“I can’t understand you! Don’t you remember all the lies she made up about you, trying to break us up? Why would you do this for her?”

She was astounded. “Because…,” she began, trying to clarify her thoughts. “Because you are a righteous man, Yaakov, and this is—or is supposed to be—a righteous, God-fearing community that protects its children! Because this is an evil situation that must be stopped once and for all. That’s why, Yaakov.”

They were at an impasse.

“All right. I’ll look into it,” he said dully.

“Thank you,” she answered formally, rising stiffly to her feet and going into the kitchen. She brought back a plate of food for him, placing it on a mat on the dining room table. “Your dinner,” she said.

“Aren’t you going to join me, Leah?”

“I’m going to the mikvah. I don’t want to get there too late.”

Silently, she put on her coat and, covering her hair with a warm hat which she would need on the way back when she emerged into the cold streets with hair still wet from her ablutions, headed for the door.

He sat alone in the living room, listening to the sounds invading the silence: impatient car horns, an ambulance screeching in terror, the motor of the refrigerator coming to life, the ticking of a clock.

So this is what it has come to after all his efforts in forming connections, marrying, having children. This loneliness, this silence, he thought bitterly with a growing self-pity. He moved from the couch to the dining room table, looking down at the plate of carefully prepared food. It was still warm and looked appetizing, and yet he felt no hunger, no desire to nourish himself. Out of habit, he picked up a fork and pushed the food around, reluctantly bringing some to his mouth, barely tasting the fragrant vegetables and the chicken. He soon put the fork down. It was no use. He leaned back, pushing himself away from the table.

What was my crime? he thought, getting up and pacing. And then, unexpectedly, another thought: What was her crime?

He remembered the other women he had met on those pitiful, not-so-long-ago shidduch dates, women carefully selected by aging matchmakers who had long ago forgotten the meaning of love. None of the women had shown any interest at all in his children, viewing them as a burdensome and inconvenient part of a bargain to which they had no choice but to agree to attain what they wanted for themselves and their own children. The worst were those who had made it perfectly clear that under their regime, his children would be whipped into shape by rules that would downgrade their needs to those of the furniture’s.

And then there’d been Leah, who had no rules. Leah, who’d simply loved them.