Faith was too late getting down the stairs. By the time she made it into the living room it was over. She could only look from her son to her husband. Shock parachuted into the room like an invisible enemy.
That’s not completely true. The whole truth hurts Faith’s stomach and she skips over it in the retelling, even to herself; the shame is too great. The truth is she had made it into the living room to witness her husband Sapir enraged. His hand clutched her son’s iPod high in the air.
Smash! The first hit divided the iPod in two. Sapir bent down, snatched the largest piece and hurled it to the floor, where it broke into still more pieces. He repeated the action of seeking out the largest piece and destroying it until there was nothing left but tooth-sized plastic bits. Faith brought her hands to her cheeks, but sound was trapped in her throat.
She knew that she should never have left the two of them alone, not even for a breath, not even because they had four children all younger than eleven who needed her, too. It wasn’t enough of an excuse. When would she learn?
In the morning the family had decided on an outing to SuperLand, an amusement park in Rishon LeZion. The schools were closed for the Chanukah holidays and it was common for parents to take off work, too. Family time. They had to leave early if they were going to make it back for...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.