While We're Far Apart Read Online Free PDF Page B

lifetime of memories it held, to burn to the ground?
    Jacob pushed aside the curtains to open the doors to the Ark. He fingered the soft, velvet covers that shielded the scrolls, barely able to see them through the smoke. Then, working quickly, Jacob draped his wet jacket over his arm and carefully . . . carefully . . . removed the Torah scrolls from the Ark and wrapped his jacket around them to protect them. These were sacred objects, not to be grabbed or handled carelessly. With the bundle securely wrapped, he started back down the aisle. Cinders rained down from above him. The heat felt as intense as a furnace.
    You know everything, Hashem, and you knew I would save your Torah. You knew I could not let it burn – even if I am not speaking to you anymore .
    He tried to hold his breath to keep from inhaling the smoke. It seared his throat, his lungs. His eyes stung so badly he could no longer keep them open to see where he was going. He bumped into the wall where he thought the door should be. He had run out of air, but when he tried to inhale there was no air to breathe.
    Is this your punishment? Heh? That I die here? In the very place that I turned my back on?
    He finally found the door to the vestibule, then dropped to the floor where there might still be a little air, crawling toward the front door on his knees, the scrolls tucked protectively against his chest, close to his heart. He could see pulsing red lights from the fire trucks through the window on the front door, and he pulled himself to his feet to reach for the doorknob. The metal burned his hand, but he threw all his weight against the door and it finally flew open. He fell forward, collapsing to his knees on the sidewalk, one arm outstretched to stop his fall. Pain shot through his kneecaps and his wrist, and he rolled to the side as his arm gave out. He could not allow Hashem’s Torah to touch the ground, even inside its wrappings.
    A black-coated fireman ran toward him, grabbing him beneath his arms and dragging him away from the building. “Get an ambulance!” the fireman yelled. “I need an ambulance over here!”
    Jacob tried to hand the bundle to him. His throat felt as though he had swallowed a flaming sword as he choked out the words: “Give . . . this . . . to Rebbe Grunfeld.”
    He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. There was a mound of bricks on his chest. Then the fireman who was bending over him disappeared behind a curtain of blackness.

C HAPTER 4
    “W HY CAN’T G RANDMA move in and take care of us while you’re away?” Esther asked. “I don’t want that other lady to come here.” She knew Penny’s name but she pretended not to, emphasizing the fact that Penny was practically a stranger.
    Daddy’s suitcase lay open on his rumpled bed as he packed to leave for boot camp tomorrow. He crisscrossed his narrow bedroom, removing items from his closet, his dresser, his nightstand, checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He was taller than the sloping sections of the ceiling but so familiar with the layout of the room that he never bumped his head.
    “I already explained it a dozen times, Esther. Grandma can’t climb stairs. And you know pets aren’t allowed. Who would take care of Woofer? And her bird?”
    “Penny could take care of them for her.”
    “Everything is arranged, doll.”
    “I don’t want you to go!” Mama used to scold Esther for using a whiny voice, but she didn’t care. She climbed onto Daddy’s bed, causing the lid of his suitcase to fall shut. Her stomach ached from crying so hard during the past several days, but even her tears hadn’t convinced Daddy to stay home. He wasn’t going to change his mind.
    “I’ll only be gone for six or seven weeks. Then I’ll get leave-time after basic training and I’ll come home. Maybe by then Grandma will let you move in with her.”
    “But then you’ll have to go away again?”
    “Just till the war ends.” He reopened the suitcase lid and stuffed in