Chap­ter 18: The Hot Dog begins with Chona wak­ing up in her hos­pi­tal bed after a week of recov­ery from a bru­tal assault. The room is filled with an unset­tling silence, but in her mind, the com­fort­ing words of the prayer Barukh She’a­mar begin to play, cre­at­ing a sense of peace. These sacred words, famil­iar from her child­hood, bring with them a feel­ing of light and hope, and they evoke mem­o­ries of her father’s love for her. The mem­o­ries flood her, giv­ing her a moment of solace as she recalls the deep bond they once shared. How­ev­er, as this peace­ful rever­ie con­tin­ues, a harsh real­iza­tion begins to set­tle with­in her: Chona knows that she is near­ing the end of her life. The under­stand­ing is pro­found and unde­ni­able, and she knows that she must com­mu­ni­cate this to Moshe, her hus­band. This real­iza­tion cre­ates an over­whelm­ing weight in her chest, and she feels the urgent need to share her truth with him before it is too late.

As she lies there in a haze of mem­o­ries, a sud­den and strange aro­ma fills the air. She dis­tinct­ly smells a hot dog, a scent that imme­di­ate­ly trans­ports her to a hap­pi­er time, remind­ing her of an adven­ture with her friend Ber­nice. The mem­o­ry of that sim­pler time, full of care­free laugh­ter and shared joy, floods her sens­es. But as the pleas­ant rec­ol­lec­tion starts to set­tle, it is cru­el­ly inter­rupt­ed by a sharp, sear­ing pain that pulls her back to the present. She is no longer able to escape the real­i­ty of her ill­ness, and the moment of nos­tal­gia quick­ly dis­si­pates. Look­ing around the ster­ile hos­pi­tal room, her gaze lands on Moshe, who is asleep in a chair beside her bed. His face is pale, his exhaus­tion appar­ent. See­ing him like this fills her with guilt, and she begins to reflect on their years togeth­er. Chona regrets the times when she had crit­i­cized Moshe and dis­tanced her­self from the sim­ple joys of life, con­sumed by her own strug­gles. The over­whelm­ing pain in her stom­ach inten­si­fies, and she wish­es she could push away the lin­ger­ing smell of the hot dog, hop­ing it might give her a brief reprieve from her emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal tor­ment. This moment of reflec­tion, cou­pled with the harsh real­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion, prompts her to reach out to Moshe.

The room fills with the pres­ence of famil­iar faces, but Chona feels a heavy absence—the absence of Dodo, who has been on her mind since the assault. She is over­whelmed by guilt, not only for the toll her con­di­tion has tak­en on Moshe but also for the dis­tance between her and the peo­ple she loves. Her strug­gles have strained those rela­tion­ships, and it weighs on her that she may have failed them. She attempts to speak but strug­gles, only man­ag­ing to utter a light-heart­ed remark about Ber­nice enjoy­ing the hot dog. Yet, in the next instant, she real­izes how painful this com­ment is, both for her­self and for the peo­ple around her. Despite her body wracked with pain, Chona finds her­self shar­ing a moment of laugh­ter with Ber­nice, but it is fleet­ing. The laugh­ter, which rep­re­sents a brief escape from her suf­fer­ing, is soon over­shad­owed by the intense agony that pulls her back into uncon­scious­ness. Her long­ing for peace grows stronger, and she won­ders if she will ever be free from the pain that now defines her exis­tence.

Mean­while, Rab­bi Feldman’s voice ris­es in the back­ground, soft­ly recit­ing the Mi She­beirach prayer for heal­ing. The words bring a sense of rev­er­ence to the air, even as Moshe, emo­tion­al­ly exhaust­ed, requests that the vis­i­tors leave the room to allow him some pri­va­cy with Chona. Out­side, a small group of well-wish­ers has gath­ered, each of them weighed down by their own fears and anx­i­eties. Their con­ver­sa­tions, though mut­ed, offer insights into the tight-knit nature of the com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they dis­cuss the syn­a­gogue that Chona’s father had once built. The syn­a­gogue, a sym­bol of faith and per­se­ver­ance, is a con­stant in the lives of those who have been part of this com­mu­ni­ty for so long. How­ev­er, the mood out­side the room is one of pal­pa­ble dis­com­fort as the group waits for news, unsure of what the next moments will bring. The ten­sion in the air height­ens when a sud­den, grief-strick­en cry from Moshe echoes down the hall, pierc­ing the silence. The sound of his pain prompts a col­lec­tive move­ment toward Chona’s room, as the weight of the moment draws them all togeth­er in shared sor­row.

The chap­ter clos­es with an over­whelm­ing sense of final­i­ty as the group moves toward Chona’s room, their foot­steps heavy with the knowl­edge that the future is uncer­tain. The rich his­to­ry of their com­mu­ni­ty, built through years of shared strug­gles and tri­umphs, now hangs in the bal­ance. As they con­front the poten­tial loss of Chona, the char­ac­ters are remind­ed of the painful his­to­ry of their ances­tors and the tri­als they faced. The weight of these col­lec­tive mem­o­ries adds anoth­er lay­er to the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of the moment, as the com­mu­ni­ty is forced to grap­ple with the real­i­ties of life and death. The ten­sion between the future and the past, between per­son­al loss and com­mu­nal his­to­ry, makes for a somber con­clu­sion to the chap­ter, leav­ing the read­er to reflect on the impact of Chona’s lega­cy and the uncer­tain road ahead.