Of course! How had he forgotten to call her? “I’m so sorry, Leah. I went to talk to Rav Alter,” he said, coming into the living room and clasping her hand until he reluctantly released himself to take off his coat and hang it in the closet.

There was so much she wanted to say to him, but soon the children were streaming out of their bedrooms.

“Tateh! Tateh!” they shouted, running to him. His face lit up with joy as he gathered his little boy and girl fondly in his arms. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Shaindele, too, had come to greet him, hanging back in the hallway, her shoulder pressed against the wall, her arms crossed protectively.

He put down Chasya and with his newly freed arm beckoned to his daughter. She, too, was his little girl. “Come,” he said.

She approached him with the caution of a small creature facing the unknown.

He kissed her forehead warmly. “My Shaindele,” he whispered.

That hard nugget inside her she had been nurturing, polishing to a dark gleam, suddenly shattered like a ball of ice, melting away. She raised tear-filled eyes to his face. “I’m so sorry, Tateh. For everything. I’ll do better, bli neder. I’ll make you proud of me.”

“I am always proud of you, even when I’m not so happy about the things you decide to do.” He smiled at her.

Leah stood back, watching, amazed. It was almost a miracle, she thought. She had expected a confrontation, stubbornness, recriminations. And while her experience with him had never included shouting matches in anger or deliberate cruelty, she had seen him capable of detachment and coldness, which for her was just as devastating. Honestly, she had been preparing herself for rejection. It was inevitable that he would blame her for his daughter’s waywardness, given her own upbringing. Why should he be any different than the rest of Boro Park?

Yet here he was together with them again! A father, a husband, not a judge, jury, and executioner. Her own eyes reflected the relief in Shaindele’s as the girl’s young body went limp against her father’s, allowing him to support her, Leah noticed with enormous relief. Rejection from her father at this moment, when she was so confused and rebellious, would have been akin to lighting fireworks during a gas leak.

“Why don’t we all sit down and have dinner?” she suggested with a smile, looking around the table. And then, privately, to him alone, “Afterward, when the little ones go to sleep, we need to talk.”