Saving Elijah

honey?" I gave him a hug. "Did you and Tuddy sleep well?"
    He nodded, then sat at the kitchen table, with Tuddy on his lap, while I cooked and served up some pancakes. I sat down at the table beside him and we both ate without talking for a while. Then I asked him, "Elijah, do you remember Maggie? You met her at the hospital, when you had your test?"
    "Maggie." He smiled.
    "Can you tell me what happened?"
    He placed Tuddy on top of the table and looked at the stuffed creature for a moment before he answered. "I told her about the place where there's music and swimming and she won't be afraid."
    "Where is that, honey?"
    "I don't know where."
    I took a deep breath. "Maggie's well now, Elijah."
    He took Tuddy onto his lap. "That's good, Mommy. Her mommy is happy."
    "Did you do something to make her well?"
    He giggled as if I was tickling him. "Me?"
    "You remember how you and she whispered to each other and—"
    "God makes people well, Mommy." He scooted over beside me, and gave me a hug. "I think the ghost is making you sick."
    I stared at him. "How do you know about the ghost, Elijah?"
    "I see him."
    "Since when?"
    "Since I woke up."
    "Why didn't you tell me?"
    "I didn't know before. But now I do. He says his name is Seth, but 1 don't believe him."
    "Why not?"
    "Because he tells lies. And because the wasps call him another name."
    "What name?" I had felt the wasps, the stinging, swirling wind, heard their sounds, but I didn't understand them, their language was unknown to me.
    He closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them. "They're always all around him. He's made of them, Mommy."
    Yes. I knew this, I had felt it, but I had never named it.
    He hugged me again. "Dr. Kessler can't help, Mommy."
    How did Elijah even know I'd gone to see the doctor that day?
    "He doesn't see the ghost," Elijah said. "He doesn't believe."

twenty-eight
    I think it must be said that this was the point when I really started to fight back. I didn't realize at the time that I was at a turning point. I had thought I'd been fighting back all along, though losing. Perhaps I would have died, believing I had given my life for my son's life, believing this was possible.
    I left Elijah with my mother while I drove Alex and Kate to their activities for the day. Kate had passed her driving test but we had only one car, as Sam had the other with him.
    I drove directly to Temple Beth Elohim, as if by force of physical need. It was a beautiful, modern synagogue with white stucco walls and a soaring octagonal main sanctuary with tall, narrow stained glass windows. I recognized it; I had seen it before in my visions. The rabbi was in; a small hatchback car was parked in the reserved-for-clergy space.
    I sat in the car with my eyes closed for a moment, trying to gather myself, my wits, my nerve. Then I opened the door and got out. About halfway up the walk, I turned around and headed back. What in the world would I say?
    Feeling woozy, I leaned against my car, closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths.
    "Are you all right?"
    I opened my eyes. The man approaching me from the woods just beyond the parking lot in a worn tweed jacket, khakis, and sneakers was nice-looking, about my age, with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
    I knew him, too. I pulled a tissue out of my pocket. "Rabbi Leiberman."
    He blinked. "Have we met? You're not a temple member, I know that. Are you all right?"
    "Yes, yes, I just felt a little faint. I'm fine now."
    He was staring into my face intently. Obviously I didn't look fine. I looked terrible, my mother had said so.
    "Were you coming to see me?"
    I stammered something unintelligible.
    "You just came to faint in my parking lot?" He smiled.
    "I'm sorry."
    "No need to be sorry." He glanced at the wooded area off to the left. "Last year, we built a small outdoor sanctuary just through the trees over there. I find a few moments there every morning helpful. Maybe you'd like to sit there with me for a little while?"
    "Are you sure it wouldn't be too much trouble?"
    "Not at all. But I do make it a habit never to sit with anyone whose name I don't know."
    "I'm sorry, Rabbi." I held out my hand. "Dinah Rosenberg Galligan."
    "Nice to meet you, Dinah." He shook my hand, then gently put his hand on my back and guided me through the trees into a small clearing, arranged with a few benches around a memorial stone.
    He sat down beside me on a bench. It was a beautiful late summer day, and the sunlight radiating down through the tops