A Room of Their Own by Rakefet Yarden (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📕

drawn to her silence, edge near her, and she lifts her head. The watermelon seeds are neatly organized on her plate, circle within symmetrical circle.

With a quiet smile, she says, “Look how pretty. It’s like a flower.”

I sit down next to her, joining her in another world. We’re concentrating on beauty, together. A refuge.

“Rotem,” Omer’s voice rises from a distance and brings me back down to Earth.

“You asked if I’m mad at her? Of course I am. I’m fuming inside,” I tell him.

“Then how come you talk about her with such acceptance? How can you accept her choices?”

“Give me the bag, Omer.” I took out a nectarine and halved it, then handed him a half. A man and a woman in sports clothes passed by, embracing on the shoreline. From the balcony of a nearby hotel, a child was screaming for his mother with all of his might, “Mommy, Mommy, Mooooooomy,” refusing to stop.

I wish he’d shut up already, I thought to myself, finishing my half of the nectarine and wetting my hands. The water was warm. The couple walked back past us, and the man asked for us to take their picture, “If you don’t mind.” We didn’t mind. Omer photographed them and smiled as though he, too, was shown in the frame. He gave them back their cell phone and came back to sit next to me.

“What I found most difficult with your mother was that she couldn’t understand and accept my choices. At least not in real time. We’re very different in many ways, so now that she’s choosing differently from me, I’m trying to remind myself of that. She was always mainstream, always very proper. There were years when I couldn’t stop fuming, running after her, and trying to catch up with her. And then I finally gave up on her and on the rest of the world, and I let it all go. I think there are many ways of letting go. Emily’s just testing out one of those ways.”

“But what she’s doing is disconnecting!”

“So? Millions of people are disconnected in thousands of ways and forms all over the world. Whoever said that three kids and a dog is the right way to live? We give a lot of weight to blood relations. Could it be that it’s not the only option out there?”

“You brought Yotam into the world, didn’t you?”

“That’s right, because I wanted to. That’s precisely the point, Omer. I wanted him and I’m with him. Yotam is five years old. You’re 27. Your mother didn’t just leave you in the middle of the road. You’re an adult.”

“Adults still need a mother and a father.”

“There’s no doubt about it. I just feel that right now, Emily needs Emily, too. She used to put everyone ahead of her, for years. Now she’s not considering your needs, but I guess that her time has finally come. Sometimes there’s no other choice; one simply runs out of air.”

“So what if everyone just suddenly stops?”

“That’s not going to happen. There are enough humans around and enough people who do want kids.”

“You don’t think she may just be traumatized because of the whole ordeal with my Dad?”

“That too. It doesn’t cancel anything out, though.”

“What do you say, Rotem? Why don’t you put all of your insights aside and just come there with me?” Omer stared at me with hope in his eyes, hoping that maybe I wouldn’t be so stubborn this time and would change my mind.

“I didn’t want to get into this with you, or with myself for that matter. I hoped that I could be more containing and mature than I really am. But you’re pressing me, so here it is: I, too, am insulted. Emily has cut me out of her life, and I expected a little more credit. So going after her in her current world − and uninvitedly − is simply too much for me right now. I also need some time.”

Dani

A week had passed since that horrible meeting with Tal − so horrible, in fact, that I’d hardly slept since. Instead of an occasional night of nightmares, I spent an entire week without sleep. The little sleep I did manage was during the daytime. At night I’d find myself tormented, terrified, but not entirely sure of what. Just sensations crammed at the back of my consciousness. Images that pop up and get shoved back down. Don’t want them there. I know those images. They resurface during periods of frequent nightmares. I stopped eating. Completely.

In the mornings I’d grab half a fruit and then a few cups of coffee, lasting me until the evening cracker, and that was it. Sometimes not even that. Just coffee and half a piece of fruit at some point during the day if I felt especially weak.

Mrs. Adler asked me this week if I was sick. “You look pale to me.” I nodded politely and said that I caught a cold. We drank tea. She said that I was sad. I smiled again, a cautious smile, polite, and said that I was fine, that this is what I’m like . . . which isn’t really true. I used to be happy. Before all the mess with the eating and the depression and the hospitalizations, I was happy. I had an entire world of animals and stories. And I had a few close friends. Now I only have the nice Mrs. Adler, if I can even call her a friend.

A week passed, and Tuesday came again. I had no energy to get myself out of the house. Four o’clock was a few hours away. I was supposed to meet Rotem then, and was already preparing myself. How will I behave when I get to her clinic, and what will I tell her out of the giant mess currently in my head? How can I hide the fact that I’ve hardly slept and barely eaten the entire week? She’s the kind of person who can tell. I can’t