Then his eye was caught by something else, something he didn’t remember seeing before. There, over her bed, hung a huge, framed photo of herself dressed as a bride with a crown of flowers on her head. She couldn’t have been more than Chasya’s age, he realized. She was sitting on Zissele’s lap, her mother’s arms draped around her small shoulders. It had been taken in kindergarten one Friday morning when she had been chosen as Ima Shabbos, a great honor for the little girls, who got to dress up and light candles and make the blessing. Both she and Zissele were smiling into the camera, but already he could see the traces of grimness and despair darkening his young wife’s eyes as they looked into the future. Someone had carefully and painstakingly braided and pasted small bunches of dried flowers lovingly onto the picture frame. It must have taken hours.

He stared at the photo. She, too, was his little girl. Then suddenly the idea burst in his brain like a bomb. What … what if.… what if … it were … true? What if this man, this Grub, was not to be trusted? After all, I don’t know him personally. I’m not a Hasid, part of Grub’s community. And neither was Rav Alter, who had never actually said he’d spoken personally to the Bobelger Rebbe and who didn’t know this Grub either. Rav Alter had simply passed on the assurances of others, people in a completely different community who followed very different rules and had a lifestyle unique to themselves alone.

He began to think about the terrible scene Leah had painted that he had been too upset to even consider. Pulled the hairpins from her hair? Locked the doors? Touched her? Words could be misinterpreted. But actions? These concrete, physical manifestations of the man’s will, his power? Even if only one of these things had occurred between Yoel Grub and his daughter, the man should be stoned! There was no room for discussion here. He had either done these things or he hadn’t. Why would Shaindele make this up? She had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

He walked to his bedroom, quietly opening the door. It was dark and silent. The beds, he saw, had already been pushed together, a sign that she, too, had been joyously anticipating the end of their difficult two weeks of separation. Hopefulness began to beat once more inside him.

Undressing quickly in the dark, he climbed in, waiting for her to come home.

He’d almost dozed off by the time he heard the bedroom door open. He watched her move through the shadows, hanging up her street clothes, then disappearing into the bathroom. She emerged in her nightgown, then silently climbed into bed, turning her back to him.

Tentatively, he touched her shoulder.

She turned over. Her face was wet with tears.