“I didn’t know that was what she was doing in there. I thought she was taking a shower. So I didn’t do anything! Just waited … for her to come out. Waited and waited.” Suddenly, she was back there again, alone. She forgot about Yoel Grub, the ugly little office in the nondescript building somewhere in the dusty streets of Brooklyn. She was once again at home, pounding on the door that could not be opened. “I should have known, I should have figured it out, when the water … it was turned off … and still she didn’t come out. But I thought … maybe she’s taking a long bath, or getting dressed, or putting on some makeup, or brushing out her wig? That was always a sign she was getting better. But it was taking too long, too long! It wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. I knocked and I knocked. But she wouldn’t … and then I tried to break down the door.” She sighed, wiping her wet face with the back of her hand. “But it was wood. So strong. Nothing I could do … wouldn’t budge. And when Hatzalah finally came—they took so long! Why did it have to take them so long?—it was too late.”

“So you are responsible for what happened to your not-so-perfect mameh?”

His voice startled her. She’d almost forgotten he was there. She nodded tearfully.

“So it was you that made your mameh sick? You had a poison potion, and you poured it into your perfect mameh’s coffee and made her crazy, is that it?”

“Of course not, but—”

“But what? According to you, it was all up to little Shaindele to keep her well, to save her. Right? According to you, children are completely responsible for the choices their parents make, no?”

She was struck dumb. Seen in that light, it was certainly ridiculous. “I didn’t mean—”

He waved his hand, interrupting her. “No, wait. Let’s think about this, be logical. If one person is completely responsible for another person being sick or well, then that person has to be more powerful, right? So that means that you—Miss Lehman, Shaindel, Shaindele—were more powerful than your mameh or your tateh, or your bubbee. You were the most powerful person in your whole family, in the whole world! Because, according to you, you had the power to heal, to save, a very sick woman who thought she wanted, needed, to die. Am I right?”

She leaned forward, trying to interrupt, to protest, but he didn’t allow it.

“Or maybe, just maybe,” he continued forcefully, “it’s the other way around. Your mameh was more powerful, and she used her power to do a terrible thing to herself and to you.”

“She didn’t mean it! She was sick! Postnatal depression, the doctors said. She needed help, and I didn’t help her!” Shaindele shouted.