Hadassah sighed. Her butt pushed back against Yael’s belly. Yael pulled her closer, pressing her lips to Hadassah’s shoulder blade.
“Are you hungry? I’m starving,” Hadassah murmured, twisting a bit to look over her shoulder.
Yael closed her eyes. “I am always hungry for you.”
“I meant for something like some Chinese takeout,” Hadassah said lightly, “but that’s very nice to hear.”
Both of them lay in silence broken only by the soft in-out of their breathing. Yael pressed her lips to Hadassah’s warm flesh. She took in the scent of her, imprinting it on her memory. Eons from now, she thought, she would remember this moment.
“Whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be here.” Hadassah’s slow and easy breathing hitched. Her body stiffened, then relaxed, although not to the same boneless softness of before.
“I will never forget you, Hadassah.” Yael kept her voice low on purpose, not wanting to wake Hadassah.
Nevertheless, Hadassah made a sleepy murmur. “You don’t have to forget someone if you’re still with them.”
Yael said nothing, only pulled Hadassah closer to her. They stayed that way for another minute or so, and in that passing of time Yael allowed herself to imagine what it would be like not just to remember Hadassah, but to stay with her for the rest of this life.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is why you make a list and eat before you go shopping.” Hadassah laughed, ducking out of the way from Yael’s grabbing hands. She held the paper list high over her head, dancing in the parking lot to keep her lover from taking it. “Hey, hey! You’re going to tear it!”
“I’m putting ice cream bars on it, and you can’t stop me!”
Hadassah gave up the list, still laughing, as Yael pulled her close. They kissed right there under the bright late afternoon sun, and it was as close to a heaven as Hadassah could ever have imagined. She broke the kiss, but gently, brushing her lips over Yael’s before pulling away.
“C’mon. I promised you matzah balls and brisket, and if we don’t get it in the oven in the next couple of hours, we’ll never be ready to eat in time. Yael,” Hadassah said sternly, at least as sternly as she could through giggles, “let’s go!”
Yael tried to sneak another kiss but gave Hadassah a solemn face as she handed the list to her. “Ice cream bars?”
“Fine. Ice cream bars.” Hadassah shook her head and linked her fingers through Yael’s as they headed for the grocery store entrance.
It had been three months of this. Companionship. Romance. Bliss, if Hadassah was going to get poetic about it, and although she’d never been one for that sort of thing, with Yael it was different. Everything was, from the sex to the conversations that deep dived into philosophy, religion, politics…the rules of card games, random trivia, the way memory worked. She’d never been with a partner who’d been so much fun, both physically and intellectually, but Yael was all of that and more. Hadassah had not forgotten that there were still secrets between them. She simply made her choices, every day, and hoped they were the right ones.
“Hey, love,” Hadassah said now, casually, gesturing at the cart. “Can you grab that for me?”
“You just want to watch my butt wiggle as I push it.”
Hadassah arched an eyebrow. “And?”
“And nothing,” Yael shot back with a wicked grin and an extra wiggle in that lush backside. She pushed the cart through the doorway, Hadassah following. “Tell me again what we’re doing?”
“It’s Erev Rosh Hashanah…”
“Jewish New Year,” Yael interrupted, steering the cart toward the produce section.
Hadassah put a hand on the cart, guiding it toward the fruit section. “Yes. So tonight, we have a festive meal to celebrate. Including apples and honey for a sweet new year, and a new fruit too…what about a dragonfruit?”
Caught up in looking for a fruit that would be suitable for the holiday table, Hadassah didn’t notice at first when the cart and Yael stopped following her. When she looked up, her easy smile faded. The older woman staring at Yael lifted a trembling hand.
“Jacqueline? Honey? Where’ve you been?” Her voice shook worse than her hand.
Yael looked trapped, but she managed to force a fake smile to her lips. “You’ve got the wrong person.”
“You look like my Jacqueline. You have the same…hair. Face.” The old woman gestured. “Your eyes aren’t the same. But it must be you. I know you’ve changed, girl. The men. The drugs…”
“I don’t take drugs, and you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Yael said, but gently. “I’m sorry.”
The old woman heaved a sigh. Her eyes glittered with tears. “They told me to stop hoping, that she was gone for good. If she wanted to come back, she would. They said she ran off with that addict boyfriend of hers, but I didn’t want to believe it. He might have taken her, but she didn’t go off on her own. She never would’ve left me like that, without even a word.”
Yael shifted, her expression pained. Hadassah moved to her side to put a hand over hers, both of them touching the cart. Yael gave her a grateful glance.
“I call her sometimes, but she never answers.” The old lady pulled her phone from her battered purse and thumbed the screen quickly, holding it up to show that the phone was dialing.
From Yael’s pocket, her phone hummed. The noise was blocked by the fabric of her jeans, too faint for the old woman to hear, but Hadassah caught the noise at once. It ended quickly, though, so fast she couldn’t be positive she heard it.
“It just goes to the message,” the woman said.
Yael shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
With another sigh, the older woman shuffled away. She looked over her shoulder, grief clear on her expression and in every hunched line of her body, but she didn’t address them again. Hadassah, stomach sinking, waited until she’d moved out of earshot before turning to Yael.
“Did you know her?”
“No. I’ve never seen her in my life.” Yael sounded sincere.
Hadassah wanted to believe her, but that was a choice she was finding harder and harder to make.
Chapter Fifteen
Yael had to get rid of this phone. It tied her to a past that she could not call her own and worse, it tied her to the people who had known this body. The longer she was in it, the more it became hers, including subtle changes in appearance, but clearly, she was still recognizable. She had a steady job, so she could afford clothes and contributions to the household she shared with Hadassah. She certainly could buy herself a new phone.
Dropping the phone in the street as they unloaded the groceries helped by cracking the screen. Kicking it “by accident” into the path of an oncoming car completed the action by destroying the phone totally. She feigned dismay, accepting Hadassah’s sympathies, and then set herself to the task of helping cook the festive meal.
Together, they set the table, lit the candles, and said the opening prayers, but the comfortable silences Yael had grown used to now felt weighted with unasked questions. Hadassah was upset, but quietly so. Whatever she was thinking about the woman they’d encountered in the grocery store, she was keeping it to herself.
Yael accepted a hunk torn from the round challah, sweetened with honey and raisins, representing more good wishes for a sweet New Year. She knew the High Holidays, of course, although she’d never acknowledged them the way humans did, with food and festivity. Hadassah had said she wasn’t particularly observant, but when Yael had expressed an interest in the holiday, she’d been the one to suggest they celebrate it with the meal, the decorated table, the candles, the prayers. The rituals felt familiar to Yael, but what felt even more like a ritual was sharing them with Hadassah.
“Yael?” Hadassah’s brow furrowed. “Are you all right?”
“All of this…it’s just so nice.” Yael drew in a breath against the sudden tightness in her throat. Emotions, so many of them. So human. The longer she stayed in this vessel, the easier
it had become to take on all the elements of humanity. But she was not human, was she? Could never be? She was simply playing a part, no matter how comfortable she was.
“I haven’t observed the holidays in a long time. Probably not since college,” Hadassah told her. “And you’re right. It is nice. My mother asked me if I wanted to come home. I told her I was observing the holiday with you.”
“You told your mother about me?” Yael’s throat dried at the thought.
“Yes. Not everything. Just that there is a you. That we’re together.” Hadassah paused. “Is that okay?”
She took Yael’s hand across the table, linking their fingers. Hadassah gave it a gentle squeeze, her thumb passing over the back. Yael squeezed back. Their eyes met. Locked. Hadassah smiled, and a rush of nameless emotion filled Yael so fiercely that it threatened to strangle her.
“Do you want to ask me if I’ve ever celebrated any holidays?”
Hadassah let go of her hand to tear apart some more of the challah. She stood to dip up some steaming beef brisket smothered in tomatoes and onions, ladling it onto first Yael’s and then her own plate. She added roasted carrots mixed with fruit, a dish she’d called tzimmes, which made Yael’s mouth water. Only when she’d added some roasted asparagus for both of them did she sit and look at Yael.
“If you want to tell me, I’m sure you will,” Hadassah said.
Yael poked a fork into the pile of carrots. “Do you want to ask me?”
“Not right now,” Hadassah said quietly. “Right now, I would like to eat this dinner we cooked together and enjoy your company. And after that, I’d like to sit and drink a glass of wine with you out on the balcony and listen to the night insects, while we make each other laugh.”
“And after that?”
“I’d like to go to bed,” Hadassah said, “and make love with you, before we both go to sleep. Together. In my bed. Our bed.”
Yael swallowed against the emotions clogging her throat. “And…after that?”
“I’m not thinking about anything after that right now, Yael. Okay?” Hadassah’s tone got a bit of a bite to it, but she softened it with a small smile.
“Yes. Okay. This is delicious.” Yael ducked her head and focused on the food in front of her.
The mood lightened. Hadassah spoke of holiday dinners she’d shared in the past with her family and seemed happy enough to be the one carrying the conversation. After dinner, just as Hadassah had requested, they toasted each other with glasses of rich red wine and snuggled close on the wicker loveseat glider on the balcony off the living room. Hadassah rested her head on Yael’s shoulder. Their soft laughter drifted on the night breeze, mingling with the chirping of crickets.
Hadassah stirred and stood, holding out her hand for Yael. “C’mon. Bed?”
Yael took her hand and followed. They would make love, she thought. And they would sleep.
And then…
And then, Yael knew, she would have to tell Hadassah the truth.
Chapter Sixteen
Replete from their languid lovemaking, Hadassah had begun to doze, half-fighting the urge to sleep but still letting it tug her eyes closed. She opened them when the bed dipped for a moment as Yael pushed upward, then got off it. She bent to scoop up her discarded shirt and pulled it over her head, and Hadassah sat up at once.
“What are you doing?”
“I should go,” Yael said.
“You’ve been living with me for the past three months, Yael. Where, exactly, do you plan to go?”
“I don’t know,” Yael replied in a low voice.
The urge to beg her to stay warred with Hadassah’s dignity. She sat up in bed, pulling up the sheet to cover the nakedness that only moments before had felt natural and now felt like vulnerability. It was because of the old woman in the store. She knew it. But the cause didn’t matter, only the effect.
“You’re going to walk out on me again?”
Yael paused, her panties in one hand, and then proceeded to continue putting them on. She straightened. “I’m not walking out on you. I’m just…leaving.”
“Why?” When Yael didn’t reply, Hadassah sighed and let her face fall into her cupped hands for a moment before she forced herself to look up again. “You don’t have to go. We don’t have to talk. But it’s late, we’re both tired. We should get some sleep.”
Yael didn’t move away when Hadassah stepped closer, but her body tensed. Hadassah stopped. Her breath eased out of her in a disappointed sigh.
“Yael.” Hadassah held out a hand, but Yael didn’t take it, and finally, Hadassah let it fall back to her side in defeat. “Fine. Don’t answer my questions. Don’t give me anything. Just keep coming back around whenever you want to fuck me. I guess that’ll have to do.”
“You should not let me,” Yael said.
Hadassah lifted her chin. “You think I don’t know that? Do you really think I’m okay with letting you walk in and out of my life like all I’m good for is to get you off?”
“No. I don’t think you believe that, and if you said you did, I wouldn’t believe you meant it.”
“There’s an easy enough solution, Yael. Take your stuff with you. Leave, and don’t come back around. Stay away from Sanctuary. Our paths will never have to cross again. Just leave me alone.”
Yael frowned and turned away. She paced, her hands at her hips, in fists. “It will hurt you if I abandon you.”
“It hurts me that you let me think we could see where this could go,” Hadassah retorted, “but now you won’t even give it a chance to go anywhere. It hurts that you don’t trust me.”
Trust. Yael shivered visibly. “You think we could be more than lovers.”
“Yes. I do. We are.”
“You think we could…”
“Fall in love?” The words shot from her lips, and Hadassah forced herself not to show any signs of regret that she’d said them. “Yes. I think so. Maybe? Who can ever know?”
She hated herself in that moment, for giving away too much of herself. It had been a long time since she’d fallen this hard and fast for anyone. Longer since she’d ever been this honest with a lover who’d been meant as something only casual. To have spat out the truth this way, in anger, like an accusation…it left a sour taste in Hadassah’s mouth. And still, right now, didn’t she hope against all hope that her words would prompt something, anything in return from Yael?
“I want to give you something. I want to give you everything.” Yael’s voice shook. She whirled to face Hadassah. “But I can’t!”
“Why not? Does it have something to do with the guy in the park that day? The old woman?” Hadassah watched Yael’s expression go as shuttered as a house preparing for a storm.
“Yes. And…no.”
“You do know them.”
Yael shook her head. “I swear to you, Hadassah, I don’t know either one of them, never saw them before they approached me. Either one of them. But…they know me.”
“How can that be?” Hadassah asked, frustrated with this merry-go-round of confessions only half-admitted.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can,” Hadassah said. “You just won’t.”
“I don’t want to then. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes! I want to hear the truth. Whatever it is. If you have something in your past you’re ashamed of—” a flicker. “—or afraid of?”
Another flicker, this time stronger.
“It’s an excuse, and I’m tired of them. That’s all. Just go.” Hadassah spoke wearily. She flicked her hand toward the bedroom door. “I’d say don’t come back, but I’m not sure I could say no to you if you did. So please, Yael. If you have any compassion for me at all, just leave.”
“I don’t know how to have compassion. I want to, but I don’t understand it. I’m not like you, Hadassah. I wish I was!” Yael gave a low, miserable groan.
Hadassah steeled herself against it. Whatever Yael was going through, if she wouldn’t share it, there
was nothing more Hadassah could do except try to protect herself. They stared at each other, both of them miserable in the silence…but there were no words left to say. Her feelings would fade, over time, if she stopped letting herself feed them. For now, though, all she could do was wait for Yael to walk away.
“Give me a reading,” Yael said suddenly.
Hadassah shook her head. “I don’t want to do that.”
“You have to. It’s the only way I can explain to you what I am.” Yael stepped forward. Her eyes had gone glittery, bright, but with excitement, not tears. Two spots of high color painted her tawny cheeks. Her chest heaved, and her fists clenched and unclenched.
“And if I do this reading, and see your future,” Hadassah said carefully, “it will mean I’m not in it. Is that what you want?”
“Is that what you want?” Yael countered. “Would it bring you peace to know, for sure?”
Frustrated, Hadassah tossed her hands in the air. “It will mean nothing! I’ve told you a reading isn’t set in stone. I could see what’s ahead for you, proving we don’t share a future, and tomorrow something could change. Or the opposite could happen. I could continue being incapable of reading you, and ten minutes after I’m finished with the reading, you could finally decide to end this and walk away from me forever.”
“Or you could do a reading for me and reach into the past,” Yael said.
Hadassah hesitated, narrowing her eyes. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“It can, though. Can’t it?”
“A reading usually encompasses some information about what you’ve done or experienced in the past to bring you to this point, yes. But it’s not the same.”
“You can do it,” Yael insisted.
“A person’s past is so complicated and long, Yael, there’s too much knowledge to go through—”
“Not for me,” Yael interrupted.
Love, Blood, and Sanctuary Page 17