She patted his hand. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you had a bad day…or night. I wish I could help you. If you’d tell me about it, maybe—”

“Just drop it, Rina.”

He was hurting her. He saw it in her eyes. She said nothing.

“I won’t barge in on you like that again,” he said. “It was an exception.”

“It’s all right.”

“Thanks for taking in a stray dog.”

“You’re not a stray dog, Peter. You’re the man I love.”

Tell her you love her, damn it.

He smiled weakly and was silent.

Withholding son of a bitch. Why are you doing this to her? He ran his fingers through his hair.

“What happened between us last night, Rina?”

She stared at him for clarification.

“I had a blackout,” he said. “Did we make love?”

She shook her head.

“You groped around a little, then passed out on the living room floor. I was scared to death. At first I thought you had a heart attack, but, baruch Hashem, you started snoring.”

He rolled his eyes.

“How’d I get into the bedroom?”

“I’m not as weak as you think I am,” she said, quietly.

“You carried me?”

“Dragged you.”

“You should have left me on the floor to sleep it off,” he reprimanded her. “Why risk straining your back?”

Her patience suddenly snapped.

“Peter, for goodness sake, what if the boys would have seen you like that?”

He looked down.

“You slept on the couch?”

She nodded. “It’s comfortable. I’ve slept on it many times when I’ve had company.”

“Okay. I’ll go now.”

“Wait, I almost forgot.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a pocket siddur, not unlike the one he had burned. But this one was covered with silverplate and studded with blue stones. She handed it to him and he thumbed through the pages.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you very much. I’ll try to take better care of this one.”

“Don’t put it in a glass case and treat it like an object of art. Use it, Peter. Use it until it falls apart. It will help you—”

“I don’t need any help, Rina.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everyone needs help.”

You’re going to start an argument unless you shut your mouth, he warned himself.

He stood up and placed the siddur in his pocket.

“Thanks,” he repeated.

Walking out to his car, he stopped a few feet away from the unmarked. The guilt trip wasn’t over yet. The Rosh Yeshiva was standing against the car, holding a volume of Talmud and reading in the dark with the aid of a penlight.

Shit!

“H’lo, Rabbi,” Decker said. “I assume you’d like to talk to me?”

“Take me for a ride, Peter,” the old man answered, turning off the light.