She took out the old vacuum cleaner, dustcloths, and glass cleaner, going into a frenzy of tidying up, trying to keep her body and mind too busy to think about the moment Yaakov would come in through the front door. Should she call him now and tell him what had happened? Or let him have a few more hours of peace? How would she be able to break this news to him at all? Would he be angry—at her, at Shaindele? Or simply, and more likely knowing him, just heartbroken at the awful behavior of the people he lived among?

Exhausted, she finally turned off the vacuum cleaner, staggering to the couch and almost falling into its soft cushions. What, she thought with rising panic, clasping her hands together tightly, are we going to do? How are we going to pay our bills?

Well, there was always Yaakov’s salary. They could manage on that while she built up a new client list, gentile businesses outside the neighborhood who couldn’t care less about Hasidim. But that would take time. And then, of course, there was always the possibility of finding a job in Manhattan, far away from this insular little community. After all, how far did the influence of these shitty little Hasidic thugs go? But it would mean such inconvenient hours and hiring babysitters for the children …

Her head spun.

Before she knew it, it was time to pick up the kids. She hurried down to the car. This time, it was not eggs on the windshield. This time, just as she’d feared, it was the tires, all four of them, slashed. She gave out a little cry, holding her hand to her mouth. But there was no time! She would have to walk to pick them up.

She hurried, trying not to allow hatred to fill her heart as she looked at the strangers passing her by, the people who either ignored her or looked her brazenly up and down finding fault, or so at that moment did it seem to her. She felt besieged and friendless among hostile strangers. Why, she thought, did I ever come here? And how could I ever have thought it was better than what I’d left behind? Secular life might have been empty and careless, but it hadn’t been deliberately cruel. She counted her friends: Fruma Esther, the Blausteins, who had mentored her, Rabbi Weintraub, Dr. Shoshana Glaser, who she’d met in a hotel ladies’ room, both of them escaping from horrible shidduch dates, Shoshana’s Rollerblading group. How had she ever imagined she could make a life here? That these people would ever see into the heart of a stranger among them and accept her as an equal?

Chasya was already standing with her teacher inside the gate waiting. She smiled and waved. Chasya’s little face lit up, and she waved back.