Her parents stood by the door, immobile in their prior positions. Sarah crossed the room to them but then didn’t know what to do when they stood there so still, already out of reach. “Please, Mama. Please, Baba. I love you so. I’m so sorry for disappointing you. But I can’t help how I feel. Please don’t make me go.” Nothing in response but the persistent shriek of the teakettle.

Finally, Sarah gathered her bag and gazed around her home, at her parents’ wedding ketubah framed above their table, taunting her with the thousands of years of Jewish lineage from which she was now threatening to break. “I’ll see you soon. Please…”

Her parents looked off, anywhere but at her.

Benjamin ran to the door, stopping right before Sarah, his face smothered in tears. “I love you,” he sobbed, and this time he blew her a kiss.

“I love you dearly,” she managed, and blew him another one back.

She knew if she didn’t leave now, she never would. She took one aching look back at her family. “I’ll see you all soon,” she said again, and wasn’t sure if the promise was for her or for them. Then with a force of strength that seemed to come from outside her, Sarah opened the door and stepped out. The door clicked behind her.

She knew it even then—she would always remember the click behind her.

Sarah was a babbling mess when she surprised Milos at his guesthouse by the church. After he’d delivered some optimistic platitudes, Sarah endured a sleepless night on a cot in the room of the proprietress’s daughter. The next morning, at the rooster’s first cry, she went to Milos, who greeted her happy as a clam. He didn’t have to give up his family for her. His family were nice, lovely Greek Orthodox. Apparently they didn’t care if Sarah had three heads or prayed to idols. All Milos had to do was give up fishing season in Corfu. Well, Lefkada had plenty of fish.

His face shone as he packed his few things and bid goodbye to his fellow fishermen. Sarah loved him to the ends of the earth, but perhaps she already resented him. They took the ferry to Igoumenitsa. As a drizzle pelted them on the bow, Sarah thought of what Benjamin had once told her. On the Sabbath, the Jews rest, but the sea never does. It’s always a new sea.

She watched the waves crisscross each other, heading out to new places. Her leaving Corfu—it was irrevocable. Even her Jewishness had seeped out of her somehow, she realized with dull horror. Today was the Sabbath, and Sarah was violating it with the ferry ride, not one bit at rest. She knew these things, and yet she tried to brush the knowing away.