“I think we should call the police,” Mr. Laufer says, and Baila’s heart sinks with heavy, unsurprised disappointment. What accusations will they level against Mikki?

IT comes down to — of all things — a rabid raccoon on a Shabbos morning.

Well, Mikki will dispute the rabid portion of that, but that comes later.

They are walking back from shul together. Fenwood’s shul is large and elegant, nothing like the crowded little converted houses and the squat one-room buildings back in Rayon. The women here are old enough to be Baila’s mothers, and they all attend shul in light-colored dresses and matching hats. It’s their weekly social event in a town where houses and people are equally distant, and it’s the one way that Baila might make friends in Fenwood.

Instead, she arrives late and leaves before the kiddush, Mikki trailing behind her and Dovid hastening to meet them in front. They’re in Fenwood to avoid getting to know people, and they’ve made it four months without incident. No one here is unfriendly, exactly. If Baila speaks to a neighbor, she doesn’t doubt she’ll get a polite response. But the lack of community here is what had made Fenwood so appealing in the first place.

No one here asks questions. No one here watches Mikki the way all of Rayon had. No one but Baila herself, gripped with uncertainty each time she catches sight of her 17-year-old daughter.

Mikki walks behind them on the way home, beneath large trees and the ever present squawking of birds, and Baila tries, as an exercise, not to turn to check on her. The big, sprawling lawns they pass have nothing portable at their front, nothing Mikki can walk past and then — sleight of the hand, a quick movement — secrete into her dress. Not like MP3 players and phones at Bais Yaakov Rayon, like piles of school property that they’d found in Mikki’s closet after the accusations.

Removing her from that environment was the best thing you could have done for her, Mikki’s therapist had reassured Baila last Thursday. Baila doesn’t know if that means Mikki is recovering, if that means she can unlock the little box under her bed where she’s taken to keeping her jewelry. Dovid is uneasy about the box. Baila is uneasy when she drives out to work, leaving Mikki alone in the house.

But it’s Shabbos, and Baila is trying to trust Mikki, so she doesn’t turn, and misses the moment when Mikki stops following them down into the cul-de-sac.

“Mom!” Mikki calls, and Baila doesn’t react to it as much as Mikki’s voice.

Mom is something new, when even Baila’s three married daughters still call her Mommy. Less new is the alarm in Mikki’s tone.

“Wait. Look.”

Baila turns, follows Mikki’s finger, and spots it. There’s a raccoon out in broad daylight, staggering across the end of the cul-de-sac.

“Too much schnapps at the shalom zachar, huh?” Dovid says lightly.

Mikki doesn’t laugh.

“Something’s wrong. It looks disoriented. I think it’s sick.”

“Then let’s get inside before we all contract rabies,” Baila says, moving a safe distance away from the raccoon. It doesn’t seem to notice their approach. Instead, it puts one clawed paw onto the curb, heaves itself up, then slips and rolls onto its back. It lies still for a few minutes as they watch.

That’s the end of the raccoon, Baila decides, and she strides inside.