“I don’t know.” Decker cleared his throat. “It’s too hard to talk about it. Like you said, Song was only sixteen, and I still think about that a lot. Of course, I was only nineteen—a war of teenagers. We were all so young and stupid. The scene repeats on me every once in a while.”

“Our little secret,” Abel said. “It’s what we have between us.” With his fingertips, he traced part of an imaginary barrier separating him and Decker. He said, “And it’s what we have between us.”

The door to the rabbi’s study was open, inviting. The room was done in warm dark woods. Two walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with tomes of Jewish law and commentary, volumes of Jewish history, sets of American jurisprudence, and secular works on philosophy. A third wall was covered with display cases of antique Jewish artifacts and religious objects, including an old set of phylacteries made in Czarist Russia. They had been owned by Decker’s biological father—a religious man who had never seen fit to marry, rather remarry. Decker had met him only once. He’d looked up his adoption records and, after introducing himself to the old man by phone, took a quick trip out to New York to meet him in person. They had nothing in common except physical appearance, yet some kind of bond must have formed in the old man’s mind. All his religious articles had been willed to Decker.

The fourth wall was taken up by an oversized picture window that framed a canyon view of towering eucalyptus trees, shrubbery, wildflowers, and mountains. Rav Schulman’s desk was in front of the window, placed away from the wall so that chairs could be positioned on either side. The rabbi sat with his back to the window, and when Decker entered the room, he motioned him to the chair with the view.

But Decker didn’t sit right away. Instead, he studied his father’s phylacteries.

Rav Schulman regarded Decker’s restlessness, had known something was amiss when his student called him immediately after the Sabbath requesting to learn. Schulman had told Decker to come to his study an hour after his Saturday night lecture to his rabbinic students.

Decker shifted his gaze to Schulman. As usual, the rav was dressed in his black silk suit, starched white shirt, black tie, and high-polished oxfords. The old man met Decker’s stare with perceptive eyes. Though Decker had second thoughts about being here, it was too late now. Schulman knew he was troubled, so he might as well get it over with.

Decker spoke first, saying, “Rabbi, how much of our behavior do you think is inherited?”

Schulman shrugged. “I wouldn’t even hazard a guess, Akiva.”

Calling Decker by his Jewish name. His name for over a year. But it still sounded foreign.