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JOIN THIS POWERFUL & INSPIRING EVENT TO BLESS THE SUN…
IT ONLY HAPPENS
ONCE IN 28 YEARS…
Once in 28 Years
The Blessing of the Sun:
Birkas HaChamah
Sun Inside Rain
A novel of hope, challenge, and inspirationM. Bassara
Sun Inside Rain
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Book Excerpt from Sun Inside Rain
Sun Inside Rain
A novel of hope, challenge, and inspiration
M. Bassara
Fire and Water
The call came one
day, just as she had known it would. As the months had stretched on,
Margo had come to hope that the inevitable would never happen. But it
did.
She had been living with Nana for a few months, checking on her own
house every other day. She'd walk around the house and garden, see that
Jane and Ezra were keeping up with things, and then check her messages.
Usually there were none. Her friends had long given up on calling her,
knowing she would neither answer nor return calls. Once, she was
surprised to hear Paul's voice, announcing that the record was ready
for release. She erased the message and forced herself to forget it.
She didn't want to deal with the pain.
Sometimes she'd sit a while on the veranda by the rock pool. Then she'd
leave her empty house and go home to Nana. Today would have been no
different, but for the crisp English voice on the answering machine.
The summons had come. Margo knew that Caruthers had given her plenty of
time to adjust, so to speak — if one ever adjusted. Now it was time to
face things responsibly.
She sat by the pool for a long time that evening, hypnotized by the
shimmering glare of the last rays of sun on the water. Two fireflies
danced over the azaleas, and she followed their trail in the growing
dusk. Margo wished she could glue herself to this chair and never move.
She was scared, she realized, and there was no one to help her.
All her life someone had taken care of her. First her parents and nanny
and then Hanan. She'd had a home, the beds were made and the house
cleaned by someone else, and groceries were provided. When she'd needed
a car to drive from home to university, it came before she thought to
ask for one. Hanan had the white Opel Kadet waiting in the garage a
week before classes started. A friend had found her the job with Mrs.
Pim before Margo could put together a CV. And though she'd worked
steadily for two years, Margo simply deposited her paycheck without a
second thought. She knew she wasn't working for the money but to be
busy and helpful to the elderly lady.
After the car crash that took her parents' lives, Hanan had turned over
the estate to a school and bought this house. Margo realized that she
and Hanan lived fairly simply compared to many of her old classmates or
her parents' friends. Despite the pool, live-in help, and a weekly
gardener, it was no different from the homes of most middle-class white
South Africans.
Margo had always assumed it was by choice. Hanan was a very private and
practical person, and a small house for the two of them seemed the
obvious choice, regardless of what he could have afforded. He had never
indicated to Margo that she should be careful with money, and except
for the change of residence, they had continued to move in the same
circles as before.
He gave her an allowance comparable to that of her wealthy classmates,
who still lived in their secluded mansions and, when she began
university, her own credit card, whose bills she never saw and Hanan
never mentioned.
It was almost a year now that she was alone. Margo wrote checks for the
bills that came in the mail without checking them for accuracy and had
circled in red the first of every month on her calendar so that she
shouldn't forget to pay Jane and Ezra. She felt her cheeks redden in
the darkness as she realized she had never once balanced her checkbook
nor looked at the bank statements.
She'd just have to learn how to do it — it didn't take a genius to figure out
how to balance a checkbook or budget money. The thought brought her
some measure of confidence. After all, Hanan had managed, and he'd been
just twenty-one when their parents were killed, two years younger then
she was now, with the added burden of taking care of his little sister.
She went into Hanan's study and took out the folder marked "Household
Finances." She might as well familiarize herself with it before the
meeting with Caruthers. After almost a year of living off the bank
account and no longer working, she hadn't thought there would be too
much left in it. Margo was surprised to see that quite a respectable
sum had been deposited in the account every month, as it seemed it had
been before Hanan's death. Except for household expenses, Margo had
spent virtually nothing on herself since then, so her balance had
actually accumulated to a rather large amount.
Now that she had suddenly awakened to the fiscal aspect of life, Margo
was relieved to see that she would have at least a few months in which
to decide what to do, no matter what she was to learn from Caruthers.
She wondered if she would still be so unconcerned about money after
meeting with him.
If nothing else, there would be insurance policies to deal with and
perhaps something left from her parents' estate, although she and Hanan
had been living off of it for the past twelve years. What had happened
to Tanzer's in recent months Margo didn't know.
She could probably get another job like her last one. But she didn't
want to leave Nana until the older lady went back to America after
Pesach, and she was pleased to see that she wouldn't have to.
The summons could not be avoided. She had to face sometime the cold
figures resulting from Hanan's death, overlaid on the memories of those
painful months after her parents died. She steeled herself and dialed
Caruthers's number. As late as it was, she knew his secretary would be
there. Caruthers lived in his office. The appointment was set for the
following Wednesday.
Margo
wondered how she'd keep anxiety at bay for the next two days. She
needn't have wondered.
On the way home — and Margo was less sure with each passing day which
was really home — she stopped to pick up some things at the supermarket
for Nana. As she drove closer to the house, Margo found the avenue
blocked by fire trucks and a crowd of spectators. Firemen were running
up the Grosses' driveway, and billows of black smoke whirled into the
sky. Margo parked her car abruptly on the grassy bank and ran up the
road, heart racing. At the top of the driveway, the shul was in flames.
She found the Grosses at the far edge of the lawn, Rabbi Gross seating
Nana on a garden chair, while Mrs. Gross tried frantically to count her
children. "Yanky!" she screamed. "Yanky's missing!" <
Four-year-old Moushke tugged at her mother's skirt. "He went into the
shul to get his new siddur, Mommy."
"What? Yanky went back into the shul?" Before anyone could stop her,
Rivky raced across the lawn and dove into the front door of the beis
midrash, dodging the fireman who moved to stop her. Her red braids
disappeared in the thick veil of smoke. Flames licked at the windows.
Margo recalled later that no one moved, all of them shocked into
silence, staring at the black gaping hole that had swallowed Rivky. The
seconds ticked by. Only Nana's lips moved, silently.
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