Apart From Love by Uvi Poznansky Page B

of this bed, where she turns her back to the two of them.  
Her weight makes barely a dent on the mattress. She curls herself, tightening her arms over her knees and interlacing her fingers, which helps her keep loneliness away. Then she starts falling asleep, in the same place where the monogram—Natasha over Leonard—used to be.  
It is then that I open my eyes and walk out of the room, closing the door behind me as softly and as gently as I can.

Chapter 8
A Woman, Forgotten
As Told by Ben

F rom here I see the wheelchair, deserted. My father has managed to rise from it and now I can hear him down the hall, cackling in victory over this thing, this contraption, this symbol of his handicap, which is despicable to him. He is trying to walk. More precisely, he is swinging his crutches, a bit precariously I think—and in return, he is being swung by them, back and forth and over and again, making a small advance, a minute one really, with each attempted step. For him, this must be a dance of triumph.
Stopping for a moment by the console table he dials, listens, and redials. His ear is pressed to the handset, which is connected by a long, spiral cord to the phone, which is nearly buried by various papers, and hidden behind an old alarm clock. The cord is stretching tensely in midair, or slithering behind his back as he goes back to hobbling to and fro across the floor.  
There he goes, reaching the wall, banging it accidentally with the bottom of the crutch and then, somehow, turning around, aiming to reach the opposite wall and bang, turning around again, while listening intently to the earphone. With each footfall, my father attempts to cut through some stutter. He tries, it seems, to restart a conversation.  
He pays no attention to me. Still, his voice is deliberately lowered, which tells me this is private. I should turn away, really, and keep myself far out of earshot—but for some reason I make no move, and no sound either. Why is the connection so bad, I wonder, and who is it, who could it be at the other end of the line?
My father swallows his breath several times, his face turning pale, his eyes—miserable, until finally he bursts out shouting, “Listen, it’s Lenny! Can you hear me, dear? In God’s name, Natasha, it’s me—”  
Which makes me take a step forward, fumbling to find the right tone, the right words but at the same time, crying, “What? You’re talking to mom? Where—where is she? Give me, let me talk to her—”
For a moment, his eyes seem to pop right out of their sockets, and his face reddens in embarrassment, as if he has just been caught in a covert little hideaway, committing some shocking, scandalous sin. He freezes, with the handset suspended in midair. Then slowly, and with full intention, he sets it down in its cradle, and stays there guarding the thing, which is still clasped firmly in his hand.
“What is that? What are you doing?” I plead. “Mom is back! It has been a long time, five years I think, since I heard her voice—”
“Yes,” he says. “It has been that: five years. But first, we need to talk—"
"We,” I insist, “have nothing to talk about. All I know is, mom is back from her tour.” And with that I leap forward and try to snatch the thing, I yank it right out of his hold; which is when he pounces on me, and his knuckles turn bone-white around my arm, and I feel him gripping me tightly, until it hurts. I have forgotten how strong he is.  
"Listen,” says my father, between clenched teeth. “Listen to me! It is about her.”  
By now I am yowling in distress, “What? What the hell do you mean? What is it, about mom?”  
And so he releases me. “You better sit down,” he says. “It is something you need to hear.”  
For a moment I consider the pleasure I could get out of arguing with him over whether or not I should sit, and what does he know about me, about what I need, or about anything else, for that matter—but then I take control of