Authors: Naomi Ragen
Thank God, that is over.
I’m sorry about the tuition fees for Harvard. I hope you can get them to refund at least part of it. And I’m sorry I took part of the money in my tuition account for my trip and expenses. I know you will be needing it. I want you to know I consider it a loan, and I fully intend to pay it back.
As for Seth, we have been in touch a number of times. But I’ll be honest with you: The fact is, I’ve met someone else, someone like me, bitten by tragedy, emerging from his own fog. I will deal with Seth in my own way, so please don’t get involved.
I don’t want you to think that you and the ordeal you are both going through haven’t been constantly on my mind. Dad, I know you are innocent of what you’re accused of, that there is an explanation for everything that happened. I just hope we can find it in time. But whatever happens, you will never lose my love and respect or that of the people who really know you. And I know that is what you care about most.
All my love,
Kayla
P.S. Cell-phone reception here is erratic. So write to me at this address:
Kayla Samuels
Metzuke Madragot
Dead Sea, Israel
Adam sat without moving, the letter crumpling in his hand. Then he reached for the phone.
“She said she doesn’t have reception…”
“I’m not calling her. I’m calling our travel agent.”
“What? You can’t go anywhere!”
“No, but
you
can. And must. Abby, go and bring her back. Bring my daughter back to me. It’s my fault this happened to her. Please, if you love me…”
“No, NO, NO! How can I leave you alone when you are fighting for your life? It’s too much; too much, I’m telling you! You heard what the prosecutor said: ‘Fled the country’! If I go running after her, too, then that awful man will have further proof of his theory! It could get you thrown into jail, convicted!” She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not budging.”
His shoulders shook with shocking violence as he rocked back and forth. Like an infant whose sobs are too deep to voice, it took a moment for his strangled cries to emerge. Shockingly, he got down on his knees, taking her hands and kissing them. “Kayla. Our baby. Our beautiful little girl… Our Kayla. She has always given us such
nachas.
She would have been so happy. Gotten her degree. Gotten married to Seth. I’ve ruined everything for her. EVERYTHING! And she doesn’t say a word of blame or reproach. She should be shouting at me! She should hate me! Instead, she’s begun to hate herself, to
abandon everything she’s worked so hard for. We can’t let this happen. Please, my love. Please.”
She shook her head, her heart stiff, unforgiving.
It was bad enough that Kayla had abandoned them in their darkest hour. Bad enough that she’d stolen their money when they were hemorrhaging money and squandered it on running away. But on top of that, to write such a letter…
There was no song in my old life, only silence.
After all they’d done for her! It was like a knife in Abigail’s heart. But even that was not the worst.
She looked at her husband. What all the public humiliations, all the accusations, the snub of friends, the draining of their resources, the ruination of his life’s work, had failed to do their own daughter had accomplished, finally bringing him to his knees, his heart cracked wide open.
“Don’t,” Abigail soothed, stroking his greying head. “Don’t, my love. My love.”
“Please, Abigail. Please. For me. Please.”
18
She caught the 7:50
P.M.
JetBlue flight from Logan to JFK, and from there ran to catch the connecting El Al flight to Ben Gurion Airport. By the time she boarded the flight to Israel, she had ridden the roller coaster through fear, anger, exasperation, and impatience—and was simply numb. Or so she told herself until she realized, to her horror, that she’d been assigned a window seat and that she’d have to climb over two big men spilling over the center and aisle seats to get there. Getting to the bathroom was going to be impossible. She felt a panic attack coming on as she tried and failed to reconcile herself to the world’s worst eleven and a half hours in the air. Then, suddenly, the linebacker cramped in the middle seat called over a stewardess.
“Is the plane full?”
She shook her blond curls and smiled at the big handsome lug. “No, it isn’t.”
He smiled back flirtatiously. “So, is it okay if I change seats?”
She smiled again and nodded. To Abigail’s amazement, he picked himself up and disappeared into the back of the aircraft, never to return. The other man soon followed suit.
Three seats to myself! she exulted in disbelief. That meant she could stretch out and lie down, even sleep. It meant no swollen ankles, no distended bladder.
She hoped it was a portent of things to come, that even the worst scenarios could be turned around in the blink of an eye.
She strapped herself in, anticipating takeoff and the steep climb upward that would eventually result in the freedom to pull back the armrests and stretch out full length. In the meantime, desperate for sleep, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. The outraged shrieks of a distraught infant made that impossible. She opened her eyes, annoyed. The baby was only two rows ahead, flailing to get out of its mother’s arms. What bad luck! But it was such a young infant, she saw with sudden pity. As tired as she was, her grandmotherly heart went out to it and its tired and frantic young mother.
She remembered those days. Exhausting, she thought, closing her eyes again. And here I am, once again pushing myself to the limit to help one of my kids. When did it end, motherhood? When could you retire?
If it just wasn’t such a waste of time! What good would she be once she got to Kayla? When had her darling, spoiled daughter ever listened to her advice about anything?
She tried hard to place her free-floating resentment in specific settings that would justify it. Kayla kicking a plastic lawn chair and actually breaking it, in a fit of temper because Abigail had complained that she’d used up all Abigail’s shampoo. Kayla picking out several pairs of expensive colored contact lenses and having the optometrist send them the bill. But the more Abigail tried to nurse her anger, the more her mind was crowded with opposing images: Kayla announcing her engagement to Seth. Kayla in black robes, valedictorian of her high-school graduation. Kayla breaking the news that she’d been chosen as youth ambassador and would be touring the Netherlands. And further back: Kayla, at two or three, watching a woman in the park nursing her baby.
“What is she doing?” Kayla had asked.
“She’s nursing. Giving her baby milk.”
“I also want milk,” Kayla had demanded.
And Abigail had explained patiently: “When you were little, like the baby, I had milk for you. But now that you are all grown up, Mommy doesn’t have any more milk.”
Kayla had looked up at her with those beautiful big eyes: “Do you have apple juice?”
Abigail chuckled to herself. And then there was the time Kayla had flung herself on the floor weeping: “My Barbie has nothing to wear!” Or the time she’d given a very detailed explanation for how they made Coca-Cola: “You take a black cat…”
She watched the unhappy baby cuddling in her mother’s arms, almost feeling the warmth of the soft cheek against her own, the fluid movements of the soft limbs.
The seat-belt sign went off. She tore the blanket out of its plastic wrapper, plumped up all three pillows, and stretched out. Despite the engine noise, the screaming baby, she slept.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that the stewardess had left some food on one of the little fold-down tables. Acquiring a rum-spiked Coke, she tore open the little tinfoil packages of beef and pasta, dipped a warm roll into the sauce, and sipped her drink, totally content. She opened the video screen. They were somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, near Europe. She felt a calm come over her. All her problems had been left far behind her, and Kayla was still so far ahead. Right now, she had nothing to do but watch all the movies, eat the delicious, cholesterol-filled brownie iced with fudge frosting, and ask for more alcoholic beverages. It would take hours and hours for the plane to land, she thought contentedly, perfectly happy to float between earth and sky, where nothing could touch her.
The plane was sailing smoothly through the sky and even the baby was finally sleeping. It was a girl, and she looked like an angel.
19
It was 6:00
P.M.
local time and already pitch-dark when Abigail emerged from the terminal in Tel Aviv.
“I need to go to the Judean desert, near Ein Gedi.”
The taxi drivers shook their heads. “Maybe someone else.” They melted away, searching for an easier fare. She finally waited on line at the official taxi stand, where by law they were obligated to take you anywhere you wanted to go.
“I need to go to Metuzke Madragot near the Dead Sea.”
The driver looked her over. “Two hundred dollars. No meter. Okay?”
“Do you know how to get there?”
“I know what I know. I’ll get you there.”
She was not about to bargain.
They rode for an hour before she saw any signs of the desert. Then, suddenly, dark monoliths rose on her right, towering with menace. At every turn, something in her resonated with danger and a strange thrill. But each time she felt the word “STOP!” rise in her throat, she forced herself to swallow hard. There was no turning back.
Then the swift flow of the road beneath them slowed as they turned off the highway and headed up a narrow mountain pass. She strained with the car as it inched its way upward. Terrifying visions of Grace Kelly and her daughter
plunging off a mountain road in Monaco alternated with panic-filled memories of a wild ride up the Rock of Gibraltar with Adam. Against her sounder instincts, she turned around, looking out the back window. It was all black, except for a reflection of light, elongated and shimmering, which sank into what could only be a black expanse of water.
She rolled down the window, trying to get her bearings. The air had a faint chemical smell and something gritty and abrasive.
“What is that odor?” she asked the driver.
“The Dead Sea. Good for you. ”
She doubted that.
The turns were hairpin. She gripped the upholstery and tightened her seat belt. They seemed almost vertical at times, submerged in black ether. Then, finally, she saw some lights in the distance. But as they drew closer, she was disappointed to find it was not a sign of life but simply a towering metal structure, some kind of hardware in the middle of nowhere to facilitate transmissions to faraway places where people actually lived. Its red bulbs glittered festively, like sequins, against the blue-velvet sky.
They continued climbing until the road disappeared, and there was only the crunch of gravel beneath the tires.
“It will ruin car,” the driver grumbled. “Where is place? You have address? Why no address…” he went on, growing angrier and angrier. Finally, the taxi’s headlights picked out a huge gate of thick yellow metal that blocked their advance. There didn’t seem to be a soul around to open it. A hand-lettered sign in Hebrew gave them a number to call.
He took out his cell phone, but there was no reception. He shrugged, snapping the phone shut with disgust. “You get out here, walk around gate.”
“Here?” She looked around desperately. She was in the middle of the wilderness as far as she could see. “Absolutely not! You can forget about it! You are not leaving me here. Wait. I see an intercom.”
She got out of the car and pressed the button. “Hello?”
“Yes?” A voice answered her in English.
A wave of relief washed through her. “I’m Mrs. Samuels. Kayla’s mother.”
As if by magic, the metal gate began to slide open.
The taxi rode on in silence except for the sound of popping gravel as it
pressed the rough stones beneath its wheels. This went on for at least ten minutes, then abruptly stopped.
“Higanu
. . . Uhm, we here,” the driver said.
She rolled down the window. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
A makeshift group of caravans and shacks with corrugated tin roofs huddled together as if for warmth from the desert night. They were deplorably ugly, she thought, her heart sinking, feeling a strange sense of betrayal. Not a single human being was in evidence.
The driver turned around, a big grin on his face. “I drive you to five-star Dead Sea hotel? Only sixty more American dollars! Only best…”
For a fraction of a moment, she was tempted.
“No, of course not!”
He shrugged, resentful of being robbed of his extra sixty dollars. He got out and opened up the trunk, tossing her heavy suitcases on the gravel with a thud that echoed though the windswept hills.
“Careful!” she said helplessly, getting out of the car. She shuddered from the icy desert blast, hugging her coat around her. “I thought it was hot in the desert!”
“Not at night, lady.” He laughed. “You pay me now.”
“Hold on a minute. Can you just wait here until I find someone?”
Before he could answer, she turned and walked quickly toward the only lit window she saw. It was in a low building made of concrete blocks painted Popsicle orange. Crossing a makeshift veranda crowded with potted plants and orange hammocks hung from the branches of a giant tree, she knocked urgently on the pale blue door. Behind her, she could still make out the driver’s grumbled complaints.
A shaft of light cut through the darkness as the door opened. Standing on the threshold was a tall, slim young man wearing a colorful knitted helmet from which unruly dark curls cascaded down to a small dark beard. He wore a fringed white-linen tunic over his shirt and white-linen pants.
“
Baruch HaBah!
” he said with a shy smile.
Abigail stared. Faded scars covered his forehead and chin. He went silent, staring back in confusion, his blue eyes as calm and lovely as a summer lake.