Alone

I sit in the small room in the rented apartment fingering the strings on an out-of-tune guitar. The phone rings.

The phone!

I spring to answer it. “Hello?”

Chani’s voice is filled with warmth. “Hi Shira how are you?”

You believe what you want to believe. And I wanted to believe she actually thought of me. But I should have known better. She prided herself in being nice so this wasn’t the first call over the years that started this way. But all the other times the reality was like a mosquito bite an irritation. This time it was different.

*

“She’s my age!”

Zehava and I stand toe to toe nose to nose glaring at each other. The afternoon sunlight filters through a cloudy sky bleaching the parquet floor. The halogen lights buzz softly filling the silence between us. The brown hugging monkeys clinging to the crib watch worriedly.