“No, you are wrong, my friend. As it is written: It is not good for a man to be alone. Or a woman. I happen to know for a fact that there is a very pious widower who is also lost without his dear wife.”

“Who are you talking about, Basha?”

“I have to tell you? You don’t know? A certain person who loves your p’tcha!”

Fruma Esther Sonnenbaum felt her face grow hot. “It was a kindness. I knew his wife’s recipes. And during shiva, it’s a mitzvah to bring food to the house of the mourners. It wasn’t personal.”

“Didn’t you say his daughter has been calling you to thank you? That you promised her you’d bring more?” Basha probed.

Fruma Esther squared her shoulders a little defensively. “It’s a chesed. The young girls, they don’t know how to cook. Not like we cooked for our husbands. Everything is takeout.” She paused. “I have been there a few times since the shiva.”

“I knew it! You talked?”

“Of course. What, I’ll run into the kitchen like I’m delivering from China Glatt? Of course I sat. We talked. His daughter was also there. And the grandchildren.”

“So he said something?”

Fruma Esther leaned back against the hard bench. How wonderful it had been to share her loneliness with someone her own age who understood the heartbreak of losing a partner of so many years! “We talked about our wedding days, and how it seemed like only yesterday…” Tears came to her eyes. Basha quickly offered her a tissue.

“The Torah doesn’t say what’s not true. It’s not good to be alone, Fruma Esther.”

“I’m not alone! I have also my daughters, my sons.”

“Busy with their own lives, or thousands of miles away in Israel!”

“So they don’t call? Every day, almost. You can even see them on the little phone.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “My ayniklach showed me how. They are my life now.”

“They have their own lives, Fruma Esther. And their own parents to take care of them.”

“They need as many pairs of hands as they can get to bring them up right, Basha. Believe me.”

“I’m not saying not.”

“So what are you saying to me?”

“I’m saying that you’re lonely, and he’s lonely.”

“It’s not even three months! She’s still warm in the grave!”

“Loneliness is suffering, Fruma Esther. And three months of suffering can be like a hundred years.”

There was nothing to say. It was true.

“Let’s not even talk about such a thing.” Fruma Esther sighed.

“Think about it.”