“She’s your daughter! And please keep your voice down; you’ll wake the children. Or don’t you care about them, either?”

He was wounded, staring at her in disbelief.

“Aren’t you even going to ask me what she said? Aren’t you even curious?” she whispered with a sudden dispassionate calm he found more frightening than her anger.

“Oh, that’s allowed? You let? I can question?” he retorted sarcastically, digging into his position, pushed by shame, regret, and disappointment to an extreme stance that was not natural to him.

“Allowed? When is a person not allowed to hear the truth? Maybe because I’m an ignorant baalas teshuva, practically a shiksa, who didn’t learn in kollel for twenty years, but I never heard of that halacha.”

His eyes smarted. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this now,” he backtracked, feeling overwhelmed with sudden regret.

“When, then, Yaakov? She has another appointment with Grub tomorrow.”

“What, she goes every day?”

“No, but Grub insisted because she ran out of there in tears. If she doesn’t go back, I’m sure he’ll cover himself by calling Halpern with his version first.”

“I need to talk to her myself. To hear it firsthand.”

“Please don’t put her through another inquisition! You’re her father, but you are also a man. Don’t embarrass her by making her repeat it to you.”

“She can pull the wool over your eyes, but not mine! I’ll get the truth out of her!”

“Instead of interrogating her, why don’t you go speak to Yoel Grub?”

“And ask him what? If he…” He couldn’t even think of how to phrase it! “If he behaved in a way unbecoming a rav with my teenage daughter?”

“He locked the doors! He touched her, pulled the bobby pins from her hair! Told her to sit in his lap, that she needed someone ‘more experienced’ than Duvie Halpern! He threatened her that if she didn’t do exactly what he wanted, he’d get her expelled!”

He listened with only half an ear, horrified and disbelieving. It wasn’t possible! A man even older than himself, married with nine children. A grandfather of four. A man well known and respected in the community, recommended by Rav Alter himself! He simply refused to consider any of it could possibly be true. And if it wasn’t true, then it was another monstrous lie cooked up by his wayward daughter for reasons only she understood.

He suddenly felt weary. “What is it you want from me, Leah?”

“I want you to fight for your daughter! To believe her. I want you to prove to me that this whole holy world I’ve given up so much to be part of is real and not some make-believe stage set, like Disneyland.”