Leah considered that. What part of this was she referring to? Her fears? Her guilt? Her sexual experimentation? Telling him everything would be honest, but foolish, she realized. If he was upset now, this additional information would just ignite all burners and take this problem zooming to another stratosphere. And she loved him too much to do that to him.

“Shaindele, I honestly don’t think that I need to tell him everything you told me, at least not right now. But I should tell him some things. He loves you, and I’m sure he’d want to help you.”

The girl looked down, exhaling long and hard. “Don’t tell him I don’t believe in God. Don’t tell him I let Duvie do things to me.”

Leah nodded. She’d been thinking along exactly the same lines. “Okay. But that doesn’t mean we can forget about all this: your fears about getting married, about what happened with Duvie, even about your faith in God. These are very important things, and I think you need to talk to someone, a professional.”

“Like Mameh did? A psychiatrist?”

“I don’t know exactly. But someone a lot smarter than I am, someone who can help you get over your fears and can give you some good advice. Would you be willing to do that?”

Shaindele nodded gratefully, feeling a weight roll off her shoulders. “But this person, it would be private what I tell them?”

“Completely private. It would just be between the two of you.”

“That would be good,” the girl nodded eagerly.

Goodwill and relief flooded them both as they held on to each other affectionately, neither dreaming about the far-reaching and unimaginable consequences of this decision.

16

IT IS NOT GOOD TO BE ALONE

“I tell you, Basha, when you get to a certain age, you want to feel some nachas; you want to feel that you’ve built something, something that will last after you’re long gone. But then you see things, in the ayniklach, your hope for the future, that make you afraid, that make you ashamed, like you didn’t do your job for the Aibishter.”

Under normal circumstances, Fruma Esther Sonnenbaum would never have shared such thoughts with any living being. But now, after what had happened with Shaindele—something she could not share with anyone, even her best friend—her heart drowning in sorrow, so heavy she felt she could no longer carry it, she had no choice but to open the floodgates before she was dragged under, breathless from the weight of it.

She was sitting on a park bench beside her friend as they tried to angle their faces toward the weak rays of an unseen sun. Despite being early spring, just a few days before the merry Purim holiday, snow was still on the ground, blackened by dog excrement, polluted city air, cigarette butts, and various pieces of trash. The sight of it further depressed her.