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Erez could have been hers, in a way, but she pushed him away. She’d been in the wrong. They shared an incredibly intimate moment, and she shut him out with no explanation. Her apology was half-assed and insincere. Then she added insult to injury by asking him to give them a good review, as if that was all that mattered.
“Your father has someone. Kelly. It’s his first real…relationship since the divorce.” There, she said it.
“We don’t mind about her, Imma,” Tom said. “It’s not like she tries to be our mother or anything, and Abba doesn’t want her to. We never see her.”
“No. We have you, you’re a great mother, we don't need another one,” Ori said emphatically. “Especially not someone who’s nearly our age.”
Kelly, Ilan’s girlfriend, was thirty-six, the same age as Erez.
“She is twenty years older than you.”
“Also, we don’t want a new father,” Tom blurted.
“Do you have someone? Does he have tattoos?” Ori asked.
There was a defeat in admitting to her sons that, no, she didn’t have anyone. “If I did? Would it bother you? It’s okay if it does. Just tell me.”
“No. We’d love you to have someone,” Ori said. “What about my tattoo?” he added.
“You’re too young for a tattoo.” She pushed Orna’s gate, holding it open for her sons. “It’s illegal to get one in Israel under age sixteen. Some tattoo artists will insist not before eighteen. Now, I don’t want to hear about it anymore. Subject closed.”
***
Orna had set the table on her outside porch, that looked out to her garden, which was dark, lighted faintly by evenly spaced mosquito-repellent bamboo torches. With her fork Dafna skewered a small chunk of Bulgarian feta, added a slice of watermelon, and swallowed the delicious salty sweet concoction.
There were eight of them, Orna and her husband, Ilan’s brother, their three children, two boys and a girl, Ori, Tom, and herself. For years, as a child, she used to beg her parents for a sibling. Until her father took her aside and asked her to stop, explaining it had upset her mother. Ori’s pregnancy was difficult, and the labor was horrendous, yet she endured another hard pregnancy with Tom, giving Ori a brother.
The young people around the table were discussing where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do when they were drafted.
“I want to be Sayeret, like Abba,” Tom said, referring to Ilan’s army service in the prestigious Israeli delta force. A warm wave climbed from her throat and enveloped her neck and cheeks. Sayeret was extremely dangerous.
“It’s very hard to get in,” she told her son, looking for something to ease the heat. She ended up taking Tom's empty plate and waving it as if it was a fan.
“Your father has connections there. It can make it easier for you,” Raffi, Ilan’s brother said.
She took a sip of her red wine to calm herself. It didn’t help.
“It’s dangerous,” she protested. Tom had just turned thirteen. It was an old argument, and one that was way too early to have. Yet she was always drawn in, panicked at the thought. Sweat broke out on her forehead.
“It makes for great networking. Ilan has milked his Sayeret connections for years,” Raffi said.
“Dafna, are you okay?” Orna asked.
“Shut up already Tom, it’s years before your time.” Ori, protective of her and hypersensitive to her moods, told his younger brother. “I want to be in Intelligence. That’s why I’m majoring in Arabic. It’s not dangerous at all. Say, Adam, I bet you got so rusty in the army I can beat you in Overwatch.”
“Anyone can beat him,” Orna’s daughter, Naama, who was thirteen, exactly Tom’s age, said. The youngest in a house and a family of boys, she was always on her toes.
“Clear the table and then you can go play,” Orna said. Raffi was in charge of the dishes, and Orna and she were left alone with their glasses of wine, second one for Dafna, third for Orna.
“Are you okay?” Orna asked again.
“I think I just had my first hot flash.” Dafna realized it as she spoke it. “Shit!”
Ilan was in love with his young girlfriend, living life. She was a single, middle-aged woman, that had sex one and a half times, if she counted The Thinking Nook, and suffered bouts of menopause.
“I’ll get you to see my doctor. Hot flashes are the worst. I also had dryness, down there, you know…”
“I don't,” Dafna said with certainty. Erez got her wet and ready whenever she got within touching distance. Also, when he wasn’t around, she only had to be thinking about him.
