Then something like a gust of wind rushed over me, clearing the thoughts from my mind.
My view of the past was gone, the dead people were gone, and I was seeing in two dimensions at once, as I had when I was both inside the airplane from Rome and flying outside it.
I was not insane. This was not delusionary. I was aware of the bed beneath me, the sheet draped over me. My arms were outstretched to the sides of the mattress, and my ankles were crossed. At the same time, my mattress and I were floating on a clear, sunlit, glass-colored sea.
It was simply amazing and completely real. As my raft and I bobbed on this blue-green water, I had a thought. If only I could stay here forever.
If only.
Just then, the air changed, becoming thick and oily with the stink of gasoline. There was a concussive ka-rump of an explosion, followed by a loud whoosh. The water had transformed into a dancing wall of flames surrounding me on all sides.
I think I screamed. I sat up and tried to get away from the inferno lapping at the sides of my raft of a mattress, singeing my skin and my bristly hair, but there was no escape. Fire was all around me, everywhere.
I collapsed back down onto the mattress.
I accepted this death. I wanted this consummation.
And then a new breeze brought another sea change.
The smoke thinned, and the dense blackness of it coalesced into marbled gray. Thunderheads formed at the height of the ceiling. Lightning sizzled and snapped.
I watched, transfixed by the swirling storm. A drop of water fell on my forehead, then on each of my eyes, like the softest of kisses. Another drop fell on my left hand, and my right, and then the drops came down in the thousands, the millions, merging into freezing-cold torrents.
I heard the hiss of doused flames. A mist rolled across my body, and, just as suddenly as it had risen from the sea, the fire was gone. Just gone.
The air brightened, and a warm breeze dried my face and the sheet still covering me. I remained motionless, suspended in place on my raft, which rose and fell, rocking gently on the waves.
Overhead, the gray sky diffused into a luminous blue veil, which became a pure-white ball of light enclosing me at its center.
I was overcome with awe, and I sensed His presence.
There was a feeling of warmth in my chest and a wordless voice in my mind. It was as if I was in a waking dream.
Brigid. This is your life. It belongs to you.
Chapter 63
I HEARD, with my deaf ears, those nine resonant words.
And then they were gone. The ceiling was plaster, not divine light. I was dry, and my skin was not burned.
I had not been sleeping or dreaming or hallucinating. The vision had come to me from outside my own mind, and I had been shocked and amazed at every turn.
I replayed the words in my mind.
Brigid. This is your life. It belongs to you.
I lay almost paralyzed on the bed.
I recalled the vision I’d had when I’d flown from Rome and had seen the beautiful Italian town beneath me. A baby carriage had rolled out into the street, under the wheels of a car. Hadn’t that baby’s mother called out to God?
Hadn’t she begged Him for her child’s life?
I saw the bird God had placed in my hand. I watched the small bird rise up and join the multitudes. And I heard the echo of God’s message to me: Can you care for your bird?
Weren’t millions of prayers going up to God now and in the last minute and the next? God, save my child. God, don’t let my wife find out. God, where are my car keys? Make the ball land on red. Lord, please let me get to class on time. God, bless my home, my marriage, my cat, my team.
The image of floating on a calm sea, the fire blazing across it, the cold rainstorm, and the words of God had, one by one, come over me. It was easy to interpret.
God was telling me that my life was both heaven and hell on earth. It was mine to live. He loved me. But my life was my responsibility. All mine.
He had shown me the way again. Take care of yourself, Brigid. Get Me?
I was suddenly sick all the way through. The bed didn’t move, but I felt as though I were falling nine floors to my death. The sense of falling was not a vision. It was abject shame and mortification in reality.
I had questioned God.
I had thought that I was so special, I could hold God to account. And why? I had never been promised, ever, that life would be safe and have a happy ending for myself and those I knew and loved, if only I had faith in Him.
A realization broke through my shame like a bright light. I did have faith. It had been shaken because I questioned it. But the fact that I was still asking God “why” was proof that I believed in Him.
I loved Him. I had never stopped.
As I lay there in the big bed, my skepticism and rage evaporated. I felt as though I’d been brought back to life, but for what reason? I had no idea.
I still didn’t understand why people had to suffer, but God had made it clear that it was not for me to judge.
I was alive. I had to use my life well while it was still mine. I was on my knees, thanking God with the whole of my heart and soul, when my cell phone rang.
I heard it.
My hearing had returned and, with it, the clamor on the street outside the hotel, men shouting, horns blowing, heavy equipment scraping up metal.
And my phone.
Hardly anyone had my number. But Sabeena had it.
“Sabeena?”
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
“There was a bomb,” I said.
“Brigid, I know. I saw the pictures on television after you texted me from Ben Gurion. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”
“I was near the explosion. I lost my hearing. But it just came back. My driver died.”
There was a long silence.
“Sabeena?”
“There was a suicide bomber on the bus,” she said. “Thirty-two people died, and many more are in the hospital. Brigid?”
“I’m here.”
“That’s a problem. Get the hell out of there.”
“Where should I go?”
“I know where I would go,” said Sabeena.
I’d gotten my answer from God. My life came without guarantees. I had to stop running and go back to what had driven me so far from home.
I needed to look into myself.
Part Three
Chapter 64
I WAS sweating hard under my coat and so anxious that my stomach hurt.
When I got to the customs inspector’s window, he asked me to lower my hood. Then he compared my passport photo to the actual me, standing in front of him.
The pictures didn’t match.
My face was gaunt, and my head was shorn. I had deep circles under my eyes, and my hooded coat had only added to my appearance as a suspicious person planning to blow up a plane.
I was taken out of the line by two armed guards, brought to a small, windowless room where my bags were unpacked again, the linings pulled apart, my electronic devices turned on. I was shunted into a second room, and this time, I was strip searched. I was struck by the wretched memories of the last time I’d been publicly stripped, but I complied.
When the female guard told me I could put my clothes back on, I said, “My husband and baby died suddenly. I went to Jerusalem to pray. I was on Yafo Street yesterday when the bomb blew up.”
She scrutinized my expression, looking to see if I was telling her the truth. She nodded. I was cleared for flight.
The only remaining empty seat was in the middle of a three-person row in the midsection of the plane. The overhead rack was full, so I balled up my coat, and when the man on the aisle stood up, I did my best to pack myself and my belongings into and under the narrow seat.