Sonia
Her tears dropped onto the printed words and stained them with all the pain she had carried her whole life. She caressed the letters with her fingers and felt like she was touching her mother. She felt the great love that had been there the whole time, but that she had discovered only recently.
Sarah had fulfilled her duty and left the world.
***
As time went by, she slowly began to absorb everything she had been through these last years. Some of the events were unexplainable, but all of the coincidences seemed to have a guiding hand behind them. The ghost-like forms that moved her around, the raccoon that helped her find the birth certificate, Sarah’s death exactly when she had completed the chain of discoveries in her path. She felt that these occurrences were part of a hidden plan that led her to the story of her life. Secretly, deep inside, she knew that they were there, that everything was carried out by them. The triangle had been reconnected, interwoven with love that was beyond the tangible and the obvious.
The next few days were new for her. She drove to Cypress Beach and met her mother’s brother and sister and their families. She also met David’s mother and his brothers and sisters. His father had passed away from a broken heart two years after David died. They asked her to move closer to them, but she asked for some time. Her ability to absorb everything that had happened to her was limited. First, she needed to learn to replace the father she had known with another; she needed to let go of the guilt that had been the bane of her existence in the last few years; she needed to accept the death of her biological father, who had been killed by the father that raised her; she needed to learn how to exchange one religion for another.
Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t begun the random search for Sonia. She thought a lot about her mother, the mother she only now had begun to know. This woman, who had always seemed so weak and spineless, had turned out to be a sturdy rock watching over her all these years. She understood now that this required superhuman strength, and she assumed she would better understand it when she had children of her own.
***
One evening, after they had returned from one of their trips to Cypress Beach, she and Roy were sitting in the living room. The television was on and she lifted her head every now and then to look at the screen. Suddenly, she realized that Roy was watching her. She turned toward him and as sudden as a gushing geyser, the words came out of her mouth: “I love you.”
That night, they made love for the first time. She dove deep into the depths of the sea and the motion of the waves swayed her body like a fetus in its mother’s womb. Roy was the other half of the whole, but she had needed time to appreciate it. When they finished making love, she felt reborn.
The End
Acknowledgments
To my husband, Yaakov: without you none of this would have happened. Thank you for your love, which gives me the confidence to fulfill every dream in my heart. You are the pillar of my life.
To my Ortal and Reut: you are the motivating energy. With you and because of you, my dream became a reality.
To Shula and Zizi, my beloved sisters: thank you for your unconditional love and for your comments and honest critique given without reserve.
To my dear friend, Iris Senyor: thank you for your unlimited faith.
To Nurit Tamari: thank you for your encouragement and for constantly believing in my strength.
To Iris Rubin and Ayala Gini, and the rest of the Parliament Women—Rachel Natan, Tami Cohen-Ratz, Naomi Fireberger, Marissa Shoah, Meirav Itzikson, Naomi Gilad and Dorit Chen—a huge thank you for being with me throughout the journey, encouraging, believing, showing interest and promising that my dream would come true. I love you all very much.
To Iris Jersy, my dear friend: thank you for your help and always being available.
To Evelyn, from the Steimatzky literary greenhouse: thank you for the opportunity.
To Rotem Raz, my editor: thank you for your endless patience, for your precise notes, and for making room for my emotions, my desires, and my stubbornness. You are a marvelous partner.
And thank you to all those who accompanied me, whether by a word, a comment, or a suggestion.
You are all partners to my dream.
Life in a Box Page 35
