Andy looked visibly distressed; his parents were the spanking type. Jett’s father operated on a higher level of punishment, one more cognitive than physical. He would revisit Jett’s transgressions six months after the fact, when he could get the most use out of them. Like the time when Jett was ten and he accidentally killed his class gerbils, Cal Ripken Jr. and Cal Ripken Jr. Jr., after subjecting them to a tandem ride on his remote-control-operated U.S. Army fighter jet. Despite Jett’s efforts to secure them with Scotch tape and rubber bands, the gerbils had fallen to what Jett hoped was a quick and painless death. His father, while upset at the time, did not punish Jett, saying only, “There are two things every man must do in his life: make mistakes and die.” Jett buried the gerbils in a Life cereal box out back. It was his mother who murmured the mourner’s Kaddish—the same Kaddish Jett and his father would recite not many years later as her casket descended into the earth. Jett’s real punishment came a year after the gerbil incident, when he begged to keep one of the kittens that had taken up residence in their garage. It was then his dad recalled the gerbil incident and declared that Jett was forbidden from having pets until he was at least nineteen years old.

His mother had been the merciful one. It was she who would sneak into Jett’s room after he’d done something bad—like pour chocolate milk into the fish tank, or run a magnet over the television—and smooth back his bangs, kiss him on the forehead. She would always love him. If he did a hundred and one bad things, she would forgive him a hundred and two times. He was her everything. Her baby.

But now all that was gone. Left was his father—his God. If Jett had been taught one thing, it was that there was no escaping God.

* * *

Roni had first seen Mr. Kaplan at Jett’s bar mitzvah, which had taken place the day after she got her first period. It was a strange day, simultaneously triumphant and queasy. Her pad had bothered her during the service—it felt big and puffy, like a diaper—but she smiled each time she remembered it. As Jett droned on, singing his Torah portion in his nasally voice, she could only think one thing: she was a woman now—a woman! Of course Jewish tradition had, for thousands of years, denied women the opportunity to become daughters of the commandment—who needed a bat mitzvah when you had a period? Her blood was her bat mitzvah. Because of it, a new world was opening up before her, and Mr. Kaplan seemed a major player in it. He was a socialite—easily the most popular man in the congregation. After the service, he went around the temple like a politician, shaking the hands of the young and the old, kissing the foreheads of babies. He looked the part, with his slicked-back hair and three-piece suit, his demeanor softened by a sky blue kippah. While the other men—the old, liver-spotted Jews of Wichita—used the kippot to cover their bald spots (Roni sometimes wondered if they’d been invented just for that purpose), Jett’s father wore the tiny silk headpiece like a crown. He was by far the most handsome man at the synagogue, a fact Roni recognized and appreciated even at twelve years old. Women flocked to him, pressing their hands to his chest or straightening his tie. Cynthia Katz—president of the Mid-Kansas Jewish Federation—went so far as to wipe a bit of food from his cheek, saying, “Hold still, Aaron. You’ve got a bit of schmutzy.” Later, Roni overheard Barbara Epstein-Hoffman say to Minnie Levy, “A man like that needs a woman. Just look at him. He’s built for it.” Minnie closed her eyes and nodded. “It’s just a shame what happened to Melanie. And so young.”