“Okay, I’ll be waiting here. Just make sure you come out through the same door.”

“No problem,” Ruthie replies, and thinks about her son. Sometimes he gives her the same look the woman’s giving her now, when he’s not sure she has understood him.

She walks into the bathroom. There are only two stalls, both unoccupied. She chooses the left one, locks the door behind her, and carefully lines the seat with a few squares of toilet paper. She sits down, reaches out to put her phone somewhere but can’t find a single flat surface. The phone bleeps with an incoming text message. She tries to open it but can’t. She hates this smartphone, wanted to stay with her old dumb one but her son saddled her with a new iPhone. He had bought it for her as a gift and two months later discovered she’d been walking around with the battery switched off and the old dumb phone hidden in her pocket. He refused to talk to her for three days, until she surrendered the old phone to him and was left to battle the touch screen on her own.

She somehow finds herself on her contact list. When she tries to go back, it scrolls down the list instead. She stops at Amichai’s name. Stares at the letters. She tries to return to the home screen, but accidentally dials him. She tries to press END, but nothing happens. The screen turns black, the phone still dialing.

“Damnit,” she hisses when she hears Amichai’s voice mail message.

“Hey there, you’re welcome to leave a message.”

A man of his stature with such a simple message? Nice. She doesn’t utter a word, hoping the line will disconnect on its own. She knows him, after ten seconds of silence he’ll hang up, she knows he will. And if he doesn’t? He’ll think she’s stalking him. He won’t understand why she’s calling him a day before her wedding. Better she say something so there won’t be any misunderstandings.

“Hi, it’s me. You won’t believe where I am,” she says, hesitating whether to continue. “In your building. The company building. Sharing memories with Ilan. Can you believe it? Our son, that little devil, managed to talk me into it.”

She hears the bathroom door open. “Everything okay?” the woman asks.

“Yes,” she replies from inside the stall and covers the screen with her hand. “It’ll take me a few more minutes.”

“Okay, try to hurry. Give me a shout if you need any help.”

“Thank you,” she says, and wonders what help she could possibly need. She hears the door shutting and turns back to the unresponsive screen. “Well, anyway, I thought you might be here. But we’re almost done, so never mind. See you tomorrow at the wedding. Okay, bye now.”