After about two months I came to visit her again. I knocked lightly on the door, and facing her radiating and inviting eyes I stepped in hesitantly, on the tips of my toes, as if I was hoping that my presence wouldn’t become a burden. Once again the elegant plates and the decorated mugs were drawn out, an odor of steaming coffee filled the kitchen, and on the table Grandma put fresh cookies, as if they were kept there especially for me. She asked how all the family members were doing; it was as though I had never lost my temper and said such biting words.

After a couple of minutes we were silent. Grandma cleaned the table, putting away the plates and pushing the chairs into their places. I was appalled by the thought I would leave as a stranger, as if we had never talked about so many things. I kept sitting, ignoring how everything around me was turning clean, and finally I said quietly ‘I am sorry’. Grandma seemed surprised, apparently she thought I wouldn’t mention our quarrel. She put down the cloth and sat down beside me, looking at me but absorbed in her thoughts. Her fingers, sliding back and forth on the table, seemed almost deformed. I was wondering how they would look without the rings; they had become part of her body, it was impossible to imagine her without them.

Grandma opened with an apology—she was sorry she had offended me, in no way had she meant to belittle my feelings. She always respected me and took care not to insult me. She doesn’t understand why I was so angry. She remembers my mom used to be angry with her exactly like that when she was my age. And regarding the friend who betrayed me, she finds it impossible to comprehend the deep emotional turmoil this relationship provokes. Not that she can’t understand how profound love can be almost enslaving, but this is not the case here. This is a relationship she finds hard to define—reliant on friendship, a dependency, perceiving the friend as part of oneself and not as a separate entity. She is very sorry, she can’t find the right words, but something about this friendship exceeds the realm of a relationship between two people and is really about perceiving oneself. She finds it difficult to grasp why this betrayal is so insulting if I don’t like this boy at all. It seems to her that what I find distressing is the disengagement from the friend; I find the independent stand uncomfortable. The dependency on this friend blurs my vision, prevents me from seeing the distorted nature of this friendship. And by the way, this is not the first time she has seen this since she came to Israel. And as a matter of fact, what exactly am I mad at? What did my friend betray? The loyalty of two young girls, hiding in the deep forest and swearing that forever-forever they would be friends? She is sorry, she says it with pain, but what was offended here is a part of me that doesn’t want to exist independently, but desperately needs to rely on others.