The next day, before Nola was to leave on her five-week tour, she flew by helicopter to visit Jenna. She found her sister crouched under a tree, and it took her a few moments to realize that her sister was cutting the skin of her arm with nail scissors. Nola struggled to restrain her, but Jenna was strong. She snaked out a clawed fist and scratched her own face. Nola’s shouts brought the caretaker to help. Jenna was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Nola sat on a hard bench at the West Side Synagogue. The dusty leather scent of old books enveloped her as the rabbi instructed the small group in the Jewish tradition of doing good. Mitzvah. Share your plenty with others. And when you don’t have much—if you have only one coat—give it to someone who has none. The concept appealed to Nola, although she doubted its practical application. Could she give her only coat? Should she have given her last to Jenna? She hadn’t. For all her promises, she hadn’t sacrificed her career for her sister. She might have begun that career to help the two of them, but when Jenna's problems grew beyond her ability to solve them, she had continued to sail on her own.

Her hand caressed the Bible’s embossed antique leather cover as she imagined the many others who had touched it before, who had leafed through the pages in their quest for wisdom. Most members of Eddie’s family had not gone through this formal learning; they’d grown up with the knowledge. It had seeped into them through osmosis as they’d observed their traditions.

She wanted so much to fit in with them. The eagerness with which she and Eddie savored the texture of their love was met with less than enthusiasm by the Silvers. In a household that cherished family ties, Nola's orphan status was a drawback. Among people who guarded against impostors, her untraceable Jewish roots were distrusted. In a family whose graduate degrees provided the backdrop for a Nobel Prize laureate, her high-school education stood out like a broken front tooth. And her profession—regardless of her immense success at twenty-five—was the last thing they wanted in a future daughter-in-law.

But she loved Eddie. Edward Silver. The name had music to it. The gleam of morning dew quivering on a leaf, tempting Nola to drink it. His family’s subtle disapproval churned in her as a reminder of the girls who wouldn’t invite her to their homes. She had hated being different then, and she hated it now.

The rabbi was speaking about one’s relationship with the Divine, with fellow human beings, and with oneself. All three were equally important. Together they defined “love,” Nola thought. She put her hand on the left side of her chest. Love must reside there, because she could feel its untapped surge pulsating.