Miriam's Well (27 page)

Authors: Lois Ruby

And then it happened: the
hora
. It's the Jewish equivalent of “Twist and Shout.” At any Jewish wedding, when the musicians play a
hora
, well I guess you could say all hell breaks loose. Talk about miracle cures: old ladies kick off their orthopedic shoes and grab the children, old men cast off their canes and grab young women, and they all make a circle. Everyone dances; it's irresistible. The music starts out harmlessly enough, just a nice Israeli melody, but after a couple of minutes you're going round and round and round to a frantic jungle beat. Hearts are pounding, skirts are whipping around, and if you wanted to stop, you wouldn't dare because of the humongous number of sweaty bodies that would pile up on top of you.

I kicked my shoes under our table. “Come on, Miriam, let's do the
hora
!”

“I couldn't,” she said, following me to the circle.

“Sure you can. Just do what I do. No one knows the steps anyway.” The musicians were into the third or fourth round of the song, and the pace was picking up. We broke into the ever-widening circle, watching everyone's feet at first until our own feet went on automatic pilot.

By the fifth revolution of the melody, Miriam was right in step, with her hair flying around her head, twisting right and left, dipping and kicking with the rest of us.

You want the music to go on forever, but you know that if it doesn't stop pretty soon, you're going to have a heart attack. When the music finally stops, all you can feel is your heart beating about a thousand times per second and your face as hot as a pizza.

“Oh, Adam, that was incredible,” Miriam cried. “I've never been so tired in all my life. Will they play it again?”

“Nope, just once. The old folks' pacemakers couldn't take it more than once.” I led her over to the table, and we collapsed in our chairs, still holding hands and quivering all over, like you do after jogging a couple of miles. She tossed off her shoes and stuck her legs out in front of her. For a second, I thought about the curl of her toes that day in the hospital.

Still gasping for breath, she said, “I didn't dream I'd be able to do something so physical ever again. Remember when it hurt every time I breathed?”

“I remember.”

“Oh, Adam. I'm so happy tonight.”

Me, too.

We pulled up outside Miriam's house. I was pretty sure she wouldn't ask me to come in, because of the uncles. So, I slid my arm around her, and she backed up close to me. I'd waited so long for her to be healthy, for us to be alone, for some great stuff to happen. Here we were in the car, both of us feeling romantic. I don't think I ever loved anyone as much as I loved Miriam that moment. The clean smell of her hair and the crispness of her dress and the softness of her coat made me feel really cozy, really secure. I shifted her around in my arms, pulled her close against me. Just like I didn't want the music to stop, now I didn't want the evening to end. I thought she felt the same.

“I had a wonderful time,” she said. Her words warmed my neck. “I'll always remember this evening, Adam. I'll remember how beautiful your synagogue is, how happy Eric and Karen are, how nice your parents are. I'll remember the rabbi and the dancing. Tonight when I'm falling asleep, I'll go over and over all the details to etch them forever in my memory.”

“I'll call you when I wake up tomorrow,” I promised.

I felt a change before I heard it; something shifted in her soft body. “No,” she said.

“No, what? No, you're sleeping late? No, you have to go somewhere?”

Justâno.

“No,
what?
”

“We can't see each other anymore.”

It was like a slap, stinging my face, ringing in my ears. She pulled away from me and leaned against the car door.

“Remember our friend Emily Dickinson?” Miriam's voice was heavy with sadness. “She's got another poem. âI cannot live with you, it would be life, and life is over there, behind the shelf.'”

“What? I don't get it.” Oh, I was getting it, all right. I was getting tossed overboard, or shoved on a back shelf. “This is what you
want?
”

“Brother James said it, Adam. I'm fish, and you're fowl. We can't live in the same medium.”

“Oh, yeah? It sure seemed like we were both fish tonight. We seemed to be swimming together just fine.”

“While you were in there with Eric when he changed for the honeymoon, I talked to Rabbi Fein. I asked to see a Torah. He took me down to the small chapel, and he took out a Torah scroll and unrolled it for me. Every letter was a perfect creation of love. I couldn't believe how exquisitely beautiful it was, Adam. My eyes filled up, and I was afraid my tears would stain the parchment. And I thought about the little man in New York, the one you told me about, spending half his life creating this one sacred piece of art.”

I knew this was spiraling downward. I felt chilled to my bones.

“The scroll was opened to Leviticus nineteen, the rabbi said. He called it the Holiness Code. I know, only because I know Leviticus, that somewhere in that passage it said, âThou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' But Adam, as beautiful as the scroll was and as well as I knew the passage, I could not read a single word, not even a single letter. That's why we can't see each other anymore.”

“Why? Because you can't read Hebrew? Believe me, most Jews can't even read Hebrew, Miriam. Didn't the rabbi tell you that?”

“But don't you see, Adam? The scribe in New York, he made that Torah scroll for you, for all of you, whether or not you can read it. But he did not make it for me.”

“You're making a big deal out of an anonymous guy 1,500 miles away. He's probably been dead for fifty years anyway.”

“Adam, I promised Brother James that I would try to convert you.” Her teeth were chattering; I wasn't sure I heard her clearly.

“To save you. To bring you to Jesus. Because I care so much about you. Don't say anything, don't say anything.”

I tried to keep quiet, though the anger was rising. The cumberbund was tight, the bow tie was tight, my shoes were tight, my chest was tight.

“But Adam, now that I've met the grandmas and the rabbi, and now that I've seen you stand up there under the wedding canopy with that purple skullcap on your headâwell, now I know I can't do what I need to do. That's why we can't see each other anymore.”

She unlocked the car door and pushed it open a crack. I felt a stab of cold air at my feet. Miriam reached back for my hand. “I've loved these weeks with you, Adam. You've been my best friend ever. Good-bye.” She blew me a frosty kiss and was gone.

I couldn't find the keys. I couldn't remember how to start the car, which foot to use for the gas, how to shift gears. I didn't want to look up, but I saw her slip into her house and close the door against the night, against me.

I drove home automatically. I couldn't tell you what streets I took, because my mind was whirling off in the ozone.
Luminarias
glowed all over my neighborhood, points of fire, freezing cold.

I don't remember undressing, but out of habit I must have hung up the tux carefully. I only remember turning on my electric blanket and getting in between the icy sheets and waiting for them to warm me up.

Somewhere in the middle of the night I realized that Miriam was right, of course. We weren't six of one, half a dozen of the other. We were fish and fowl, apples and oranges. It had to end. Maybe it began ending when Miriam was healed. “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.”

Wasted potential? Not with Miriam, I wasn't. I'd pretty much given her my best. Mrs. Loomis would approve, even if Brother James didn't.

Around 4:00 a.m., with my head thick and achey, I told myself, “Adam, you'll survive. You're good at bouncing back. Debate trains you to take blows and come back fighting. You'll let the old sense of humor kick in. You'll squash down all the hurt feelings. They'll never show. Like my good old dependable hair, ninety-four percent of all those stubbed feelings will fall right back into place. And I can live with the other six percent.” Once, not so long ago, I could shrug my shoulders and say, “Who cares?” I could do that againâas soon as I stopped feeling like a bag of bricks had been dropped on my chest. I was living proof that hearts hurt, even if you're not having a heart attack.

Diana was gone, Miriam was gone. Who would I wake up to, who would I fall asleep to every night? My insides caved in like an empty sack, growling, hungry, as if I'd never be filled up again. I fell asleep and woke up a hundred times; the monster of the night slowly crawled by.

With the sun just starting to ease its way up from behind Brent's house, I felt myself giving in to solid sleep. In that twilight zone between waking and sleeping, the last conscious thought I had was, I'm miserable, but â¦

At least Miriam's well
.

About the Author

Lois Ruby is the author of eighteen books for middle graders and teens, including
Steal Away Home
,
Miriam's Well
,
The Secret of Laurel Oaks
,
Rebel Spirits
,
Skin Deep
, and
The Doll Graveyard
. Her fiction runs the gamut from contemporary to historical and from realistic to paranormal.

An ex-librarian, Ruby now writes full time amid speaking to bookish groups, presenting at writing workshops, and touting literacy and the joys of nourishing, thought-provoking reading in schools around the country.

No one would love to have a spirit encounter more than Ruby, so she explores lots of haunted placesâMyrtles Plantation in Louisiana, Theorosa's Bridge in Kansas, dozens of ghostly locations in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and even a few spooky spots in Australia, Morocco, and Thailand. No spirits have tapped her on the shoulder yet, but it could still happen; she hasn't given up hope.

Ruby and her husband live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the foothills of the awesome Sandia Mountains.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Julianna Lee

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1362-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com