The image of floating on a calm sea, the fire blazing across it, the cold rainstorm, and the words of God had, one by one, come over me. It was easy to interpret.
God was telling me that my life was both heaven and hell on earth. It was mine to live. He loved me. But my life was my responsibility. All mine.
He had shown me the way again. Take care of yourself, Brigid. Get Me?
I was suddenly sick all the way through. The bed didn’t move, but I felt as though I were falling nine floors to my death. The sense of falling was not a vision. It was abject shame and mortification in reality.
I had questioned God.
I had thought that I was so special, I could hold God to account. And why? I had never been promised, ever, that life would be safe and have a happy ending for myself and those I knew and loved, if only I had faith in Him.
A realization broke through my shame like a bright light. I did have faith. It had been shaken because I questioned it. But the fact that I was still asking God “why” was proof that I believed in Him.
I loved Him. I had never stopped.
As I lay there in the big bed, my skepticism and rage evaporated. I felt as though I’d been brought back to life, but for what reason? I had no idea.
I still didn’t understand why people had to suffer, but God had made it clear that it was not for me to judge.
I was alive. I had to use my life well while it was still mine. I was on my knees, thanking God with the whole of my heart and soul, when my cell phone rang.
I heard it.
My hearing had returned and, with it, the clamor on the street outside the hotel, men shouting, horns blowing, heavy equipment scraping up metal.
And my phone.
Hardly anyone had my number. But Sabeena had it.
“Sabeena?”
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
“There was a bomb,” I said.
“Brigid, I know. I saw the pictures on television after you texted me from Ben Gurion. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”
“I was near the explosion. I lost my hearing. But it just came back. My driver died.”
There was a long silence.
“Sabeena?”
“There was a suicide bomber on the bus,” she said. “Thirty-two people died, and many more are in the hospital. Brigid?”
“I’m here.”
“That’s a problem. Get the hell out of there.”
“Where should I go?”
“I know where I would go,” said Sabeena.
I’d gotten my answer from God. My life came without guarantees. I had to stop running and go back to what had driven me so far from home.
I needed to look into myself.
Part Three
Chapter 64
I WAS sweating hard under my coat and so anxious that my stomach hurt.
When I got to the customs inspector’s window, he asked me to lower my hood. Then he compared my passport photo to the actual me, standing in front of him.
The pictures didn’t match.
My face was gaunt, and my head was shorn. I had deep circles under my eyes, and my hooded coat had only added to my appearance as a suspicious person planning to blow up a plane.
I was taken out of the line by two armed guards, brought to a small, windowless room where my bags were unpacked again, the linings pulled apart, my electronic devices turned on. I was shunted into a second room, and this time, I was strip searched. I was struck by the wretched memories of the last time I’d been publicly stripped, but I complied.
When the female guard told me I could put my clothes back on, I said, “My husband and baby died suddenly. I went to Jerusalem to pray. I was on Yafo Street yesterday when the bomb blew up.”
She scrutinized my expression, looking to see if I was telling her the truth. She nodded. I was cleared for flight.
The only remaining empty seat was in the middle of a three-person row in the midsection of the plane. The overhead rack was full, so I balled up my coat, and when the man on the aisle stood up, I did my best to pack myself and my belongings into and under the narrow seat.
While we waited for takeoff, the news came over the individual media players in the seat backs. I don’t speak Hebrew, but I understood enough. Hamas was taking credit for the bomb. The death toll had risen to forty-five. Pictures of the dead flashed onto the screen. One of them was of the woman I had tried to save with a strip of tire. One was of the precious five-year-old boy who’d had his legs blown off. And then there was Nissim.
I sucked in my breath, put my hands over my face, and shook as I tried to suppress my sobs. The woman in the window seat to my left asked me, “Dear, dear. Can I help you?”