I watch as he shakes his head and lets out a slow breath. I'm not sure if it's because it hurts to recall that week of training or if it's because he desperately wants his country to live in peace but doesn't see how that's possible. Either way, I'm stunned by the rush of words and emotion.
"Afterward, I needed you, Amy," he continues. "I needed you so damn bad. I wanted to hold you in my arms again, feel your warm sweet body against mine to remind me that there's something good out there, that this world isn't only full of hatred and evil. Liron felt the same way. Her boyfriend was stationed on another base and you were in the States. I remember what you said about it being okay if we saw other people. Being with Liron until I started feeling human again seemed like a great solution at the time." He gives a short, cynical laugh. "But it sucked, because she wasn't you." His swipes his eyes with the back of his hand, getting emotional. "She wasn't you," he chokes out.
I'm starting to cry now too. "It's not fair, Avi. We found each other but live in two different countries. Just when I feel the closest to you, we're ripped apart. It's not fair."
"Amy, tell me anyone else can make your heart pound like it does when you're with me," he says. "Tell me you think anything or anyone can compare with it, and I'll give up on us."
Oh, God. I want us to get back together, because nobody can make me feel like he does. I want him so bad. I can't deny it any longer, to myself or him.
"No, Avi. Don't give up on us." The Israeli side of me bursts forward with a vengeance, and I think my fighting spirit has finally come out. Boot camp has changed me. I put my hand over his. "I forgive you. I can't forget what you did with Liron just as much as you probably can't forget I kissed Nathan. But I can definitely forgive."
He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it. "We're both at peace with everything that happened, except there's one thing I probably should tell him. Making up feels so good and carefree. But... "Umm, Avi, I kind of lied to you back on base."
"About what?"
I clear my throat. As long as Avi told the truth, I might as well spill the beans. "Nathan and I have never been a couple. I kind of coerced him into pretending we were dating."
Avi winks at me. "I knew that."
Chapter 22
Forgiveness takes a lot less energy than holding grudges.
Three hours after leaving boot camp, we reach the hospital. Avi takes my hand after we pass through hospital security and steers me down the front corridor. The closer I get to seeing Safia, the more scared I get. What if she looks different? What if she looks weaker than she did last year? I hate cancer. It's as dangerous and deadly as a terrorist.
Avi asks the lobby receptionist something in Hebrew. She points to the elevator bank. The inside of the Baruch Padeh Medical Center hospital in Tiberias looks just like hospitals back home, with stark white walls and the scent of purified air bursting through the air conditioning vents.
"You okay?" Avi asks as we're riding up the elevator.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Your nails are digging into my palm." He loosens my hand and shows me the nail indentations in his skin.
"Sony. Truth is, I'm freaking out."
He puts his arm around me, holds me tight to him, and lightly kisses the top of my head. "I'm here for you. Always. You know that, even if you don't always want to believe it."
Whenever I've needed Avi for my minor but frequent emergencies in my life, he's been there for me. Whether it was on the base or on the phone or in person, he's always around when I'm desperate for someone to keep my spirits high and lift me up... even physically.
He slows his pace when we get closer to the room. "Remember, it's okay to cry." He shrugs when I glance up at him. "My mom told me that after my brother died."
"And did you cry, Avi?"
He bites his bottom lip and nods. "Yeah... I did." He clears his throat and lifts his head high. "Come on," he says, nudging me forward into the room.
I take a deep breath and peek my head inside. Sofia has an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes are closed and it looks like she's sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed, her pale complexion making her look like an angel. My dad is sitting next to the bed. He rushes from the chair and opens his arms to hug me, but when he takes a closer look his eyes go wide with shock.
"Amy. Mah corah*. What happened to you?" He gestures to my arms and chin as he inspects my scratched face.
"Oh, that. Umm... I kinda fell on rocks. Well, I guess skidded is more like it."
"You look like you've been in battle."
"That's kind of how I felt. But it's better today. I've turned into a warrior woman." Sort of.
Back when I begged my dad to let me go on this trip, he warned me not to complain no matter how hard boot camp turned out to be. Either I could stay at my aunt and uncle's house with him on the moshav all summer (with possibly no chance of seeing Avi), or I could go on the army portion of the Sababa trip with my friends (and possibly see Avi). But if I chose boot camp, I'd better suck it up.
I'd like you to know that this is me sucking it up. Pre-army Amy would definitely be whining Aba, they make us get up before the sun is up, and run in the dark, and pee and poop in stinky holes, and sleep with our guns, and eat jam with bees in it, and do boy pushups, and march in straight lines, and scale walls, and sleep in beds with springs missing above our heads, and dig holes with big hairy spiders in them......but I don't.
"Is Sofia going to be okay?" I ask, because that's the only concern that I have at this moment. I cant lose my only living grandparent. God cant let that happen.
Although what really scares me is that God can let that happen. Rabbi Glassman says that death is a part of life. We don't have a choice to live, and we don't have a choice as to when we'll naturally die.
"They'll be taking her for a CAT scan in the morning. "We'll know more after the scan and when we get the results of her blood test. When she woke up she was in pain and disoriented, so they gave her a sedative. I don't expect her to wake up until the morning, so you might as well go back to the moshav and get some rest." He inspects me again. "Wait, you look different, and it's not just the scratches. Did you get a haircut on the base?"
"Yeah. It's a long story; don't ask."
"Okay, I won't." He knows better than to ask for details, because he's well aware of my special ability to get into trouble wherever I go. He shakes hands with Avi. "Thanks for bringing Amy here."
"Ayn by'ah --no problem. They gave me a forty-eight-hour leave."
I stand next to my safia, bow my head, and pray silently to God to take care of her--just in case He's listening and just in case He wants to answer my prayer.
I don't know what I'll do if I lose her. I didn't even know I had a grandmother until a year ago, and now here she is in a hospital. I feel like she's slipping away from my life already. She never let me tell her how much she's helped me spiritually. During my Jewish conversion classes, whenever I thought about the Jewish matriarchs, I always imagined they would look and act exactly like my safia. I read that Abraham's wife Sarah gave birth at the age of ninety and died at the ripe old age of 127.1 wish my safia could be like Sarah (obviously not the giving birth at ninety part... just the living until 127 part).
"Amy, I'm gonna step out so you and your aba can talk alone. I'll be right outside the door if you need me," Avi says.
My dad stands beside me and strokes my back as we both look down at the sweetest woman I've ever known. "I came home from school when I was six and told her an eight-year-old named Ido had pushed me," he tells me. "Can you guess what she did?"
"Went to school and threatened Ido if he didn't leave you alone?"
"No."
"Called I do's mother and told her that her kid was a bully?"
"No. She told me to handle it myself. She said I'd have to deal with bullies all my life--so I might as well figure out how to deal with them at the age of six."
I try to picture my grandma as a young woman, strong and full of energy.
"Did you know she was in a war?" my dad asks me.
"What war?" I know all Israelis have to serve in the military. The country has been through their share of wars since they were recognized by the UN in 1948, but I can't imagine my grandmother wearing an army uniform or carrying a gun.
"She was in the Sinai War of '56. You should ask her about it. They wouldn't let women on the front lines back then, so she dressed as a boy."
"Whoa. I can't believe my grandmother was in a war.
I can't wait to tell Roxanne back at school, who brags that her great-grandmother was one of the first women pilots." Pilot, shmilot. My grandmother was on the front lines. I guess I'm not the only kick-ass warrior woman in the family. "So what happened with you and Ido? Did you tell him to stop pushing you?"
"Oh, I told him. Right after that, he pushed me again."
"What'dyoudo?"
"Well, the next day I came to school with a gift for Ido."
"Like a fist-in-your-face kind of gift?"
"No. Like a new basketball my aunt gave me after she visited the States."
Let me get this straight. "Ido pushed you, and you gave him a gift?"
"Since my mom wouldn't intervene, and there was no way I could fight a big kid two years older than me, I figured trying to be friends with him was my best option."
"So you became friends with the bully?"
He nods.
"That's a sellout. You shouldn't have to give the bully something. That's just wrong on so many levels."
"I had to sacrifice a little in order to get what I wanted. We ended up being friends."
I guess we all sacrifice at some time or another. I just hate having to do it so often.
"Aba, is she going to die?"
"Eventually."
"You know what I mean. Is this it? Is this the start of the end?"
"She had her final chemo treatment last week. They suspect her white blood cell count is low."
"But what if it's more than that?" I cry.
He puts his arm around me. "Let's not worry about that until the morning, when we know more. Let Avi take you back to the moshav."
"I don't want to leave Sofia," I say, watching the oxygen mask fog up when she exhales.
"I know. But you can't do anything for her tonight. You can come back as soon as you wake up in the morning. Now go."
I hug him tight, wondering how I could have ever been distant from my father. I'm so grateful God brought him back into my life. I don't know what I'd do without him, especially now, with my mom and Marc starting a new family.
I don't know if I'll fit in. "Will they still have time for me and a new baby? But one look at my dad and I know he'll never be out of my life again, no matter if I try to push him away or not. (Believe me, I've tried it. Especially when Avi was in town and my dad was grilling him, having the "Don't Do It" sex talk with both of us multiple times, and acting as an overprotective chaperone the entire time.)
After taking me for a quick dinner, Avi parks the car in front of my aunt and uncle's house on the moshav. It's on top of a big mountain overlooking the Kineret lake.
