She buzzed him in immediately and stood by an open door as he made his way from the elevator. “You’re here!”

Only now did he realize how strange that was. He hardly ever went anywhere except to the synagogue, kollel, or his children’s homes. Everyone usually came to him. And although he had been meeting with Fruma Esther for months, he had never been to her home.

“I can come in?” he asked, suddenly shy.

“Avadeh.” Smiling demurely, she opened the door wide.

It was a neat but modest home, he thought, much smaller than his own one-family house, but furnished similarly: the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the large dining room table that could open to host fourteen people on a Shabbos, the family photographs and oil paintings of the kotel.

“A drink I can get you?”

He nodded gratefully.

“I’ll go get you tea. Sit, sit. Why are you standing? You look tired, Shimon Levi.”

He nodded, taking off his large black hat and setting it neatly on the coffee table, then taking off his black overcoat and draping it neatly over an armchair. Cooler, he slipped gratefully into a dining room chair, suddenly exhausted.

She bustled about, hardly knowing what she was doing, bumping into closets, nearly smashing her good teacups, which seemed to have a life of their own. He was here, in her home! Shimon Levi!

She brought him tea and a tray of her latest baking.

The eyes in his tired face lit up. “Mandelbrot! Taiglach!”

“Still warm from the oven,” she boasted, pleased, taking a seat across from him.

“I came to tell you that I think I was able to influence whoever was behind the attacks on your family to stop.”

“You think, but you’re not sure?”

He took the envelope out of his pocket and put it down on the table. “I didn’t count, but it should be enough to cover the car tires, the medical expenses…”

She looked inside, overwhelmed. “You’re not going to tell me where you got this, right?”

He shrugged.

“And the rest?”

“Time will tell. But in exchange, no more talk about calling the police.”

“Avadeh. I’ll explain this to Leah. She doesn’t understand. And what about Shaindele?”

“Was she thrown out of Bais Yaakov?”

She shook her head. “After what happened to Leah, we took her straight out and sent her to her uncle’s in Baltimore. The head of Bais Yaakov there is a relative of her aunt’s family. They will let her graduate.”

“I can arrange for her to come back, to finish with her class, if she wants.”

“No, this is besser. A little distance, less wagging of tongues. It’s good like this. And what about Grub?”

“I put up posters all over Brooklyn with a psak from the Vaad Harabbonim that says girls needing counseling should only go to women counselors.”

She sat back, staring at him in admiration. “Shimon Levi, it’s brilliant!”