Rabbi Halpern visibly shrank. “A father does not give up on a son so easily. We had hopes—”

“You should have been more concerned for the girls in your care than your son! But gornisht! Aren’t you the principal? Don’t you have responsibilities?”

“We aren’t here to talk about Duvie!”

“And why not?” Leah interjected firmly. “K’vod harav, that is exactly what we are here to talk about.”

“And your child, your Shaindele? She bears no responsibility? She has been meeting with Duvie for months.”

“Months?” Yaakov lost his certainty.

“Ask her!” He nodded disgustedly toward Shaindele, who for the first time looked up.

“It’s true,” she admitted, shaking.

“So what now?” Leah said, wanting it to end for all their sakes.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t throw your daughter out of our school before she infects the hashkofa of the rest of her classmates.”

“If you tell me one good reason I shouldn’t go to the rabbonim and the entire community and tell them how you protected your son and endangered our girls when for months you obviously knew all about it.”

The two pious, bearded men looked across at each other like well-matched, battered prize fighters in the tenth round.

“Let me … I have a suggestion,” Leah interjected. “We are all pious people here who love HaShem, are we not? As it is written: Be compassionate because He is compassionate. Where is Duvie now?”

Rabbi Halpern shrugged. “He’s gone. We think he went out west.”

“Las Vegas,” Shaindele mumbled.

“What?” Rabbi Halpern asked, all ears.

“She doesn’t know,” Yaakov said firmly. “In any case, you say he isn’t around anymore?”

“Let him go to Gehinnom. I was done with him anyway. He’s a jerk,” Shaindele continued under her breath.

Yaakov shook his head at her fiercely, and she went silent again. “What is your idea, Leah?”

“Rav Halpern, you know the Lehman family has undergone a terrible tragedy. I’m sure you can imagine, k’vod harav, how very hard it was for Shaindele to lose her mother at such a young age and to have so many responsibilities fall on her young shoulders! It has left her traumatized. Even before this meeting, her father and I spoke about getting her psychological help.”

Rabbi Halpern sat back in his chair. He nodded. “This is a good idea. But on one condition—that you use the psychologist approved by our rabbonim, the only one we send our girls to.”

“So you agree she can finish her year and graduate?” Leah pressed, not taking any chances.

“If you arrange for Shaindele to have counseling, we will consider this whole matter closed—that is, if she keeps up with her counseling and we get good reports, and of course if she keeps up her grades,” he added almost as an afterthought.

“And Duvie isn’t coming back to Boro Park?”

Rabbi Halpern nodded stiffly. “He is dead to me now.”