67 – North of Boston
Sally Spofford never thought she’d be one of those “divorced women” people gossiped about, hiring a nasty lawyer, fighting over child support and visitation schedules, jealous about the ex-husband’s new girlfriend. She was heading down that path, though, without conscious thought or decision making on her part, moving with the inevitability of an arrow fired from a bow. It was beyond her ability, she thought, to reach out in mid-flight and stop that arrow from hitting its target.
Her husband was on the road, driving to Washington to do who knew what with who knew who. All that mattered to Sally was that her husband was wrapped up in what seemed totally important to him, almost vital to his existence, and she was not the least part of it. He’d ignored her pleas and rolled over her objections as if she were no more than a speed bump on the way to a new life to which he was intent on going.
There was of room for her and Adam at her parents’ house in nearby Manchester-by-the-Sea. When she called and told her mother that she and Ben were having some issues and she would like to stay with them for a little bit, with Adam, of course, her mother was not especially successful in hiding her delight. At long last, it appeared, her patience was being rewarded. Sally was still young and still had her looks. A bit of exercise and diet and she’d do fine.
Sally was filled with guilt as she sat on the bedroom floor and went through the cardboard banker’s box that held the couple’s “important papers.” I might not be back in the house for a while, she thought, so I’d better grab whatever papers might be helpful to the lawyer, wills and investment statements and old tax returns and the like. She told herself that she was not doing anything to feel guilty about. After all, they were her papers as much as they were his. She’d give him copies, or her lawyer would give them to his lawyer.
Her search through the box came to a halt when she opened a well-stuffed manila envelope on which was written, in her own handwriting, the words “My Famous Husband.” The envelope was filled with newspaper clippings, all stories about cases Ben had handled over the years. He never saved any newspaper or magazine stories about himself. Without telling him that she did so, Sally saved everything.
Memories flooded her mind as she glanced at the yellowing newsprint. Each story was about a case, a triumph, a defeat, a crusade, a financial windfall, a financial disaster of a loss. She dumped the contents of the envelope on the bedroom carpet and started reading through the articles, holding each one as if it were precious and fragile.
I remember this case, she thought. He sued the state licensing board for that old black man when they wouldn’t give him a barber’s license. The memory of sitting at the dinner table as Ben reenacted his devastating cross-examination of the head of the licensing board, waving a chicken leg in the air for emphasis, brought a smile to her face. When he’d finished his tale she’d asked him to tell her the rest of the story, the part he always held back. He’d smiled and said, did I mention that the guy I’m suing for race discrimination is black, too?
Another article described a case Ben brought, and lost in the state supreme court, representing a single mom who worked at a high tech startup who was fired when she said she had to leave work to spend time with her son on the weekends. He told me from the start that he was going to lose that case, she remembered, but he took it to make a point, to give that mother a chance to fight back.
Sally smiled at that one. What a knight he is, always rushing off to do battle for the little person. I’m so proud of my husband.
That thought hit her like a rock to the forehead. I’m always so proud of my husband, she thought. Why am I not proud of him now, now that he is fighting his own fight? She realized, all of a sudden she realized with crystal clarity that her husband had no choice about this fight. He couldn’t turn his back on a single mother, out of work and living off her unemployment check. He couldn’t turn his back on an elderly man who’d learned barbering from his own father, rather than from a licensed trade school.
How can I expect him to turn his back on his own people, his own heritage? He not only won’t do that, she realized, he can’t do that. It isn’t part of the man. And that man is the man I love, I still love, she said to herself silently, then repeated out loud, “I still love him.”
Sally sat back down on the floor and carefully replaced each news story in the envelope, then she collected the pile of important documents and put them, one by one, back into the folders and files from which they’d been removed.
For the first time in a week, Sally’s stomach felt comfortable, the fist that had clenched it for weeks suddenly loosened. Her shoulders lost the slump into which they’d fallen and she stood up, back straight, head raised, smiling, relieved. “I still love him.”
I don’t even know where he’s staying in Washington, she thought, then decided to try calling his office on the chance that he had not yet left. Ben’s secretary seemed surprised to hear from Sally and told her that Ben was going to D.C. directly from home this morning and said he would not be stopping at the office at all.
Sally felt she could not wait another instant to talk to her husband, to tell him she was sorry for what she’d put him through, to tell him that of course she’d be home when he returned and to tell him she knew how important this fight, of all his fights, was to him, to tell him that she’d be there with him, her and Adam, if he wanted them by his side at a march or a rally or a trial.
Maybe I’ll drive to Washington and surprise him, she thought. Wouldn’t his eyes light up when he saw me, his shiksa wife surrounded by a million Jews. She smiled, imagining his face when he spotted her walking through the crowd to join him.
Ben did not usually carry his cell phone with him, she knew, to her frustration, but he enjoyed how his phone connected wirelessly to the voice navigation system in his car, he so loved his toys, she thought, smiling, that he often left the cell phone turned on in the car.
She picked up the telephone and dialed his cell number, jabbing her fingers at the tiny number keys in excitement at not getting divorced, at not not-loving her husband. He must be in the car now, on the way to Washington, she thought.
The telephone rang eight times before it was answered by his curt message, “I can’t answer now, leave a message.” She thought for a moment to blabber into the phone, then restrained herself. I’ve hurt him so much this week, she thought, I can’t apologize in a voicemail message. She punched the disconnect button.
Sally remained energized as she waited to pick Adam up from school later that day.
“I have a treat for you, sweetie,” she said to her son as he climbed in the car, slinging his heavy backpack, filled with books, into the back seat. “We’re going to the mall this afternoon. We’re going to buy Daddy a special present for when he gets home.”
“Oh boy, the mall,” Adam crowed. “Can we get Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken, hooray.”
Sally sighed. Adam always wolfed down some sort of soy-flavored, salty sweet chicken served on top of a plate of noodles at a booth called Teriyaki-Chicky in the mall food court. He always pushed aside the chopped vegetables that came with it.
“OK,” she said. “This is a specially good day and if you are extra good while I’m shopping for Daddy, we’ll get Japanese chicken afterwards.”
“Hooray,” Adam shouted. “I love you, Mommy.” He paused and thought for a moment, then said quietly, “Mommy, you’re not mad at Dad anymore? You and Dad have been yelling so much. I get so sad when you do that.”
“No, sweetie,” Sally answered, touched. “Mommy and Daddy love each other very much. Sometimes we have arguments but we always love each other so very much.”
Damn, she thought, here come the tears.
“We are going to buy a big surprise for Daddy when he gets home.”
“Isn’t Dad coming home tonight?” Adam asked, concerned. “Where is he?”
“Daddy had to go away for a few days,” Sally said. “He had something very important to do, very important for, for the Jewish people, Adam. He had to say something to the government in Washington for the Jewish people.
“This trip is important to your Daddy. We should be so proud of him for what he is doing.”
Adam noticed his mother crying now, softly at first but soon her shoulders trembled as a week’s, a month’s worth of fear and anger escaped.
“Why are you crying, Mom?” Adam asked.
Sally reached into the glove compartment for a tissue, finding only an old Dunkin’ Donuts paper napkin to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“I’m crying because I’m happy, sweetie, and because I love your Daddy, and you, so much,” she said.
Adam looked at her with an odd expression.
“You’re weird, Mom,” he said. “I cry when I’m sad. When I’m happy, I laugh.”
At that response Sally did the only thing she could do. She laughed.
The North Shore Mall was crowded. They parked in a secondary lot, a ten-minute walk from the main entrance. As they walked into the mall Sally took her son’s hand and warned him, as she always did when they went there, to stay close to her and to ask a sales clerk in any store to take him to mall security if he should get lost.
For a reason she never understood, malls made Sally apprehensive, especially with her son. Too many strangers, she thought, too many opportunities for somebody to snatch him from her. She knew those fears were excessive, but they were real for her nonetheless.
This time, however, she remained excited, feeling that second espresso buzz she enjoyed so much, even though she hadn’t had coffee since breakfast. Ben was going to be so surprised.
Early on in his legal career she’d created what became a family tradition. When an especially big case came in, she would buy him a new suit. That suit would be his “case suit” for the life of that new case, bringing him good luck when he wore it to court for that case. If the case turned out well, if he won or it settled before trial, the suit remained in his closet for future use. If he lost the case, the suit went to the Salvation Army.
Sally bought most of Ben’s clothing, at least his presentable office clothing. She gave up on his sense of fashion the day he walked into the house with a new corduroy suit that made him look like the nutty professor from 1950. Most of his office clothing came from Brooks Brothers, which had a large store at that mall. Brooks kept a file on each customer, with all of his various sizes recorded, from shoes to neck size. She’d never had to return a suit she’d bought for her husband at Brooks.
Adam was getting tired and showing it as Sally finally chose between a gray wool pinstripe that she decided was a bit too conservative even for a lawyer and a solid blue double breasted with pleated pants that she thought sent a stylish, confident message.
She had the blue suit gift-wrapped. She glanced at her watch as they left the store, 6:15 already, she thought, then was interrupted by a revitalized Adam.
“Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken now,” he begged. “You promised, mom.”
“Yes, I promised you,” she said, thinking that at least she would not have to cook that night, then caught herself when she realized that she’d planned to vacate the house before dinner time.
The food court was packed and they had difficulty finding a table, finally having to dash to one as a mother and daughter stood and left it. They barely beat two teenage boys wearing iPod headphones and baggy pants, who gave them killer scowls but let them have the table.
Sally piled her bags on the table and ordered Adam to remain right there without moving an inch while she got his Japanese chicken. He promised to guard their table. Her eyes never left him as she waited in line at the Teriyaki-Chicky booth.
Sally returned five minutes later with a Styrofoam dish overflowing with tiny bits of chicken covered in a brown sauce on top of what looked like a triple serving of brown noodles, a few pieces of broccoli and miniature corn to the side. She handed Adam a plastic knife and fork, which he promptly bent over double trying to cut a piece of chicken. He looked at his mother in confusion.
“Just use your fingers,” she said, her patience running out as the last of her energy, the last remnant of her over-charged emotional state, dissipated. I’m feeding him junk food at the mall, she thought, might as well finish being a terrible mother by sitting him in front of the TV when we get home while I take a long, hot soak in the tub. She could almost feel the warm water supporting her.
“What’s that weirdo doing,” Adam asked, pointing at a young man in a long black coat and hat. Sally looked up from her thoughts of the bathtub and turned her head to see what her son was pointing at. Just two tables from where they sat, a young man was climbing from his chair to stand on top of the table.
His coat was unbuttoned, revealing black pants and a white shirt beneath. The shirt looked odd, puffy. Sally noticed the black curls descending from beneath the man’s hat in front of his ears.
“He’s a Hasid, Adam, a very religious Jewish person,” she told her son, then tried not to sound too scolding when she ordered him to hurry up and finish his chicken, it had been a long day. She glanced again at the young man.
His behavior was more than odd, Sally thought, looking around for mall security as heads turned toward the man throughout the food court.
By now he was standing on the table, his legs spread. He reached into a bag he carried and removed some white fabric, which he draped over his shoulders.
“Look, Mom,” Adam said. “It’s a Jewish flag. I know that star. They’re fun to make. You do it by drawing two triangles, one rightside up and the other upside down.”
The man started shouting. Most of what he said was unintelligible but Sally heard the word Israel shouted and something that sounded like a prayer. She heard a yell from across the food court. When she turned her head she saw a mall security guard gesturing at the man to climb down from the table.
Sally looked back at the man on the table, standing not more than ten feet from her and Adam. She watched him bring his feet together and stand straight, almost like a soldier at attention. His final words were odd, definitely not English at all, not even sounding like Hebrew but more like he was saying something that began with the word Allah.
Sally saw the man’s right hand reach inside his shirt, where two buttons were left undone. Funny, she thought, I didn’t even notice that his shirt was unbuttoned.
She was just turning her head to smile at Adam, who was staring in fascination at the man, when seventy-five quarter-inch steel balls driven at 2,500 miles an hour by the explosion tore through her upper body, instantaneously shredding her heart and lungs and smashing her face into a pulp beyond recognition. She was dead before the blast reached her, driving the steel balls before it.
Adam, being smaller, was struck by fewer steel balls, but more than enough to kill him at the same moment his mother died.
A fluke of the explosive force drove the blue and white Israeli flag that had been draped over Sam Abdullah’s head straight up toward the ceiling, barely damaged at all. The flag rose thirty feet over the pandemonium in the food court and then slowly fluttered down to cover a small piece of the carnage.