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

helped her therapist get over his writer’s block. Which will be quite a bonus for me, too. You can help me with that.” Dani listened. I could see that it had gotten her attention − the opportunity to help me, too. Pay me back.

“All of the friends I had during my hospitalization eventually killed themselves. It gets everyone in the end. No one escapes it. I never saw anyone recover. They just kept going in and out of the hospital, or ended up in a grave. They all eventually plummeted , one at a time, even those who had managed a bit of relief ended up giving in.”

“They were young and in despair, and they must have not managed to get to the root of the pain. You’re daring to do just that. You’re brave, you’re a real hero, and we’ll overcome this.”

“Why go through all that suffering if that’s the end anyway, no matter what I do?”

“Of course what you do matters. Either we manage to confront the monsters, or your body weakens and prevents you from dealing with it, as it has before. Let’s try to find other ways of looking at it, a bit from the side. This is most definitely a stubborn disorder. But we’re more stubborn.”

Four Months to Solve This Thing

A decisive knock is heard, as unmistakable as a familiar whistle . “Yotam, get the door please,” I said.

Omer popped by for a surprise visit. He occasionally does that when I’m within a mist and can’t manage to answer calls or messages. Yotam leaped onto him and Omer flung him high up in the air, just the way he likes, swinging him around over his head, turn after turn after turn. Maya calls it the helicopter dance, their usual rejoicing ceremony. Only after putting him back down and catching his breath did Omer turn to look for me.

“Now, where’s your mom, Yotam?” He found me sprawled on the couch. “What’s up, Rotem? How’s life?”

“I’m all worn out. I’m beat,” I shot straight at him, no prettifying. “Can you please take Yotam out for a walk with Snoopy? They’ve been driving me crazy all afternoon. It’s been raining constantly ever since we got back from school, and they’re both just climbing the walls. Get Yotam a snack at the grocery store, and bring some ketchup, too. We’ll make French fries for dinner.”

“Yes, sir, Sergeant-Major!” Omer pouted, trying to look like the goose-soldier from the children’s TV show we used to watch together, year after year, every summer break, somewhere between searching for Marco’s mother on another TV show, and walking with Dorothy over the yellow brick road towards the wizard who’d return her home. To be honest, it’s always the same: Everyone only looks for their home or their mother.

The boys left the house, and I allowed the weights over my eyes to shut them for a while.

After half an hour of stolen silence, Yotam suddenly sat on my stomach, and Snoopy sat on my head.

“Who loves you?” I asked.

“Mommy,” he answered.

“And who do you love?”

“Mommy.”

That’s the correct answer, for a kid.

“So, Rotemeister, how are you?” Omer asked, his brows tightening momentarily in a passing gesture, which I caught nonetheless.

“I have no energy, Omer. I’ve been like this the whole afternoon − on the couch, hands at my sides. Useless.”

“Why useless? One of them keeps your watch. Anyway, I’ll make dinner. You just rest. Come on, Yotam, help me peel the potatoes. We’re making real French fries today, not like Mommy’s oven-made Weight Watchers’ ones.”

What would I do without that guy? He’s paying me back for all those countless babysitting sessions while young Emily was doing long shifts during her residency, and he’s showering Yotam and me with love.

“Can you stay with Yotam and study for your exam here? I have a sorcery course today.”

“A what course?” Omer asked.

“Family therapy, but I swear that what it really entails is spirit-summoning. It’s called ‘Systemic Constellations’.”

“So I gather that you’ve run out of things to study,” he joked.

“Yes, I really have. That’s what it’s like when you get old.”

Yotam was standing on the blue stool near the kitchen counter and peeling potatoes, looking like those old-world British children in orphanages. All he was missing was some soot on his face and the picture would be complete.

“Well done, Yotam. Here’s another one. I’m just going to check on your mother for a second, and then we’ll start frying them.”

Omer placed his hand on my forehead, then stroked my cheek. “Rotem, you feel warm. Did anything happen?”

“When I picked up Yotam today, his teacher complained about him making faces at the other kids during quiet-time. It took me a minute to get what she meant, and then I realized it: the facial tics have come back. He’s got a few new ones, and vocal tics too, clearing his throat for half the night. I felt like killing her. I kept smiling and left with a ton of tears in my throat and just one thought going through my head: What the hell was I thinking bringing him into this world on my own?” Not that doing it with someone else would have been the best idea, I thought to myself.

“All right, but that doesn’t help us with anything. He’s already here.”

“That doesn’t mean that I can’t feel bad about it right now.”

“You’re right. Do you remember how it stopped the last time it happened?”

“Of course, it stopped when I calmed down. He senses my stress.”

“Then you know the answer. But Rotem, you can’t calm down under pressure. Someone told me that once. A very wise woman.”

“And a beautiful one at that. Yes, you were studying for your SATs for the third time, determined to get accepted to medicine at Tel Aviv University with Maya. You explained to me that you had to calm down because you already knew the material, but it’s the stress that keeps pulling your grades down − and then you won’t get accepted and