They didn’t watch action movies on Friday nights, or romantic comedies, or murder mysteries. (They rented plenty of those, but they watched them on Sunday nights. And on Saturday nights they went to the multiplex to see some more.) No, Friday nights were reserved for Important Films: movies that, according to Leora’s parents, would teach them something about the Human Condition. (Leora’s mother was very big on the Human Condition.) A season’s Friday night viewing might include, for instance, Gandhi, Spartacus, Exodus, A Man for All Seasons, Chariots of Fire, Doctor Zhivago, Casablanca, Ben Hur, The Last Emperor, Out of Africa, and at least three films starring Charlton Heston. (Not The Ten Commandments, though—that one they saved for Passover.) To Leora, this was the sabbath eve—prayer, food, song, and epic films. Sometimes these sanctified evenings ended in disastrous sacrilege, like the costume Leora’s brother wore for at least five Halloweens: a bald cap, tiny round glasses, a white loincloth, a wooden staff, and an Indian accent in which he would say, “Hello, I am the Mahatma—Oh God, I’ve been shot!” before dropping dead. But most of the time, Friday nights would end with a rewinding of the video and a recapping of the sacred. There was a certain sweetness to the stories even in the sappiest of these films, an earnestness, an honesty. You would go to bed dreaming about them, though you might not understand what they really meant for many years—that is, whether it was the film that had that earnestness and honesty or whether it was you—and that absence of knowing stirred you, filled you with a feeling of potential, of possibility. Leora had brought the habit with her to college, and even when Jason was eating dinner with his teammates on Friday nights he would still meet her halfway, joining her for the weekly rented movie. But after signing on with his new team, Jason stopped attending. Instead he would lounge for hours in Moyshie’s room downstairs and even drag Leora along with him, talking about sports into the early morning hours just like the old team used to do. Except that Friday nights used to be Leora’s sacred night with Jason, her night of refuge from the team. Now the team wouldn’t go away.

Winter passed, and spring, with each passing day dilating like the pupil of an eye, letting in more and more light. Graduation was approaching. Leora had found herself a job at a magazine in New York and planned to live at home and commute to the city until she had saved enough money to live on her own, but Jason had put off his plans for medical school in order to spend a year at a rabbinical academy in Israel. No surprise, by then. By midwinter Jason had started wearing a yarmulke all the time. He had stopped eating in the cafeteria, instead cramming his tiny student refrigerator with specially labeled kosher food. He would make little comments to Leora if she arrived at the Jewish student center wearing a skirt that fell above her knees. And it didn’t take long before, in public at least, Jason stopped holding her hand.