“Well, the thing is, the tires on the car—” Leah began.

“Don’t tell me!”

“That’s why I was walking to pick the kids up.”

“We’ll call the tow company now. It’s Heschel Altshuler’s nephew. He’ll pick up the car, change the tires, and bring it back by noon tomorrow.”

Leah shook her head. “It’s going to cost a lot of money, and right now…”

Fruma Esther looked from Leah to Yaakov. “Something else happened?”

“I lost all my customers. The Bobelger threatened them.”

“They threatened my boss, too,” Yaakov told her suddenly. He hadn’t planned on it, wanting to spare her, but there it was. It was a relief to him. He was so tired of secrets, of making up lies to save face, to cover crimes, to make their world seem a better and more benevolent and upright place, imbuing the people around him with all kinds of superior qualities that in reality they didn’t possess. They were no different from anyone else, he thought bitterly. No better and no worse. Simply the same as all godless people who stepped over others to get ahead.

OTD, short for people who had left the good and righteous path of Orthodoxy to live lives that adhered to no law or ritual. How we pride ourselves on how superior we are to them! How deep is the sorrow we profess for their parents and relatives who must suffer the disgrace of their relationship to such miserable creatures! But if the truth be told, who was really, firmly, on the path of righteousness, and who far afield? It was not what the people of Boro Park wanted to admit to themselves.

“I’ll take care of it,” Fruma Esther said firmly, waving away all their objections. “Listen, children,” Fruma Esther began sadly, “I understand what you are going through, and it breaks my heart. But there are still good people in this place. We are not Sodom and Gomorrah. Let me see what I can do.”

“What can you, or anybody, do? We can’t apologize to Grub. We can’t send Shaindele back to him. And that’s what they’re demanding in order to leave us alone.”

“Are you sure that’s why all this is happening? Because Grub is so important to the Bobelger?”

“Not directly, but because it is known that he is supported by the Bobelger Rebbe himself. And so, if we say anything against him, it’s like we are insulting their rebbe.”