She took out her phone. “We’ll probably be near Virginia or South Carolina when it gets dark. I’ll try to find someplace in that area that has a kosher restaurant.”

“There would be such a place? Down South?”

She smiled. “Yaakov, there are religious Jews all over America. Little communities with synagogues and kollelim and kosher food stores and religious schools.”

“I never knew that! I mean, Kiryas Yoel—”

She laughed. “I know. You thought they pulled up the drawbridge in Lakewood and the Vaad Harabbonim sent policemen to stop religious Jews from going any further.”

He smiled self-deprecatingly. He had, actually. “Yes, I’d like to see a place like that,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement. “A religious community far away from Boro Park, Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg; far away from Bobelger Hasidim.”

“A place full of kind, nonjudgmental religious Jews who truly love the Torah, and each other,” Leah whispered, her voice cracking as the pain from her wounds suddenly throbbed.

Noticing the flash of agony that momentarily clouded her features, he clutched the steering wheel with a sudden ferocity. “If I could just get my hands on the person who did this to you … You know, sometimes I actually fantasize about being a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound goy who grew up in the South Bronx and knows how to pound his enemies into a pulp!”

She laughed, but he cut her short.

“No, it’s not funny! I’m not joking. All those years I spent, invested, in learning how to be holy and good! How is that going to help me—us—now? An eye for an eye. I know the Oral law explains that means paying damages, but sometimes I think HaShem meant it exactly the way it’s written and that He understands evil much better than we do. That person on the bicycle? I want to break both his arms and legs, to see him trussed up like an Egyptian mummy in some hospital bed! It’s the only thing that’s going to make me feel better … feel like a man.” He heaved a sigh of despair. “My beloved,” he said softly, taking her hand. “Please forgive me for not taking better care of you.”