She dialed his cell, jabbing at the tiny number keys in excitement at not getting divorced, at not not loving her husband. He must be in the car now, on the way to Washington.
The telephone rang eight times before going to voicemail. I can’t apologize in a voicemail, she thought and punched the disconnect button.
Sally remained energized as she waited to pick Adam up from school later that day.
“I have a treat for you, sweetie,” she said to her son as he climbed in the car, slinging his backpack into the back seat. “We’re going to the mall to buy Daddy a special present.”
“Oh boy, the mall?” Adam crowed. “Can we get Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken?”
Sally sighed. “This is a special day, and if you are extra good while I’m shopping for Daddy, we’ll get Japanese chicken afterwards. We are going to buy a big surprise for Daddy when he gets home.”
“Isn’t Dad coming home tonight?” Adam asked. “Where is he?”
“Daddy had to go away for a few days,” Sally said. “He had something very important to do, very important for the Jewish people, Adam. He had to say something to the government in Washington for the Jewish people. We should be so proud of him for what he is doing.”
Adam noticed his mother crying now, softly at first, but soon her shoulders trembled as a week’s, a month’s worth of fear and anger escaped.
“Why are you crying, Mom?” Adam asked.
Sally reached into the glove compartment for a tissue, finding only an old Dunkin’Donuts paper napkin to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“I’m crying because I’m happy, sweetie, and because I love your daddy, and you, so much.”
Adam looked at her with an odd expression.
“You’re weird, Mom,” he said. “I cry when I’m sad. When I’m happy, I laugh.”
Sally laughed.
The North Shore Mall was crowded. They parked in a secondary lot, a ten-minute walk from the main entrance. As they walked into the mall, Sally took her son’s hand and warned him, as she always did when they went there, to stay close to her and to ask a sales clerk in any store to take him to mall security if he got lost. For some reason she never understood, malls made her anxious.
Early on in Ben’s legal career, she’d created what became a family tradition. When an especially big case came in, she would buy him a new suit. That suit would be his “case suit” for the life of that new case, bringing him good luck when he wore it to court. If the case turned out well, if he won or it settled before trial, the suit remained in his closet for future use. If he lost the case, the suit went to the Salvation Army.
Most of his office clothing came from Brooks Brothers, which had a large store at that mall. Brooks kept a file on each customer, with all of his various sizes recorded, from shoes to neck size. She’d never had to return a suit she bought for her husband at Brooks.
Adam was getting tired and showing it as Sally finally chose between a gray wool pinstripe that she decided was too conservative even for a lawyer and a solid blue double breasted with pleated pants that she thought sent a stylish, confident message.
She glanced at her watch as they left the store. It was six fifteen already. She considered heading home when a revitalized Adam grabbed her arm.
“Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken now,” he begged. “You promised, Mom.”
The food court was packed. They had difficulty finding a table, finally having to dash as a mother and daughter stood and left. They barely beat two teenage boys wearing iPod headphones and baggy pants, who gave them killer scowls but let them have the table.
Sally piled her bags on the table and ordered Adam to remain right there without moving an inch while she got his Japanese chicken. He promised to guard their table. Her eyes never left him as she waited in line at the Teriyaki-Chicky booth.
Sally returned five minutes later with a Styrofoam dish overflowing with tiny bits of chicken covered in a brown sauce on top of what looked like a triple serving of brown noodles, a few pieces of broccoli and miniature corn to the side. She handed Adam a plastic knife and fork, which he promptly bent over double trying to cut a piece of chicken. He looked at his mother in confusion.
“Just use your fingers,” she said, patience running out as the last of her energy, the last remnant of her overcharged emotional state, dissipated. I’m feeding him junk food at the mall, she thought. Might as well finish being a terrible mother by sitting him in front of the TV when we get home while I take a long, hot soak in the tub. She could almost feel the warm water supporting her.
“What’s that weirdo doing?” Adam asked, pointing at a young man in a long black coat and hat. Sally looked up from her thoughts of the bathtub and turned her head to see what her son was pointing at. Two tables from where they sat, a young man was climbing from his chair to stand on top of the table.
His coat was unbuttoned, revealing black pants and a white shirt beneath. The shirt looked odd, puffy. Sally noticed the black curls descending from beneath the man’s hat in front of his ears.
“He’s a Hasid, Adam—a very religious Jewish person,” she told her son.
He’s acting strange, Sally thought, looking around for mall security as heads turned toward the man throughout the food court. By now he was standing on the table, his legs spread. He reached into a bag and removed some white fabric, which he draped over his shoulders.
“Look, Mom,” Adam said. “It’s a Jewish flag. I know that star. They’re fun to make. You do it by drawing two triangles, one right side up and the other upside down.”
The man started shouting. Most of what he said was unintelligible, but Sally heard the word Israel shouted and something that sounded like a prayer. She heard a yell from across the food court. When she turned, she saw a mall security guard gesturing at the man to climb down from the table.
Sally looked back at the man on the table, standing not more than ten feet from her and Adam. She watched him bring his feet together and stand straight, almost like a soldier at attention. His final words were odd, definitely not English at all, not even sounding like Hebrew but more like he was saying something that began with the word Allah.
Sally saw the man’s right hand reach inside his shirt, where two buttons were left undone. Funny, she thought, I didn’t even notice that his shirt was unbuttoned.
She was just turning her head to smile at Adam, who was staring in fascination at the man, when seventy-five quarter-inch steel balls tore through her upper body, instantaneously shredding her heart and lungs and smashing her face into a pulp beyond recognition. Adam died beside his mother.
The Israeli flag rose thirty feet over the pandemonium in the food court and then slowly fluttered down to cover a small piece of the carnage.
CHAPTER 46
Ben Shapiro and Judy Katz drove west from Boston, south into Connecticut and across to New York, crossing the Hudson River north of the city, connecting with the Garden State Parkway. Then south through New Jersey. They barely stopped talking for the entire five-hour drive. The radio was off. Shapiro told war stories—legal wars, beginning with college demonstrations and continuing through his entire career.
Katz mostly listened. That was unusual for her. As a federal criminal prosecutor dealing with organized crime, she had her own catalog of stories. At the rare parties she attended, she was used to being the person who entertained others. Her stories were more interesting than what her investment banker and stockbroker friends had to say about their jobs.