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Moonlight
Stories that Illuminate the Landscape of Our LivesYael Mermelstein
Moonlight
In this collection of emotionally stirring and thought-provoking stories, popular author Yael Mermelstein portrays an eclectic array of characters as they face their personal moonlight -- the periods of night highlighted by the breaking dawn. Using powerful characters, compelling story lines, and breathtaking language, she offers a spectacular blend of experiences, from the sunny to the sublime, from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking.
Yael’s stories have been featured in numerous publications, including Binah, Hamodia, Mishpacha, The Jewish Press, and others. This sparkling collection culls from a wide variety of her published works, and includes never-before-published stories.
Penetrating and illuminating, Moonlight draws us deep into the landscapes of the soul, with evocative stories that reflect our innermost lives.
Book Excerpt from Moonlight
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Moonlight:
From Hamodia, Mishpacha & Binah columnist Yael Mermelstein, this Jewish story anthology, Moonlight, is a sparkling collection of stirring Jewish stories with powerful characters, compelling story lines & breathtaking language that draws us deep into the landscapes of the soul.
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The Healing
Dr. Sid Cooper studies the face of the old man sitting across from him. Rheumy, yellow eyes; face highwayed with creases, pitted and potholed with liver spots and age. The middleaged daughter by his side leans forward, tugging at her wig so that it sits askew on her head.
“So,” she asks, smiling nervously. “What’s the verdict?” She clasps her hands together until her knuckles blanch. “Don’t be afraid, Fraidel,” the old man tells her gently. The doctor wonders if that is her name, or just geezer humor. He steeples his hands and looks through the arch. Bull’s eye! He finds a focal point just in between the cocked head of the old man and the edge of the woman’s wig. He is looking at a Monet on the back wall of his office. Not an original. Dabs of blue-black and grey that somehow meld into a steam engine idling at the station. One of the passersby in the painting catches his fancy. He will speak with him. It makes more sense that way.
“It is as we expected,” he begins, directing his speech to the grey and white caricature. “I’m sorry to say that the scans show that the mass is inoperable...ahem...especially at this stage of your life. You would stand to lose more than you might possibly gain.” The old man nods imperceptibly as the woman digs in her pocketbook for a handkerchief. Dr. Cooper looks at the painting again.
“What are you saying, exactly?” the woman asks beseechingly.
“Terminal,” the doctor says bluntly. He drops his pen with a final thud — unintentional, of course. “I would give him almost no time if you decide not to pursue treatment. And I would not be able to advocate in favor of treatment as the most medically prudent course to take at this point, as the quality of whatever life he has left might be altered.” The old man leans suddenly left, entering the doctor’s line of vision — a rather deliberate move on his part.
“Quantity over quality,” he says firmly. The doctor stares into his eyes, finding the two blue suns recessed under the fleshy lids surprisingly alive.
“Very well then, Mr. —”
“Beirish Stern.” The old man replies.
“How much time would the treatment buy us?” asks the woman plaintively, twisting the gossamer handkerchief in her hand into a knotted ball.
“Two to three months,” Dr. Cooper replies curtly, shifting his stack of papers together, thinking of what he might order for dinner when the two of them leave. His stomach is growling.
“Fraidel!” the old man admonishes. “You should know better than that, no?” His daughter looks down shamefully. The old man shifts his body slowly, reaches his spindly fingers to gather up his jacket, his pincer grasp missing twice before he manages to grab hold of it. He looks back at the doctor.
“Two months, six months, six years — it’s not up to you. I’ve lived ninety-one years without your help, or maybe ninety-two. I forget. I’ll live whatever’s left of it without your help, too, thank you. You just check me in and give me the best that man’s got to offer to keep me around as long as possible. And please make sure I have a room with a view of the street. I want to be able to see when my granddaughter is on her way so that I can be ready for her.”
“No problem.” The doctor smiles, relieved. “We’ll make sure that you get the best care possible. You can go home today and come back tomorrow to geriatrics on the ninth floor.”
“Closer to heaven,” the old man quips.
“Closer to other people in your, um, situation,” says the doctor. Chinese, he decides, would most suit his appetite just now. He gets up to show the twosome to the door.
“Let me tell Ruchelle myself,” Mr. Stern tells his daughter as their hands join at the doorknob. “She’ll understand if I tell her.” The woman nods and the two of them shuffle out of the door, huddled and bent like weeping willows.
Dr. Cooper frowns, thinking of Chinese. Sushi. Yes, he is definitely feeling more like Japanese. He picks up the phone and starts to dial.
Dr. Cooper’s heels click down the hospital corridor, followed by the heels of the gaggle of interns behind him. He wonders why the sound of his shoes never appeals to him as much outside of the hospital walls as it does within them. Perhaps because at home they are muffled by carpets?
“This here is...” He picks up a clipboard hanging by a patient’s bed.
“Bernard Halloway. Age eighty-seven — admitted with sudden-onset shortness of breath and tachycardia. Pain under the rib cage when he tried to inhale. What test do we administer?” He looks around at his subjects. “Robert?”
“Pulse oximeter and an electrocardiogram?” Robert replies, sounding uncertain.
“Correct. The oximeter showed 85 percent saturation and tachycardia with an axis deviation. Just had surgery for a fractured leg and was in traction for three days. Diagnosis?” The interns look at their hands, flip through their notes, stare out the window with furrowed brows.
“Pulmonary embolism,” somebody says.
“Excellent, Steve,” Dr. Cooper replies, sending a rare smile in his direction. Steve smiles uncertainly.
The interns nod as the doctor moves around the man’s bedside. A shock of dove-white hair fans out around his oxygen mask, his eyes open, staring out the window, hands folded lightly across the white sheet. Dr. Cooper looks back at the man’s charts. “Has been here three and a half weeks...”
“Is he responsive?” one of the interns asks.
“I don’t know. He has no one to respond to,” Dr. Cooper replies, walking briskly over to the next bed.
“Rose Peters, age ninety.”
“Good morning, Dr. Cooper,” says the man sitting by her side. Dr. Cooper nods in his direction.
“Ernest sits by his mother’s side all day,” he directs to the residents.
“She is basically in a vegetative state...”
“But I know that she hears everything I say,” says Ernie. “She squeezes my hand, or she blinks. I can read her every movement. That’s why I never leave her side.”
“That is very noble,” one of the interns comments. Dr. Cooper shoots him a never-get-emotionally-involved-with-your-patient look.
“We will probably be moving her to a long-term care facility shortly,” continues Dr. Cooper. “Good day, Ernest.” He strides out of the room and into the next room. A man is propped up in bed, harmonica in hand. A middle-aged couple is by his side. The woman wears an obvious wig, something about it jarring the doctor’s memory, reminding him of a very good sushi dish he had recently.
“Oh right,” says Dr. Cooper. “Stern. Afraidl.”
“Fraidel Grossman,” the woman says. She points to the man on her left. “And this is my husband, Asher Grossman.”
“Very well, then,” says Dr. Cooper, shaking hands with Mr. Grossman. He turns to Mr. Stern’s chart, goes over the dreadful-sounding particulars with the interns. Then he turns to Mr. Stern. “I can’t help but wonder,” he begins. “What’s the harmonica for?”
“Ruchelle is coming,” he answers tersely, giving the doctor an impatient wave of hand.
“Our daughter is engaged,” Fraidel chimes in. My father wants her greeting to be...festive.”
“Oh, here comes my little mamele,” Mr. Stern says, his eyes shining. He turns to Dr. Cooper. “If you would have given me the window, I could have seen her earlier.”
“We can’t accommodate everyone, Mr. Stern. Make sure to tell the nurse that you would like to move and she’ll give you the window when the next bed empties...”
Everyone looks down at the floor. Dr. Cooper notes the peeling linoleum at the edges of the room, rather unimpressive for a state-of-theart hospital.
“Od yishama...” Mr. Grossman bursts out in song just as the elderly patient begins puffing and blowing into his harmonica. Ruchelle beams at her grandfather as her father tousles her hair.
“Please, Tatty,” she jokes. “I just got my hair done and Yisrael is on his way here to see Opa.”
Mr. Stern’s eyes are nearly bugging out of his head from blowing. “Mr. Stern, I would have to advise a rest from your instrument...” Mr. Stern waves Dr. Cooper away, and he reluctantly moves on to the next patient, who is rolled on her side, staring listlessly at the merriment.
“This is Jenny Silver, eighty-nine,” Dr. Cooper yells above the music.
“Jeannie!” the woman spits out. “I’ve told you ten times already.” Dr. Cooper feels himself shrinking inside his clicking shoes. Jeannie turns her face back to the dancing, lifts her hands feebly to clap along. When the music finally dies down, Ruchelle walks over to her grandfather.
“Opa, can I get you something? A drink of water?” Before the old man has a chance to answer, two cell phones are ringing. Fraidel rummages through her pocketbook and Ruchelle shoots her hand into her pocket.
“Hello,” they answered in unison.
“It’s the band,” Fraidel mouths.
“It’s about my dress,” Ruchelle whispers. Dr. Cooper frantically gestures toward the “No cell phones allowed” sign, and the two women dash out of the room.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” Mr. Grossman says, shrugging his shoulders at his father-in-law.
“Ach, they’ll be back,” Mr. Stern says. “What grandfather wouldn’t want to watch his granddaughter plan her wedding? I’ll be the first one there with my dancing shoes on.” He wiggles his feet under his sheet. Dr. Cooper stops short. He leans over to Mr. Grossman. “When is the wedding?” he whispers.
“In seven weeks,” he replies. Dr. Cooper nods sagely. “Make sure he doesn’t get his hopes up too high,” he says, even quieter.
“We’ll both see me dancing at that wedding,” Mr. Stern states emphatically. He blows a high-pitched note into his harmonica and smiles.
“I won’t just be dancing,” he says. “I’ll be flying at that wedding. You just wait and see.” Dr. Cooper doesn’t hold his breath.