On Her Own by Lihi Lapid

Author:Lihi Lapid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

6

The next day, after hours of Internet surfing and efforts to get a new phone number, Nina goes out for some air. She walks into the drugstore downstairs and puts a pair of underpants her size into her cart. Shampoo. Eyeliner. She even finds some beach flip-flops on sale. She waits patiently in line to ask the nice pharmacist a few questions about Carmela’s confusion, and he says he’s sorry, but he’s not a doctor. You need a doctor. As if she didn’t know. She still has no idea how to get hold of Irina. And she’s really worried. Tonight she’ll do something. It doesn’t matter what.

* * *

Carmela moves away from the window. She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there, but she does know that she wants to go outside for a bit. The idea of the stairs tires her, and she remembers how Itzik objected to an elevator. “It’s important to get some exercise,” he said. Afterward, she was sorry she gave in to him because the time came when he no longer had the strength to go up and down the stairs. And now she’s the one who doesn’t have the strength. And the morning journey to get the newspaper that she forces herself to make is becoming more difficult every day. But now she wants some air. So she goes out the door and walks carefully down the steps, then from the stairwell to the street.

A pleasant afternoon breeze caresses her face. She doesn’t know whether she’s cold or warm, nor does she remember when she was outside the last time. She walks slowly down the street, watching her feet as her slippers clatter on the pavement. A moment later, she raises her head and takes a deep breath of the sea smell carried on the breeze. And she walks along the street toward the breeze. She misses the sea.

When they were young, they used to walk to the beach every Saturday morning. Uri would build sandcastles and then go into the water with Itzik. She was always afraid that Itzik wouldn’t be careful enough. He loved being Uri’s god so much. It was his favorite role. Then Itamar was born, and Itamar didn’t like the sand and was afraid of the waves. Itzik laughed, saying that this son had turned out to be a daughter. And she asked him not to say things like that. “Never say that again,” she made him swear.

“If he’s like that,” Itzik said, “then he’s like that and nothing will change him.”

He’s not, she told him. He’s just used to being with me. Spend a little more time with him, she told Itzik, but Uri wouldn’t let him. He kept Itzik all to himself, ran to him the minute he came into the house. He went to the store to bring him lunch when she put baby Itamar to sleep and nodded off with him.

Uri was six when Itamar was born, and he was terribly jealous, ignoring him so much that Carmela started to worry.

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