Inside the Hole

Yom Kippur.

Somewhere in another world, men stand dressed in angel-white and women sway over pages yellowed with tears. Somewhere across the river and over the hills, a chazzan intones the words Kol Nidrei, and the world trembles at the gateway to Heaven.

Here, in a bubble of noise and machines, in a bubble that smells of rubber and medicine, a woman, too young to be a woman, just a girl — a girl stands by a window and watches a reflection of the sun’s glow fade and dim. There she stands in her Crocs and a robe, and she whispers Hareini mekabeles… I accept upon myself the sanctity of Yom Kippur.

Somewhere in her memories, somewhere in the world beyond that window, there are lit candles and serious faces and a hundred united voices and Vidui — Ashamnu, we have sinned.

Here there is chicken soup and honey cake and water, and a baby she can reach through a call button, a set of elevators, a doorbell into the Special Care Unit.