life, I’d had many starter relationships. Children I’d known for a few holidays left my sad lap, as I disconnected from the guy who put them in it.  But my fun new friend and I already felt familial. I took the risk.

As we entered his favorite Aunt Sandy’s home, there was Ariana—sweet-faced like her father, wise for her years. She hugged me firmly, fully to her heart.  I was instantly smitten.  She introduced me to her fiance, Marc.  My promising Passover escort left us, and engaged with his cousins.

Marc was Ariana’s first love. He’d recently asked her father for her hand in marriage, then put a big diamond on it.  I’d never had one, and, awed at the many facets of her and hers, wondered what it was like to be betrothed and so secure at twenty-three.

These two had their heads firmly on their shoulders, unlike other young heads that tended to roll right off. She was getting her Masters in Social Work, he in Engineering. They were smart, acculturated, and, like me, musical theater lovers. She could sing in sweet soprano every lyric to every score of every contemporary musical.  I sang back lyrics of musicals I’d learned at her age.  Marc hummed along on them all. We three had so much to harmonize about that her father receded in my attentions…a little.

The rest of my date’s family was more reserved. Apparently, I was not the first nice Jewish “date” her father had brought to Passover for observation.  They seated me across from Ariana, next to her Dad. As we noshed on parsley, his uncle politely gave me a small portion of the Haggadah to read, which I reworded to include the female perspective.  Ariana liked that, and I liked that she liked it. Well-versed in gender politics, as we sipped kosher wine, she whispered of her wish to work with cisgender and transgender clients alike. Her knowledge of all the pronouns and proclivities amazed me.  My focus on the bitter herbs faded, as I took stock.

“Why is this seder different from all other seders?”  I thought as I masticated the matzoh. Because I now had a big maternal crush on my date’s daughter. My enchantment with her was now neck and neck with my held-in-check enchantment with her Dad. I began thinking too far ahead. She certainly didn’t need my mothering. Her bio parents had done a fine job on all the heavy lifting. Ariana was loving, smart, and as tall as I was; pulling her into my lap would be unwieldy. She wouldn’t need my relationship counseling, my long dating life littered with frogs and other plagues. “What could I offer her beyond old show tunes?”—was one of the Four Questions I asked myself that night.

We harmonized a hearty “Go Down Moses,” and as we parted, I felt a pang. I hoped to see her again, but would have to hold myself back and hope her Dad and I grew closer over time.

We did, and I soon fell for his younger son, Sam, too, a manly nineteen.  I got enthusiastically included in all the next big moments in Ariana’s life—her graduation, her receiving of awards, her next Passover, at which everyone now knew my name and gave me more Haggadah to read, and portions to eat.

It would have been enough, I thought, to meet this wonderful man, but I got to sing at Ariana’s wedding to Marc a year later.  Dayenu.

When her father proposed to me the following Thanksgiving, I asked if his daughter would feel ok about it.  “Are you kidding?” he said. “After the first Passover, she asked ‘Please, Daddy? Can we keep this one?’ and I said ‘Yes!’”

So, I said “yes,” too. And as a seasoned bride, Ariana helped me plan and harmonized with me to show tunes at my wedding to her Dad two years later.

Read More From Melanie

Melanie Chartoff

I’ve been published in Better After Fifty, Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family, The Jewish Journal, Funny Times, Purple Clover, and have been a career actor on Broadway and TV series (melaniechartoff.com), currently recording the reiteration of Rugrats (as Didi and Minka), while recurring on the Cartoon Network.  I recently married for the first time in my sixties and became a stepmom, too!