SARAH
The doctor said that Samuel’s fainting fit was due to long-distance travel and his body losing its natural rhythms; that he would be fine in twenty-four hours once his internal clock reset itself. Sarah doesn’t believe a word of it. She knows it’s the trauma of leaving the people he’s known as his parents, the people he loves. She couldn’t look as the doctor slapped his face, bringing him around. She hung her head low as he gave him some pills with a glass of water, looking up just in time to see his head go limp again. Guilt filled her heart, taking away all the joy she’d felt before.
David carries him out to the car now, laying him on the back seat. Sarah gets in the other side, lifting Samuel’s head, holding it on her lap. She strokes his hair, amazed at the lightness and smoothness of it. Love for him fills her aching heart, and she wants to, needs to absorb every little detail of him, to hold on to him and never let him go.
As the driver maneuvers the car through the narrow streets toward their home in Le Marais, David turns around in the front seat to look at her. She doesn’t know what to say to him. This isn’t how they were supposed to bring their son home, drugged and unconscious.
“David, he’ll be all right, won’t he?”
He just carries on looking at her, his pupils dark pools of sorrow, his face pale like the moon.
“Maybe we should have gone to America to meet him first. This is too traumatic for him.”
David twists himself right around, so he can talk to her. “Sarah, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. We’re going to have to be very strong. Remember what the psychologist said about children being highly adaptable. He just needs time. We will be a family again.”
Family. What does it really mean? She’s missed the most important years of Samuel’s life: his first smile, his first steps, his first day at school, learning to read, making friends, his curiosity. She wasn’t there to answer his questions as he tried to make sense of the world. These are the things that make a parent. She’s a stranger to him, and he to her. Not only a stranger, but a foreigner too.
She can’t dismiss the sinking feeling that they’ve made a terrible mistake, bringing him back to Paris like this. No one stopped to question whether they were doing the right thing. It was all so clear in their minds: that the child should be returned to his true parents. There’s that word again. Parents. She’s not sure she really feels like one. A terrible feeling clenches at her heart, telling her that she doesn’t even know this boy.
When they get to the apartment, David carries Samuel up the stairs, all the way to the fourth floor where they live, into the bedroom. He lays him down on the bed, takes off his shoes and jacket, and covers him with a blanket. Sarah watches from the doorway as he kneels on the floor next to the bed, leaning over their son, stroking his hair back from his forehead to kiss him. Then he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small wooden box. She steps farther into the room, standing behind him now, watching as he kisses the box, then places it on the pillow next to Samuel’s head. She can feel the tears behind his eyes as if they were her own. Then she sees them slide silently down his face.
David, who’s been her anchor through all these years. David, who understands her pain but refuses to let it drown her. David, who’s always held her up, keeping her head above water, when all she wanted to do was close her eyes and let her body sink. She’s only seen him cry once, when she found him after they were evacuated from Auschwitz. He collapsed in the snow, hanging on to her, saying her name over and over again, like a prayer, tears streaming down his face.
He is a resilient man and his faith is as solid as a rock. But she’s not sure that resilience is what is needed right now. Resilience is too rigid, too hard. Instead of holding steadfast to their principles and their rights, maybe they should keep more of an open mind. The trouble is, she doesn’t know what is needed. She’s lost, and nothing is what it seemed.