“All in school and day care. It’s ten o’clock, Rebbitzen,” Leah answered patiently, wondering what was implied by the question.

“Baruch HaShem,” the old woman replied automatically, sighing.

“Baruch HaShem,” Leah echoed nervously. Was the sigh a sign of relief? And if so, what was she expecting when she showed up midmorning?

“It’s good we can talk, Leah-le,” Rebbitzen Fruma Esther murmured. “You know what it’s about.”

“Yes, the music.”

“Sick? Who’s sick?”

Leah looked at her, confused. “The music,” she said again, louder.

Fruma Esther touched her ears, embarrassed. Maybe the hearing aid batteries were low? Not sick. Mu-sic.

It had been three days since the neighbors knocked on her door. In that time, Leah Howard Lehman had had time to consider the matter. Her initial reaction had undergone a gradual shift from horror, embarrassment, and an acute desire to apologize profusely to that of a considered defiance: this was the privacy of her own home, after all! This was her music, lively and joyous, which she had been sharing with the sad orphans that had become her stepchildren, giving them some joy. They were doing nothing wrong, and it was certainly no one’s business, except her own and probably Yaakov’s. Her only sense of discomfort came from the fact that she had not shared what had happened with him.

There were several very good reasons for that, she told herself. First, he was so busy with the transition out of kollel and into his new job. She knew just how much this weighed on him. Why should she add to his cares by sharing this petty confrontation with the neighbors? Besides, she told herself, hadn’t she settled the matter? Hadn’t it all blown over? At least, she had not heard anything further since she’d gone back to playing the yeshiva boy choir tapes. Finally, and most truthfully, she hadn’t broached the subject because she was ashamed of herself for having given into her longing to revisit a little bit of her old life.

What was so terrible about that? Not everything in the secular world, in the first thirty-four years of her life, had been bad. In fact, she had enjoyed so much of it: the concerts in Carnegie Hall, the ballet and opera at Lincoln Center, the Sunday strolls through MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And yes—if you were asking—her old playlists.