Ha!
CHAPTER 6
You can run from some problems, but then you get caught up in others.
I enter the house slowly and peer inside. A kitchen is right in front of me. I follow Ron to the left and find a woman sitting on a rocking chair next to a window. She has white hair massively peppered with dark strands.
She looks at me with bright blue eyes that almost glow. Our gazes meet and I feel like I'm looking in the mirror at my own eyes. I'm so overwhelmed it almost chokes me. Is the air getting thicker?
I start breathing heavier, trying to get air into my constricting lungs.
My Grandma.
My sick Grandma.
She looks small and weak. Is she dying?
Turning to the rest of the family, I realize they're all staring at me. It makes me feel like I'm being judged on some reality show they're watching. An over-excited television announcer's voice in my head says, Will Amy make a mistake and screw up this first meeting? Watch next week's episode of Illegitimate Children and find out if her sick grandmother accepts or rejects her in front of thirty million viewers...
Before I even realize it, I turn and run out of the house before anyone can see the tears welling in my eyes. I run and run and run until my legs want to give out. I'm passing rows of houses, haystacks, horses, cows, and sheep as if I'm on some kind of farm set in Hollywood.
When I stop running and start walking, I think Sofia must think I'm some stupid idiot. I meant to hug her, I really did. But not in front the rest of the family. I feel like they're analyzing my every move.
I keep walking, pissed at SD for making my first meeting with Sofia a spectacle. A small wire fence is in front of me, and as I attempt to step over it, a voice stops me.
"You can't go there."
I freeze and turn to the harsh voice. It's no-shirt guy standing in front of a pile of hay about three stories tall. A sheen of sweat on his chest sparkles in the sunshine, but I'm trying not to pay attention to it. Instead, I think about something gross. Like how he must smell like sheep and sweat and how he's in desperate need of a shower. But, for that matter, so am I. I wipe the tears falling down my cheek with my fingertips.
"Isn't this a free country?" I say with attitude.
The last thing I need is for some hard-ass teenager to think I'm weak.
He turns around and flings a whole bale of hay into the sheep pens.
"The sign says a minefield is behind the fence. If you want to take your chances, I won't stop you," no-shirt-cute-jerk says as he enters the sheep enclosure.
At this point I'm still straddling the fence. Damn. This IS a war zone. I eye my foot on the other side of the wire, feeling lucky it's still there and not blown off. I slowly lift it and bring it back to the side of the wire without minefields.
"You don't know where you are, do you?" he asks gruffly as he gets another bale of hay.
"Sure I do," I say. "I'm on top of a mountain in the middle of Israel." Duh.
"Actually, you're in the northern part of Israel, not in the middle. In the Golan Heights."
"So?"
"Americans," he mumbles, then slowly shakes his head in disgust.
"Okay, what's so special about the Golan Heights?"
"Let's just say Syria is about ten miles that way," he says, pointing. "For a Jewish girl, you don't know much about the Jewish homeland."
Yeah, but I'm not Jewish. I don't tell him this, he'll probably go off on me about it. I'm glad when he turns away and walks back into the sheep enclosure.
"Arg!"
I jump at the sound at my feet. A mangy, dirt-encrusted puppy, who I think at one time was white, is furiously wagging his tail at me. Once we make eye contact, he rolls onto his back and puts his paws in the air.
"I'm sorry," I say to the mutt. "I'm not a dog person."
Go find some other sucker to rub their hands on that filthy, flea-ridden tummy of yours. I'm not a cat person, either. In fact, I'm not an animal person at all. And being surrounded by a farmload of the things is making me itch.
I start to walk away. Unfortunately, the mutt follows.
"Arg!" the thing says again.
I keep walking.
"Don't you know dogs say 'ruff,' not 'arg'?" I ask it. "What are you trying to be, a pirate?"
The dog answers with another, "Arg!" this time screechier than the last as if he's trying to annoy me on purpose. Hey, the way my day has been going, I wouldn't doubt it.
"Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!"
You'd think the mutt was joking with me, wouldn't you? But as I turn to the rough, deep barking sound I realize pretty quickly the mutt has friends. A lot of them.
In the first place, I was wrong about it being dirt-encrusted. These five dogs are caked in mud and definitely dirtier than the mutt-puppy. Also (in the first place) they're very, very big.
And they're running right toward me barking up a storm as if I'd kidnapped their child.
Panic isn't the word to describe how I feel right now. As my life flashes before my eyes, I briefly weigh my two options. I could either head toward the wire and run into the minefields or jump into the sheep pens.
I don't have time to waste so I just run as fast as my sweaty, tired, sorry legs can carry me. As I move, I'm not even conscious about which option I've chosen.
I run faster and faster, barely aware of the high-pitched "arg" sound at my feet and the hefty "ruffs" not far behind. Just a little farther, I say to my clouded mind. I think I'm screaming and yelling obscenities, but I can't be sure because I'm too busy worrying about what my legs are doing and can't be bothered with censoring my mouth, too.