But since when did a Talmud scholar believe earning a living instead of allowing his wife to support him took away from his self-respect? This was a secular idea, from the immoral secular world whose notions of what made an admirable husband and wife bore absolutely no resemblance to those of their own world, where admiration could only be earned in the study halls of the yeshivot and kollelim and where a woman of valor was the woman who works and runs a business (in addition to housework, childbirth, and child-rearing), freeing her husband to learn without such petty distractions.

But his new wife, she sighed, was not from their world, and Yaakov, she supposed, was desperate to please her. This was the way of the world, she told herself, secretly mourning the distinguished young Talmud scholar who had sat in her living room as he courted her daughter, his face beaming with joyous possibilities as he talked of his love of learning, his plans to become a great scholar and found his own yeshiva.

The children, too, had undergone a transformation since the wedding, but in their case, a blessed one, she thought, her features suddenly brightening. Shaindele had stopped stuffing herself with Swiss chocolates and rugelach to feed some hunger she hadn’t been able to assuage, her once chubby body slimming down. She was a pretty seventeen-year-old who had blossomed. She had even grown taller by an inch or two. The stodgy Bais Yaakov uniform—the blue, long-sleeved blouse buttoned to the neck and calf-length, pleated navy skirt—looked almost chic on her newly taut body. But most of all, her face had changed. Gone were the ugly grimaces of resentment and sullen rebellion. If she was not exactly the bubbly teenager she had been before her mother’s death, she was at least once again the diligent, promising student. Otherwise, Fruma Esther would have heard about it; she checked in with the girl’s principal and teachers weekly.

As for the little ones—it was like night and day! Instead of soiled, wrinkled clothes, they were dressed like little dolls, their faces scrubbed pink, their little bodies filling out with good, regular home-cooked meals. Most of all, they seemed happy. Gone were Chasya’s constant stomachaches that had had them rushing to the emergency room. And little Mordechai Shalom had a full-time mother again he could depend upon, instead of herself, an aging Bubbee who had doctors’ appointments she couldn’t skip, bad feet that hurt her when she took him for walks, and arms too frail to even lift him up for a good hug.