Hills Behind Us

Yossi came to our house to tell us. He said he wanted to show my husband his gratitude for fighting shoulder to shoulder with them for so long. He said he wanted us to have a chance to get everything in order before the withdrawal.

“You have a month,” he said in Hebrew. “More or less.”

“What about my parents? What about my sisters and their families?” I asked him.

Yossi shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t bring everyone with us.”

I looked at him sitting there on the couch, like he had hundreds of times. His olive-green uniform, his pants tucked into those shiny black boots. The coffee I was handing him—I wanted to throw it in his face. You’re not a soldier, I thought. You’re a dog, running away with his tail between his legs.