Trailing mud and pebbles onto the newly washed wooden floors, Meilech stalks into the room.

“I’ve left home.”

“What?”

“That’s right.” His voice grows louder. “I will not live there for one more minute.”

Yeruchum puts his finger to his lips. “Sha, you’ll wake the Tatte.”

“I don’t care.” But he speaks more quietly. “My father found my book,” he says.

The book. Yeruchum knows all about the book. It was not one of the few sifrei kodesh the boys owned. No, there was nothing holy about this book, this novel, as Meilech called it, by a Russian goy named Pushkin.

Yeruchum had been shocked when Meilech showed it to him. Elya Flaum, the village’s scandalous freethinker who actually smoked in public on Shabbos — der heilige Shabbos! — had given it to him. Meilech had accepted it as a joke, but, as he told Yeruchum, once he began reading, he’d been captivated. By the beauty of the language. By the excitement of the plot. (“What’s a plot?” Yeruchum had asked.) By the characters and by the life of Russian peasants and nobles and soldiers that Pushkin described, lives so very different from his own.

In the big cities, Flaum told Meilech, there were books, hundreds and maybe thousands of books, waiting to be read and enjoyed. It was only here in this little village that no books could be found.

When Meilech showed his precious treasure to his friend, Yeruchum reluctantly agreed to keep his secret, though he’d absolutely refused to read the book himself.

And now, the Rav has discovered what his son has done. What will be?

“The Tatte told me he will burn the book after Shabbos. So I grabbed it and left.”

“You brought the book here?”

“What else could I do?”

His friend. His good friend. The Rav’s only son. And now he has left his father’s home. A good home, a Torah home.

“Let me stay here tonight, Yeruchum. Tomorrow, I’m leaving. I’ve saved a little money, I’ll make my way to Kovno. I’ll work there, and soon I’ll leave this whole cursed land behind. And I’ll read books, as many as I want, without my father threatening to burn them.”

Thoughts churn wildly through Yeruchum’s head. Meilech, my best friend. Traveling tomorrow — on Shabbos! Outside, the wind is howling. A cold night, a wet night. How can I send him away? But… Shabbos! Look what one freethinker has done, how one book has destroyed a good boy’s soul. My own neshamah, will he destroy that, too?

A decision. “I’m sorry, Meilech. But you’ll have to go. Now.”

Meilech pulls his wet coat closer around him. He turns and walks into the night.

He does not say goodbye.

Coney Island, February 1964

You’ve passed your 40th birthday. You’ve raised a family. You think you’re smart, you know a lot about life.

And then you discover that you hardly know the people you love best.

Annie sat quietly, her face barely exposing the turmoil within her as she visualized her father as a young man, torn between his loyalties to Hashem and His Torah, and to his best friend. The father Annie had grown up with would not have hesitated: When he found out about the book Meilech was reading, he would have warned Meilech’s father, the Rav, of the spiritual danger the Rav’s son was facing. But this was not the father she’d grown up with. This was a boy not long past bar mitzvah, forced to make choices he was not ready to make.

Yeruchum, his tale told, sat quietly, while Annie was too caught up in her own thoughts to say a word. It was Moe who broke the silence.

“So this Meilech was Marjorie’s grandfather? What did she call him?”

“Grandpop Morrie.”

“Oh, that’s right. Papa, I see why you want to take care of her. After all, she’s your friend’s grandchild. But why did you talk about a ‘fatal mistake’? Even if you would have told his father, you couldn’t have stopped Meilech.”

A sigh from Yeruchum. “You’re right, Moishe Baruch. I was still a boy, and when I first saw the book, I didn’t realize what would happen. How could I — I had no idea of the world outside Valiokei. No, it was something else that I cannot ever forget. Or forgive.”

As Annie looked at her father, a long-ago memory shot through her. She was young, young enough that she could still sit next to her father in shul. One Yom Kippur, little Chanaleh watched in fascination as Papa balled his hand up in a fist, bent down, closed his eyes, and hit his chest, over and over and over. On his face was a look so sad, so hurt, so full of regret, that Chanaleh burst into tears and had to be taken back to the ezras nashim.

She saw that look now, on her father’s face.

And yet, as disturbing as her father’s words were — a confession, a sort of shocking Vidui, was the only way to describe it — a part of Annie rejoiced. Over the years, her silent, distant father had learned something about communication, about opening up to his children. These were moments Annie treasured, when Papa showed open affection, when he put effort into understanding his children’s lives and hopes. And look at the hug he gave Moey when he came into the hotel.

But with all that, Papa rarely opened up about his own past and feelings. And he certainly had never, ever shared details of his failures. As she heard him speak so openly and honestly about his childhood, she felt that a door that had been firmly shut for decades was slowly, creakily opening.

A door that led… where?

Yeruchum seemed ready to continue his narrative, but a knock interrupted, and Perele Schwartz hesitantly walked in.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Freed, but there’s a man to see you. He says he’s a contractor.”

Yeruchum’s voice, which had been so muted, so shaken, returned to its usual calm timbre. “Please send him in.”

Perele walked out to escort the visitor in, and Yeruchum turned to Annie. “Chanaleh, I owe a debt, and I will repay it. Miss Burton will stay in this hotel as long as she wants. She will be an honored guest, and if she likes, she will help Mrs. Schwartz in the kitchen. I hope you can understand.”

Annie gave her father a small smile. “Of course, Papa.”

She would listen to her father, respect his wishes.

But he couldn’t make her like the girl.

A burly man with thick eyebrows and a dark mustache that could not successfully hide his yellowing teeth breezed into the parlor. He was wearing dark-blue overalls and a shirt that had once been white but had long ago lost the battle with sweat and dust. Papa, polite as always, shook his grizzled hand. Annie rose from the couch, but at a sign from Moe she sat back down.

“This is Mr. Beck,” Yeruchum told Moe, who’d stood up and was flanking his father. “The contractor who built our top floor.”

“The one that collapsed under a little rainfall,” Moe said drily.

“A little rainfall! You call a major storm, almost a hurricane, a little rainfall?” the builder said, his voice loud, with just a hint of a threat in it. He pointedly turned away from Moe, speaking only to Yeruchum.

Annie listened as the talk turned technical — beams and joints and shingles and insulation. She noticed that though the man was polite and friendly to her father, he pointedly ignored Moe’s questions about quality and guarantees.

Finally, Beck got to the point. “Mr. Freed, it’s a big job. Cleanup, new windows, new roof. It’ll cost you a thousand bucks, plus materials.”

Moe exploded. “A thousand dollars!”

“Plus materials.”

“To fix something that you should be fixing for free! With more shoddy work?”

Yeruchum held up a warning hand. “Moishe Baruch, we’ll discuss this later.” He turned to the builder, whose jowly cheeks were getting redder and redder. “Thank you, Mr. Beck. I will let you know.”

Casting a furious glance at Moe, the man stalked out.

“Papa, he’s a thief!” Moe said angrily. “You can’t mean to spend all that money?”

Yeruchum shook his head. “I don’t have the money to spend.” His mouth was a thin line. “It’s not—” He hesitated; a man not used to sharing his troubles. “It’s not been easy, these past few years. The building is old, needs a lot of maintenance, and we’ve got fewer and fewer paying boarders.”

Moe put an arm on his father’s shoulder. “Papa, let me help. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I don’t want to go back to England right away.” He stopped for a moment, breathed deeply and continued. “I’m still working with Burton on how to promote my novel, and he wants me to start on another. There’s nothing much waiting for me in England.” Again a deep breath and a look of pain. “Let me stick around for a few months. I’ll take care of my writing, and I can also help you manage the hotel. I’ll be Marjorie’s kashrus mashgiach until the girl’s learned the difference between milk and meat.” He grinned. “And I’m pretty handy. I’ll hire a few young guys, and we can clean up the mess on the roof, close it up with some tiles, and save you a fortune.”

Annie’s face lit up. “I’m so happy, Moe, it will be like old times. And,” she added, jumping up from the couch in her excitement, “you don’t have to hire anyone. Artie has plenty of time to help, and Mutty can come in on Sundays. It’s the perfect solution!”

Yeruchum didn’t look like someone who’d just discovered the “perfect solution” to his problems. Glancing at the expression on his face, Annie had a sudden insight. It’s hard to give things over to your children, to admit you can’t do it yourself anymore. To let go. But Papa really has no choice.

And indeed, he didn’t. After some more persuasion and discussion it was finalized: Moe Freed was going to serve temporarily as the new manager of the Freed Hotel. His first decision: hire Artie and Mutty to help rebuild.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 851)