Page 10 of Analysing Her Assets

“Do you know why Doron wants to meet me?” he asked, referring to the odd text he got from his father’s oldest friend.

Gideon’s father, the CEO and major shareholder of the family’s company, Berdiplast, didn’t make a major move without conferring with Doron. Together, they were responsible for the company’s tremendous growth. Fifteen years ago, Berdiplast did its initial public offering in Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, with a generous employee plan, and Doron had become a significant shareholder.

Yesterday he called Doron, who wanted to meet, said it was urgent, but refused to divulge anything more.

“No, how should I?” she sounded way too innocent. “Listen, Gideon...”

“I have to go now, Imma. I’m doing very well, I’m happy. And I’m up for a pro...”

“I don’t get it,” his mother cut in. He gave up, steeling himself for the inevitable argument, which they’ve had many times. Countless versions of it. “I don’t get it. You used to have tantrums when you were little, but nothing like this. You change your surname, you fight with your father, you used to idolize him! Then you avoid him completely. You left Berdiplast...”

Eighteen months ago, he had stopped being a Berdichevsky and changed his name legally to Sela. He’d quit his job at the family’s firm. His family was hurt and enraged. Yet, telling his mother the trigger for his leaving would break her heart. Gideon would not do that.

“Please, Gideon. Friday dinners are so sad without you. Please, just that, please come.”

Gideon was his mother and father’s only son. His mother had an unwed sister with no children, and his father was also an only son. He was an only grandchild. His mother kept asking him to come to Shabbat dinners, and he kept saying no. He didn’t want to sit at the same table with his father.

“No. I’m not coming, okay?”

The call ended. His mother didn’t say goodbye—she slammed the phone in his face. Talk about tantrums.

How simple it would be to make her happy. And how hard.

After the call ended, Gideon stared ahead. He was a liar—the son of a liar. He just didn’t know it until eighteen months ago.

Until eighteen months ago, he was on a different path. He had completed his studies as an industrial engineer, and his MBA, and he was getting ready to assume his duties at Berdiplast.

On that fated day on his way to Berdiplast’s southern plant, he stopped for lunch at a popular roadside restaurant.

In the parking lot, he noticed his father’s car. Before Gideon had time to text or phone, he saw him exiting the restaurant with a strange woman. The woman was near his father’s age and conservatively dressed, probably a colleague. His father escorted her to the passenger side.

Then, his father plastered the woman on the car’s door and kissed her passionately. Afterwards, happy and laughing, they disengaged and drove away together.

Shocked and enraged, Gideon followed the well-known car all the way to an indistinct small house in a suburban neighborhood of Beer Sheva. The pair went into the house, his father’s hand laid intimately on the woman’s lower back. A couple entering their home.

Gideon had sat in his car, unsure what to do. Torn between barging in, confronting and embarrassing his father and the strange woman, and waiting outside for his father to come out.

It was after two pm, and the street filled with children and teenagers coming back from school. Two of them, two boys, had caught Gideon’s eye. There was something about the older one’s long limbs and curly brown hair. They peeled from the noisy group they were part of and walked to the small house. His father opened the door, stepped out, and greeted them with hugs and kisses.

Gideon had always believed himself to be an only son. He’d been wrong.

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