A Part Of Me:

by Karin Aharon

  “Shirley,” I heard Nathan call me, “step into my office please so we can work on the ALUT case. We have to make some progress.” He sounded nice and he used the word “please.” Someone must be in the room with him.

  I gathered the papers I brought from home and hoped I had read enough to know what the lawsuit was about. “This is our best lawyer; she’ll be taking care of your case.” Nathan stood at the entrance and introduced me even before I could see who was there. On the chair sat a young man with a knitted kippah and a warm smile. He introduced himself as Joel from ALUT. I was wondering whether I should shake his hand, but he stayed in his seat so I sat down too and smiled politely. If Nathan would have bothered telling me the meeting was today, I would have at least tried to finish reading the papers.

  “Come share your thoughts with us about the neighbour’s claim.” Nathan sat back behind his desk and leaned backwards, his hands folded behind his bald head.

  “From what I read, I think there’s a good chance the lawsuit will be rejected,” I said, and chose to ignore Nathan’s dissatisfied expression. “I would be happy to visit the hostel and see what’s going on there. I find it hard to believe that it bothers the neighbours so much that it should be shut down.”

  “You’re more than welcome to visit. My family and I live there, so I’m there all the time,” Joel smiled and it seemed like he really meant what he said. I’ve encountered so many hypocrites in my profession that I didn’t know who I could believe anymore. “What do you need from me to move forward?”

  “I’ll send you an email with a list of the information I need for the case and we’ll stay in touch.”

  Joel gave me his business card. I planned on creeping back quietly into my office, but Nathan couldn’t help himself and said to Joel, “You’ll have the list tomorrow, by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  “I’m not working tomorrow, remember?” I tried to keep smiling.

  “No, what’s tomorrow?” Nathan asked sheepishly, as if I hadn’t reminded him a million times and wrote it down in the office schedule.

  “I have tests, and I already let you know I was taking the day off.” I didn’t understand why I had to explain myself in front of the client.

  “No problem, she’ll send you the list later on today.” Nathan stood up, signaling the meeting was over. Or rather that his patience ran out, and that this was a pro bono client so he didn’t want to waste more time than necessary.

  I smiled and quickly left the room, before I was assigned anymore urgent tasks for today. On the way to my office I got a text from mom: “Dad is taking Tommy to his friends in Maccabim.” At least I don’t need to take care of a teenager for the next few days. It was strange that she used the word “dad.” She usually called him “Gabi” when she spoke to me because he wasn’t ‘officially’ my dad.

  I had known Gabi since I was four, and although he was my dad in every aspect, I still called him “Gabi.” Once, I even apologized to him that his own kids called him Gabi and not dad. But since I left home, his name changed to “dad.”

  I tried to read the lawsuit in my small office. It was so boring that I had to reread every sentence just to understand it. The neighbors’ main claim against the hostel was the noise. The autists were screaming and it bothered them. They actually used the terrible word ‘shrieking.’ That’s how our society is. NIMBY was written all over the claim - Not in My Back Yard. Everyone is pro integrate people with special needs, until it comes to their neighbours. I wrote an email with a list of questions for Joel and asked our intern to look for any precedents.

  I ate my takeout lunch in front of my computer, as usual, and at 3 P.M. I decided to send the email since I really had to leave. I CCed Nathan of course, so that he knew it was done and wouldn’t call me. Or at least I hoped he wouldn’t.

  On my way out, he tried to talk to me, but I took advantage of the elevator arriving and said: “I really have to go. I’ll see you on Sunday.” I hoped he would get the message. One of the things I hated most about working with him was him calling me when I was on my way home. I’m home, let me be. But no. He had to call me and share his every thought on every case we had. He would also dictate documents and give me assignments. Impulse control wasn’t one of his strengths.

  The elevator door closed in his face and I felt as if I had just escaped from some max-security facility. The pressure of that terrible place followed me everywhere, even when I wasn’t there. I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, anxious about things I forgot to do.

  I came back home and immediately changed into comfortable clothes. When Adam fell asleep, Michael was still at his law firm and I couldn’t wait for him any longer. Although I had planned to talk to mom, I fell asleep five minutes after Adam did.

  Chapter 3

  In the morning we waited for Ida and then left early for Haifa. I saw that Jonathan had called me after I had fallen asleep, but there was no point in trying to call him back in the morning. It was also the first time since mom had arrived that I had time to talk with Michael about everything that was going on.

  “Anyways, I think they suspect she has ovarian cancer, but in the meantime, no one is really saying it,” I summarized in a sentence.

  “OK.”

  “What’s OK?” I raised my voice without meaning to. “It’s not OK at all. It’s a deadly type of cancer, Michael. The deadliest of all types of women cancers. It’s something that almost no one recovers from, especially at this stage. Do you know what that means?” Although I still had some hope, deep down I found it hard to believe it was something else. Dr. Google was right from time to time.

  “I realize that it’s problematic, but what do you want me to say? Wait for a diagnosis before you start killing off people.”

  “I’m not killing off anyone, but it’s scary.” The rain grew stronger and we could barely hear one another, so I kept silent. Michael had no chance of calming me down.

  Last time we went to this doctor was when I was pregnant with Adam. We went especially to him after they found a problem in the first scan we received from an expert in Tel Aviv. Everyone recommended we get a second opinion from the legendary Dr. Cooperman in Haifa. We gave into our family’s pressure and drove there. Of all the doctors who had examined me throughout my pregnancy with Adam, and there were quite a few, his results were closest to the truth. Which is why I trusted only him.

  For this pregnancy, I scheduled an appointment with him the moment I found out I was pregnant. It was exactly a week after we came back from Australia. But this time, on our way to Haifa, I was more concerned about what was going on with mom in Tel HaShomer.

  I called mom and she didn’t pick up. The further we drove north, the stronger it rained. The ride was noisy and exhausting. I couldn’t believe the weather was so nice in Tel Aviv but so wintery in Haifa. When we arrived at the clinic, I tried calling mom again, but she didn’t answer. I tried calling Gabi.

  “Hey Shirley,” I heard muffled P.A. sounds.

  “Anything new? Did they say anything?” I was next and didn’t have time to waste on small talk.

  “We’re still waiting for the doctor to go over the results. How about you?”

  “We’re next. I’m coming from Haifa straight to Tel HaShomer. What ward are you in?”

  “Gynecologic Oncology. It’s at the end of the gynecology ward. But call us before you come, because we keep going in and out of tests.”

  “Ok. Tell mom I said hi.”

  Conversations with Gabi were always short. He wasn’t a great talker. That is, he liked lecturing about things he cared about, but phone calls weren’t his thing. He would quickly lose patience. Gabi was the ideal partner for practical conversations.

  It was our turn and we stepped into the familiar room. Dr. Cooperman didn’t remember us of course, but was nice and pleasant throughout the test.

  “To sum it up,
the test is completely fine and you have a girl. You can get dressed.” At first, I couldn’t believe everything was really OK. I was so excited that I couldn’t keep myself from crying. I immediately thought about the moment I would tell mom it’s a girl, and became even more excited. We got the CD and papers and left the room in a bit of a shock. The last pregnancy test took about an hour and always ended with a recommendation for further tests. This time, it was fifteen minutes later, and we were out.

  Michael got off on the way and took a taxi to work while I headed to the hospital. When I entered the gynecology ward and saw the sign “Gynecologic Oncology”, I shivered. I couldn’t believe I was here. I couldn’t believe my mother was here. I walked in silence on the brown-purple tiles, which seemed to have been there ever since the hospital was built. I passed a few pregnant women who were waiting in line to see a doctor. Other women, who until yesterday were probably still pregnant, walked slowly down the halls with their partners, who held bags with baby stuff, and seemed extremely tired as if they have had the baby themselves. They were pregnant like I was, but it wasn’t the same. They were there for a happy occasion. It was astonishing how different mom’s circumstances were compared to all the other things happening in this building.

  I walked through a large double door, and when I entered, I was surprised to see that the ward had only a few rooms and a nurse’s station at its center. A beautiful slender woman stood by the station. A white handkerchief covered her bald head and her left hand held onto the metal pole where her I.V. hung. She seemed thin and weak, but spoke with the nurses and laughed. I couldn’t imagine there was anything funny about this place.

  It seems the rooms hadn’t been renovated because they looked just as they did when I came to visit mom after she had Jonathan. The same old beds covered with instruction stickers. The same broken night-stands with sticky drawers that could barely open. There was a strong hospital smell, and a weird silence. The phone at the nurse’s station wouldn’t stop ringing. Three nurses walked in and out of the rooms with carts full of medicine. I noticed there was a laptop on the cart. At least something was new here. The blue stripe on the white curtains seemed worn-out and sad. Every room had three beds, and in one of them I saw mom laying in the middle bed, which was usually given to the patient who arrived last.

  I hugged her and was so excited that I nearly fell on top of her.

  “Careful, my tummy really hurts,” she said quietly, not wanting to disturb her neighbours.

  “Oops, sorry.” I stood up and hugged Gabi too. I hadn’t really seen him since they came to visit. I was so preoccupied with mom’s issues, and he was probably busy with his errands. He hadn’t changed in the last few months since we last visited them, yet, something was different. He was standing even though there was a chair right next to him, and he swayed nervously from side to side. Gabi had always been my rock when I was in trouble. But at this very moment, at the hospital, he seemed fragile and lost.

  When I joined the army, he laughed when he heard I listed his name as an emergency contact. “Didn’t I get rid of you, already?”

  “Mom would just panic, so it’s better they call you. Anyways, you’ll never get rid of me. You’re doomed.”

  “It’s a shame I didn’t know that when I met your mother. I would have reconsidered,” he smiled, pleased. When Gabi annoyed me, I would joke and tell him that we had already replaced one husband and if he gave us any trouble, we’d replace him too. Mom frowned but he would smile. We had our inside jokes. We could say things to each other without being offended. Apart from Michael, there was no one else I could talk to about anything. His very presence calmed me down.

  The patient next to the window sighed in her sleep. She was very pale and looked so different from mom, that it seemed like mom was in the wrong place.

  “What did the doctor say?” mom asked and tried sitting up. I could tell by the look on her face that she was in pain. Her brown straight hair was combed and pulled back. She looked beautiful even when wearing the ugly hospital robe.

  “I have a healthy daughter,” I said quietly, and the smile that spread on my face didn’t quite suit the atmosphere.

  “That’s great, sweetie. Did he check the heart and everything else?”

  “Yes, mom. Don’t worry, she’s completely healthy.”

  When I was pregnant with Adam, mom came with me to see Dr. Cooperman. She knew Haifa from her days at the Technion and offered to drive Michael and I to the test. I was happy she was there because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to comprehend everything he said. I wanted her with me in case there was any more bad news. We came because of a kidney issue, so he checked that first. He confirmed that the kidney was not in its usual location, but it was functioning. It was a great relief. He continued the scan and when he reached the heart, he fell silent. I looked at mom and Michael and realized something was wrong. For the next 20 minutes, he examined me in complete silence. When he finished, he simply said: “Come, get dressed and we’ll talk”.

  Dr. Cooperman explained his findings and referred us to a pediatric cardiologist to make sure we could continue the pregnancy. I spent the next few weeks going through different tests to make sure that the pregnancy wouldn’t be terminated. It was the first time I was facing such a medical problem and it was a terrible, stressful period. I was anxious throughout the entire pregnancy. This pregnancy was a healing experience. It was normal and simple. But my anxiety was back, only this time it was directed elsewhere.

  “I have to go to the bathroom. Gabi, come help me.” Mom tried lifting herself up using the bed handle, but couldn’t. Gabi helped her get up and took her to the bathroom.

  I smiled at mom, but when the door closed behind her, I whispered to Gabi, “What’s going on? Two days ago she was walking and driving. What happened?”

  “Things took a turn for the worse. She can’t move because of the pain and abdominal liquids.” I could see in his eyes that he didn’t know what to do with everything that was going on. “She’ll probably stay here for a couple of days, so I’m going to get her some things from grandpa’s house. Are you staying here?”

  “Of course.”

  “They’ll soon come to give her another test, so keep me updated.”

  “Sure, I’m with her. Don’t worry.”

  “Ok.” Gabi let mom know he was going, and then placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a look that I couldn’t figure out. Maybe he was trying to cheer me up. Maybe he was trying to cheer himself up.

  It took mom several minutes to get out of the bathroom and I escorted her back to the bed.

  “With everything going on, I forgot to tell you – Adam really loved the presents you got him. He’s even sleeping with the Koala bear.” I sat as close to her as possible.

  “That’s great,” she held my hand firmly and smiled, “and are you feeling well?”

  When she smiled, she looked as always; beautiful and noble. She always looked younger than her age, and would boast about not needing to dye her hair. I hoped I at least got that from her, as I didn’t get her height or beauty.

  “Yes, everything is really great.”

  “That’s good.” Mom laid back and sighed with pain.

  Just when I was wondering if I should go ask for some medication to ease her pain, a doctor came in. He looked somewhat young, but I assumed he was a senior doctor because there were several doctors running after him, as though they were in “doctors’ summer camp.”

  “This is Catherine and we need to take a sample of her abdominal liquids and send it in for a biopsy,” the doctor stood by my mother’s bed and spoke to the doctors who wrote every word in their tiny notebooks. On a second thought, he didn’t look like a typical doctor. He was short, his eyes smiled and he spoke quietly.

  “You can call me Cathy,” mom said as she tried sitting up again but it seemed like an impossible task. “And this is my daughte
r Shirley, she has a girl in her belly.” I had a feeling she would tell that to anyone who came into the room from now on. Mom smiled and pulled her hair behind her ears, as if that’s what mattered most.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Dr. Carmi. Congratulations.” He shook my hand gently. There was something very humble about his behavior. He asked for mom’s permission and then gently checked her belly. He didn’t act like he owned the place.

  The entourage moved on to the next bed in the room and I returned to my post next to mom. Although Dr. Carmi spoke quietly, we could hear him explaining to the pale patient about the chemotherapy she was about to receive. I kept talking to mom about Adam and anything I could think of that would distract her from what was going on and the place we were in. I tried making her feel like we were meeting at a coffee house. We were only missing an apple strudel.

  One of the doctors who followed Dr. Carmi, came back into the room. When he was setting his things on the table by the bed, I saw a large and frightening syringe that reminded me of the amniocentesis and it made me sick. I smiled an encouraging smile at mom so that she wouldn’t feel my anxiety. “You can stand next to her, but on the other side,” he said as he shut the drapes. He didn’t even introduce himself.

  I moved to the other side and held mom’s hand. Every time he touched her belly she was in pain, which made me hold her hand even tighter as if I was in pain. The doctor sterilized the area and stabbed mom. The needle went out and then in again, this time in a different place. Then again and again. A tear poured down mom’s face. She didn’t say a word. I felt I was shrinking. I held my breath in from the stress and forced myself to breathe out. I nodded at my mom, who looked at me in such a terrified look that I don’t think I will ever forget.

  “I can’t get the liquid out. I’ll call an expert to do the test,” the young doctor gathered his equipment, moved the curtain aside and left the room. I stroked mom’s face and wiped the tears away.