Chapter 2
She stumbled on her way to the car. Shai, her brother, sat at the wheel of Jonathan’s silvery car, and her mother placed Talia next to him. Her sister Ruthie, her husband Dave, and Dana, her brother’s wife, went in after her. “Enough, Talia dear, don’t cry,” her mother tried to stop her sobbing. “What does she know, what do any of them understand,” Talia thought bitterly, feeling utterly alone. There was not one soul in the entire world with which she could share her sorrow. Her younger brother was preoccupied with a premature marriage to a beautiful and spoiled young woman. Her relationship with her sister had become very tenuous since the latte married a Jewish-American lawyer and moved to the Midwest. When they were little girls, they loved each other very much, but now she found it hard to make conversation with her sister. Her mother, who had also lost a husband at a relatively young age, had, over the years, developed an impenetrable armor which Talia, too, could not get through, perhaps because the two of them had never stopped mourning for the husband and father they had lost. Talia’s father, the first loss in her life, died before age fifty, and the sudden memory now brought additional pain to her heart, and a flood of tears welled up inside her.
The car was crowded and she felt suffocated. All she wanted was to get home, slam the door behind her, and disappear. Her lips were glued together and a bitter taste was in her mouth. The headache that started bothering her at the funeral got worse and worse. She pressed her fingers against her temples. The pricking inside became pounding hammers.
She thought about Jonathan, and his smell wafted to her from the car seat next to her, form his personal belonging that lay on the seat and in the various compartments, as if he might still use them. Jonathan had an affinity for fine, prestigious objects; a weakness she often berated him for, out of love, not in mockery; he loved famous brand names, and always bought, for her as well as for himself, only the most reputable, exquisite products. So were his leather gloves, his lighter, and his sunglasses in their elegant leather case, his aftershave and his golden pen inscribed with the logo of “Prosperity,” the name of the company he had built. The sight of those familiar objects gave her heart a jolt-those inanimate, replaceable objects will outlive him, the unique, irreplaceable one.
She closed her eyes, and spoke to him soundlessly. Inside, she heard herself talk in that childish, self-indulgent tone she had assumed when she was with him, saying things that made no sense at all. “Jonathan, darling, where are you, don’t leave me alone, please come back, Jonathan, just for a little while, one more time and that’s it, don’t leave me alone, I need you, I love you, why have you turned me into a widow, a widow! How will I live without you, how can I be a widow without you?”
The car stopped at the gate of her house on Emerald Street. She opened the door and stepped out slowly, as if she had suddenly turned into an old woman. “Mom, please go home now, all of you. I need to be alone, she pleaded wearily. Her mother tried to argue, but her sister’s face showed signs of relief.
A large car was parked by the gate, its lights turned off. Two men were sitting in the front seat, and as soon as they saw her car pull into the parking lot, they ignited the motor, making a creaky noise. When they passed by a lamppost, she thought she recognized the man at the wheel; it was the same man who had stared at her so brazenly at the funeral.
She entered the house, and while climbing the stairs to her bedroom, she heard her two abandoned babies whimpering weakly, as if drained of all their strength. She felt a gush of energy. Leaping two steps at a time, she rushed to the children’s room and opened the door. Jenny, the au pair girl, was lying on the carpet, fully dressed, breathing quietly and rhythmically. Udi was lying in his unmade crib. His smooth hair with the single curl in the forehead was almost down to his tear-filled eyes. His chest heaved, emitting a strange squeak. Michali, in the adjacent bed, was crying and hiccupping noisily. Talia kicked off her shoes and rushed to Udi’s bed. “Come to mommy, my baby. Daddy’s little Udi-Budi-Mudi-Dudi,” she sobbed, clutching him to her body, and with him in her arms, she hastily picked up Michali and held her to her heart.
Jenny woke up and stared at her, flabbergasted. Talia knelt down on the carpet next to her, holding the two children and rocking tem as in a hammock. “Poor little orphans. My precious dears,” she murmured, as if to herself. “I’ll take good care of you, as I promised your dad. Never again will I leave you alone.”