Hope. I had seen it as a mark of the weak but had come to realize it was a sign of the strong. To have hope despite the scads of skeptics who were prepared to pulverize it and pull it apart was a triumph. Having hope when the stakes were steep was a challenge I had never taken on. It was second-nature for me to brush myself off and hope again when the Cubs inevitably let me down, but taking a chance on Cal, when the sting of disappointment would not be replaced by the promise of spring training, was scarier than walking a block on the South Side when Capone ran the city.

“Ah, qawah,” he hummed, like he was rolling the word around on his tongue for long before he spoke it. “He who hopes is never hopeless.” Shmuel laughed lightly and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Baruch Atta … SheNatan MeChachmato LeBasar VeDam. Amen.”

“What was that?” I asked, taken aback by the act.

“A blessing for the wise,” he replied, easily. “It’s a mitzvah to have hope, and I pray yours leads you to a fruitful future.”

Undecided on how to reply, I nodded my head and turned my attention back to flat, changeless landscape.

I faded in and out of sleep for the remainder of the journey, waking fully only when Shmuel insisted I eat. I wasn’t sure why the man cared about my food intake and hydration, but he consistently woke me for meals and then proceeded to talk my ear off until I fell asleep again. I had expected a sandwich the final time he’d roused me but was pleasantly surprised when he hadn’t handed me a peanut butter on rye and instead announced our arrival in Oakland.

After an unreasonably long goodbye filled with hugs and Hebrew, I freed myself from Friedman and made my way to the ferry that would carry me over the bay to the beginning of the remainder of my days.

I had told Cal not to meet me at the Ferry Building, insisting I would walk to his apartment in North Beach, but I was unsurprised when among the faces of passersby, I saw his.

Though I wished I hadn’t been, I was as nervous as I was elated when Cal picked up his pace, jogging toward me. With crowds of people packing the port, I was terrified he would try to kiss me and just as concerned he would not. I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms as I had so many times before, but I willed my knees to hold me up, too aware of how people would stare if I let myself go.

As Cal pressed his palms against the flesh of my burning cheeks and his lips against mine, I squeezed my eyes closed, demanding that my mind allow me that moment in time with the man I had immeasurably missed for my entire life.