Except for contacting the cops on those occasions, I almost never used my mobile to call out. I did receive some calls, though, quite regularly from Charlotte, to assure me that she was here for me—I’m here for you, Meena darling, she said—stressing that she was speaking also on behalf of Ammachi, who had made special offerings to mother Kali to find you among her lost children. The rebbetzin Mindy also got in touch, expressing regret that she was unable to carry out the mitzvah of coming by in person to sit with me, taking for granted that I was already in mourning because you had run off with a goy, may the merciful one spare us. She was calling me from Antwerp, she said, where she had gone to help out with her two new grandchildren, born to Shmuly and to Malkie in the same week, they looked like twins, two boys no less, so handsome, the greatest blessing, grandchildren, she had gotten in touch with the Ayin haRah Lady to make sure that any evil eye cast upon these precious babies by the envious and the bitter whose children did not turn out so well and did not produce grandchildren in the normal course of events be rendered null and void at once. The Ayin haRah Lady cost an arm and a leg, by the way, but never mind, she delivered her money’s worth. She poured the molten lead into a pot of cold water and chanted the powerful holy words as the bubbles swelled and burst, and now the babies are safe, 100 percent safe, thank God. Maybe someone had given you the evil eye, the rebbetzin speculated, maybe that was the explanation for your disappearance, and I had never bothered to spend some money on the Ayin haRah Lady to neutralize it. You were such an intelligent girl, with such a pretty face, the rebbetzin reminisced, if only you had kept to the path. You were making such good progress for a while under Malkie’s influence, you were Malkie’s personal special pet project. She recalled how Malkie had instructed and guided you with the visual aids of the paper dolls. But you were always falling, that was your problem, falling, falling, such a pity, and now you have truly fallen into the lowest depths, into the abyss, it shouldn’t happen to us. What can you do? Blessed is the True Judge, the rebbetzin pronounced, May you be comforted among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.