Running Home

by Bill Sanderson

  Chapter Seventeen

  Miriam woke with a start. The sun was very bright and there were no noises in the house. Looking over at the clock she saw that it was almost eleven. Jumping from bed she quickly showered and walked over to Jerry's.

  She found Jane Wilson, Jan, Jerry and Rose busy looking after Jane's two small children in the back yard. Glaring at Rose, she declared, “You let me sleep.”

  Rose said, calmly, “Jack said you were still up when his alarm went off at five. I thought you needed it.”

  Grumpily, she stalked off to the living room to wait impatiently while the computer booted up. Jan came in with a mug of tea and a banana muffin. She looked pointedly at Miriam and said, “Eat.”

  “I'm not hungry.”

  “Young lady, you need your energy. You will eat or I'll cut it into small pieces and feed it to you.” Jan's tone brooked no opposition.

  Miriam thought about refusing, but she ate mechanically then sipped her tea. “Yech. What did you put in the tea?”

  "Two teaspoons of sugar and Carnation milk. I told you, you need to keep your energy up. You'll like this in January when it's cold and wet and miserable around here."

  Seeing the look on Jan`s face she drained the mug and made a face then turned her attention to the computer. There was an email from Elena suggesting that she check with the Red Crescent website to see if Sara had registered with them. So far there was no word from Micheline about Sara, either.

  She found the registry for displaced persons then waited while the Arabic language add-on loaded. She searched for both Sara Hariri and Sara Nadif, but there were no hits. A new email came in from Elena that had no real news and Miriam wrote about the report on Newsworld that showed their old house in ruins.

  The phone rang and Jerry answered. “Sure, I’ll put her on. Miriam, it’s Peggy MacDonald.”

  “Hello Peggy.”

  “How are you holding up? I heard that there was fighting around Nabatieh and I wondered if your family was affected like some of my other Lebanese clients in the area.”

  “The video on Newsworld showed my old house, my uncle's house and the grocery in ruins. My sister Sara was in the area and we can't locate her. My other sisters are fine.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I've got some friends here that are making sure I eat. I could use some more prayers for Sara.”

  “You've got mine. Do you want me to see if my contacts in the Red Cross can help locate your sister?”

  Miriam felt her tension reduce a bit. “Yes, please. I'm not sure how she would refer to herself at this point, though. She could be Sara Hariri or Sara Nadif from either Cheya or Manzieh.” She spelled everything.

  “I'll have someone look into it for you. Oh, this isn't part of the service, Miriam. I just wanted to see if you were doing okay.”

  “As well as can be expected. I'll be better if I can hear that Sara's okay.” Miriam paused. “We'd love to have you come out for supper sometime.”

  “After we get through the IRB stuff, I'd love to.”

  “Thanks for calling Peggy. I'll let you know if I hear anything.”

  Miriam sat at the computer for most of the day, only getting up for necessities. She did cheer up when Michelle came home. She volunteered to get her ready for bed and pray with her. But her mood darkened again when she came downstairs.

  Wednesday passed with no news about Sara, but she received assurances from Elena that Micheline was doing very well. In fact, Micheline announced that she was expecting a baby shortly before her eighteenth birthday. Miriam realized that she had missed Micheline's seventeenth birthday while she was in Tel Aviv recovering from her beating.

  Some gentle questions confirmed that Micheline was truly happy. Her husband counted her among his treasures and was planning on building them a house near Saida as soon as they could get the land. One of Tony's uncles was taking him into the family construction business.

  The acute worry about Sara was taking its toll on Miriam and she was starting to snap at everyone. She started in on Jerry when he turned off the computer and told her to sit with them to eat. Then she broke down and bawled on his chest for a while.

  Jerry sent everyone home after supper and sat with Miriam encouraging her to tell him stories about Sara. Her happiest times were just after Sara was out of diapers and was learning her letters in Arabic and French. They would sing songs together and dance. Miriam took out her wallet and showed Jerry the four pictures of Sara she had in her room when she escaped.

  Sara at fourteen in her hijab and smiling broadly brought back memories of Miriam in first year university shyly asking him for help with statistics. She told him afterward that she only got up the courage to talk to him because her friend Aliyah said that he was the best and most patient teacher in their class – much better than the grad student who led the tutorial.

  Miriam caught Jerry's nostalgic look. “What are you remembering?”

  “Sara looks like you did when you asked me for help with statistics. I thought you were the sweetest woman I'd ever met.” He paused to smirk. “Of course that was before I got to know you.”

  Miriam raised an eyebrow. “And what did you think after you got to know me?”

  “Then I knew that on top of being the most determined, principled and beautiful woman I'd ever met that you really were the sweetest. And it took me so much effort to not do this...” Jerry put his hand behind her head and leaned down for a kiss. Miriam forgot her worries for a while and melted into his kiss. Her hands moved up his arms and twined into his hair.

  They were interrupted by a loud yell of “Daddy” from the front hall. Annabelle was looking over top of Michelle with a disapproving look on her face.

  Jerry recovered quickly. “Hi squirt. Did you have a good day?”

  “Really great day, Daddy. Mommy and I went to the zoo in Moncton. We stopped on top of a mountain where we could see a loooong way. They had a real tiger – he was real scary. Can we go to the zoo again when we visit Uncle John? Please?” Michelle was bouncing.

  “How about you, Annabelle, did you have a good day, too?” Jerry asked.

  “It was a lot of driving and I miss Phil. More now that I've seen what kind of day you've been having.” Annabelle had an arch look.

  Miriam held her temper and responded calmly. “Jerry was just trying to distract me. My baby sister is still missing and we don't know if she's alive or not.”

  Annabelle nodded sarcastically and said, “I'm sure you were distracted.” She looked at Jerry. “I'll see you tomorrow at eight.”

  Jerry listened to Michelle tell him all about the monkeys and the bear and the icky spiders and did you know that baby deer are really hard to see? After a what seemed like a long time, Michelle finally ran down and Jerry prayed with her.

  When he got downstairs, he was attacked by a jubilant Miriam. “She's alive, Sara's alive.”

  He whirled Miriam around and wrapped her in a big hug. “That's great news, my love.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a big kiss on his lips. “Thank you, my life, for all your support. I've been awful to live with the past few days.”

  “If the past few days are the 'worse' in 'for better or worse', I'll be a very lucky man.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean yes. I'll marry you as soon as it's possible. I can't imagine life without you and Michelle any more.”

  “But I haven't asked.”

  “Well, knowing my answer should make it easier for you to work up the courage to ask, don't you think?” Miriam climbed higher into his arms to kiss him properly.

  Jerry felt the now familiar sensation of the world shrinking down to Miriam's embrace. He stopped the kiss from going further with an effort and put Miriam down. “Show me.”

  She dragged him happily over to the computer where the page was still up on the monitor. Pointing to a line in Arabic she translated - “Sara Hariri of Cheyda
. Registered at Beirut.” She hit the back arrow and pointed to a notice in a black box and translated, “Because of the large number of displaced persons, the Red Crescent Society regrets that it does not have the resources to help put family members in touch with each other.” Miriam turned to Jerry. “She's young, but she's fairly tall and she is married so she should be safe enough. But she's alive.” Miriam beamed at Jerry. “Mansur isn't listed though. I wonder if he's still fighting, or if he's one of the men killed with Walid and Rafiq.”

  Miriam opened Hotmail and emailed the link to Sara's registry page to Elena. Then she turned to Jerry and started to speak, but yawned mightily. Jerry snickered. “You need to go to bed.”

  Miriam raised her eyes to look up toward Jerry's bedroom then blushed. Jerry lifted her up to her feet and gave her a light peck on the cheek. “Miss Nadif, are you doing anything tomorrow evening?”

  “I don't know Mr. Ernst. I'll have to check my day timer.”

  “Well, I know this great little Italian place in Halifax. I think you'd enjoy it.”

  “What about Michelle?”

  “She'd enjoy it, too.”

  “I'm serious, Jerry, what about Michelle?”

  “Well, I think Annabelle got the hint that we're serious about each other. We could ask Rose to be here in case we're late home.”

  “Let's do that. Italian sounds lovely.” Miriam pulled Jerry's head down for another kiss but couldn't stifle her yawn.

  “I guess I'm not very exciting tonight.” Jerry was teasing.

  “Light of my eyes, I've had far too much excitement over the past few days. I'm yawning because I'm tired.”

  “Good night, my heart. Sleep well”

  Miriam gave Jerry's hand a squeeze and she headed for Rose's. Rose was still up so she gave her the good news and went to bed. She only had time for a quick prayer of thanks before falling asleep.