After Marcus ended his sermon, Decker returned his full attention to the food. Slowly, he cut another piece of beef, and then realized he couldn’t use a knife anymore. His arm had cramped. He speared the morsel with his left hand and felt a rivulet of sweat run down his forehead. Dabbing it quickly, he pushed his plate aside. Chana noticed, but no one else did, because the children had entered the dining room from the kitchen where they’d eaten at a separate table.

Rina’s boys took seats on either side of him and the table broke into zemiros—Sabbath songs. Sarah Libba Adler rose and began to clear dishes, and Rina, Chana, and the older girls got up to help her. Decker could feel Rina standing directly behind him, see her hand reach for his plate.

“You’re not hungry?” she said softly.

He turned to look up at her and shook his head.

She piled the silverware on top of his dish and removed the plate.

“He’s not used to Jewish cooking,” Chana said acerbically to Rina once they were inside the kitchen.

Rina shrugged.

Chana’s icy eyes narrowed. She picked up a three-tiered pastry dish and took it into the dining room.

“He’s not feeling well?” Sarah Libba whispered.

“I guess he’s just tired,” Rina answered. “The meal was superb, as usual.”

Sarah Libba looked at Decker’s half-emptied plate as if it refuted Rina’s compliment, but said nothing.

“Go sit down, Rina,” she urged. “Chana, the girls, and I can handle it.”

“Don’t be silly. I know how much work it takes to prepare something like this. I want to help.”

Holding a candy-dish in one hand and a nut-bowl in the other, Rina went back into the dining room and began to clear the glasses. He looks pale, she thought. But a smile spread across her lips as she noticed her boys singing loudly, curled against him. It had been ages since she’d seen them so happy.

After twenty minutes of dessert, cleanup, and singing, everyone was called back to the table for birkas hamazon—grace after meals. Zvi led the bentching, and at its conclusion, the men adjourned to the living room for Talmud and schnapps.

Decker lagged behind and caught her alone.

“When the men leave for shiur, make an excuse and meet me at your house,” he whispered.

She nodded imperceptibly.

The children went off for the Shabbos games and activities and the women talked in the dining room while the men sat in the living room. Rina had never minded the segregation, but today it irked her. She had little patience for endless discussions of Kashruth. She didn’t care which products had recently been endorsed by Agudath Israel, signifying them strictly kosher. It bored her, it peeved her, mainly it separated her from Peter.

The hour dragged on.