He picked up a cup from her kitchen table and flung it across the room. He’d always had a good arm and a crackerjack aim. The brass had given up trying to lull him over to SWAT. It hit her wedding picture smack in the center, shattered the glass, knocked it to the floor.

She stared at the blank spot on the wall, then looked at Decker, holding back tears.

“How long have you wanted to do that?”

“A long time.”

“I know you’ve been under terrible stress, Peter, and I’m trying to be understanding—”

“Rina the angel. Or is it Rina the martyr taking abuse from her friends who don’t at all approve of her big, dumb goy—”

“Stop it, Peter!”

“You want to tell them something interesting, Rina? The next time they razz you about me being a shaigetz, you tell them I’m Jewish. That’ll shut them up.”

She stared at him blankly.

“It’s true, you know,” he said. “I’m Jewish, Rina. Just like you.”

“I don’t understand—”

“I’m adopted. My biological parents were Jewish. Understand now?”

She couldn’t answer him.

“I’ve known about it since I was eighteen,” he went on. “I knew I was technically Jewish the first time I stepped foot on the grounds here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had my reasons.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“How could you keep that from me? Didn’t you trust me?”

“It wasn’t a matter of trust. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to find out what being your kind of Jew is like, so I could either accept it or reject it. You know what, Rina? I reject it! I reject all your phony baloney customs and laws because they were made by rabbis who dwelt in ivory towers and never had to deal with the day-by-day crap of living. Like Schulman. Give him a month on the streets, seeing the garbage I see, putting up with scum and mud and shit that fills you up until your eyes turn brown. Give him one month of it and I guarantee you, the man’s ironclad faith will be cleaved as wide as the Red Sea.”

He tried to stare her down, but she held his gaze with rage burning in her eyes. He’d never seen her like that.

“You’re so far off base, Peter, you’re not even in the ballpark,” she said. “Rav Schulman was in Auschwitz for three years. He lost his entire family. His wife was made sterile by Nazi butchery. His children were executed in front of his eyes—shot in the head. He was forced to dig their graves with his bare hands.”