Recap: Aida is worried that her mother is having a heart attack, so she runs to her neighbor’s house and asks to use the phone. Only Muslims are allowed to have phones. She calls for an ambulance, but coming to the Jewish Quarter is their last priority.
I sat with Mommy. She kept saying that she was fine, and then she would hold her chest and wince. I prayed that the ambulance would get here already. It felt like forever.
I recited T’hilim and kept asking Hashem to please make them hurry.
Finally, I heard the siren. Two men knocked on the door. I let them in. They asked if we needed a stretcher. Ima said no, but she couldn’t get up or walk, so they brought one and I followed behind.
“You can’t come,” one of the men said. “Only patient.”
“But I need to––”
He shook his head and stepped into the ambulance.
They drove away, leaving me in the dust. Tears flowed from my eyes. I was sobbing hysterically. Ima was going to the dirty hospital. That was not something Aba would approve of. I felt as though I’d been punched. Aba in prison! Ima whisked away to the dirty hospital!
I ran to Aunt Bea’s house. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Aunt Bea opened the door and pulled me inside. “What’s wrong?”
I told her what happened.
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” she said. She called for her husband who was in his study. “I have to take Aida to the hospital. Please stay here with the children.”
When we pulled up to the hospital, we saw that the ambulance was there and they were taking Ima into the emergency room.
We walked inside. It was crowded with people. There was a receptionist taking down information.
They took my mother to the back. There was a long line at the receptionist. I wanted to go back with Ima, but there was no way to walk back there without first speaking to the receptionist. Aunt Bea stood next to me and squeezed my hand. I was davening so hard that Ima would be all right.
“Do you think it’s a heart attack?” I whispered to my aunt.
“I don’t know. It is good that the ambulance brought her.”
I didn’t say that there was no other way to get her here. Ima was too weak and in too much pain to walk.
The wait in the line was excruciating, but finally it was our turn. Aunt Bea spoke to the receptionist in Arabic. Then she turned to me. “She says the rules don’t allow us to go back there. A doctor will come speak to us.”
We had to sit on the hard chairs, watching the hands on the clock move slowly.
“Aunt Bea, you should go home. Your children need you. I will be here.”
“You’re very grown up and mature, Aida, but you are not an adult. I must stay, and besides, your mother is my sister.”
After hours with my head pounding from worry and lack of food or drink, a doctor appeared. He looked harried. He wore a worried expression.”
He strode over to us.
“She is resting comfortably. She must stay in the hospital for the next few days. We will run tests. I suspect she had a minor heart attack, and it looks like, based on the x-ray, that she needs a valve replacement. This needs to be done right away.”
Aunt Bea and I looked at one another.
“We can’t do that sort of surgery here. I would recommend she go abroad to have it done.”
“When can I visit my mother?”
“Visiting hours are during the day. You could come tomorrow.”
We thanked him and he walked away to go to the next patient’s family.
“So, we will have to go home now,” Aunt Bea said. “You will stay with us.”
I followed her into the car. I felt numb with disbelief. All of a sudden, I was like an orphan with no parents. Aba was in prison and Ima was in the hospital. And Stella – my best friend – was far away.
I felt so alone.
“Everything will be all right. You’ll see. We’ll contact Rabbi H and tell him that the situation is an emergency. He has to contact Miss Beth right away,” Aunt Bea said.
If only her words could make everything all right…
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of an historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishing, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishing, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams (a novel, Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022), and Alaskan Gold ( 2023-2024).
