The firm of Siegal and Kammerer took up the top floor of a three-­story office building in downtown Center­reach. His office, the senior office, was lovely. Two of the walls were solid glass, the carpet was thick beige wool, and the ashtrays were Steuben glass. He had his own bathroom, which he showed off proudly, with a sauna. She sat on a huge beige leather sofa while he made calls. She tried not to be annoyed by the opulence of the place, but she remembered Adam’s little bare office in Minnesota with plain, steel files and books piled everywhere. She managed to drop one of the Steuben ashtrays, but it hit the rug and didn’t even chip. He introduced her to his secretary, a gray-­haired black lady, and to his partner, Bill Kammerer, who looked her up and down and whistled silent approval to Allan, which made Rachel want to throw one of the antique vase lamps through one of the window walls.

He took her to a marina restaurant, and she had lobster for the first time in years. It wasn’t as good as she remembered, strings of it stayed in her teeth, and he got them both toothpicks and Irish whisky to go with their coffee. He asked if she’d kept kosher while she was married to Adam, and she told him she hadn’t after they’d left New York. Adam didn’t care much one way or another.

“A rabbi’s son who doesn’t care?” Allan asked.

“He cared,” Rachel said, “just not about being kosher.”

Allan raised his hands in a truce gesture. “Rachel, I’m not looking for trouble with you.” They drank their whisky without talking for a moment, then he asked, “What about now?” She was getting high.

“I keep kosher, now.”

“Two sets of dishes . . . the whole shmeer.”

“Four sets of dishes; two for Passover.”

“Right. I forgot.”

His family had been Orthodox, too, he told her, until his grandfather died. They quit then and he thought he’d be relieved, but he found he missed it. The dishes, the ceremony, checking out restaurants and hotels. “It made everything special,” he said. She nodded.

“My mother was glad, though,” he said. “She hated the bother, she hated getting up to go to shul on Saturdays.” Then he asked, “Does it bother you?”

“I don’t go,” she answered.

He looked surprised. “Doesn’t your father-­in-­law insist?”

She just stared at him, and after a moment, he laughed and shook his head. “No one insists on anything with you, is that it?”

She still didn’t answer, and he changed the subject with the same easy good humor.