“People don’t want to hear that a daughter of theirs has some psychiatric issue that will take a lot of effort to control and that they’ll have to hide from their friends. Speech therapy is nice polite. Safe. Everyone goes to speech therapy.”

Suri reached across the table to clear his dinner plate. She had her seniors’ group in another hour though if it were up to her she’d spend the evening curled up in bed. “Wasn’t so long ago that even speech therapy carried a stigma” she said as she stood up.

“Yeah well mental-health problems have a much bigger stigma and I don’t see it going away so fast.”

She sighed as she turned to face him. “You think I was wrong to bring it up?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. You needed to. If it’s true it could be sakanas nefashos. But—”

“I went about it the wrong way” she murmured finishing the sentence he seemed unwilling to complete himself. “I should’ve eased it in a little more.” She clenched her teeth as she began washing the dishes. “I messed up didn’t I?”

Shaul walked over to the sink. “Why does your mind jump so quickly from analyzing a situation to taking full blame?”

She shook her head wordlessly as she felt a lump forming in her throat. It was just too much all these recent events back-to-back. Yael. Zevi Heyman. The Goldfeders. So many people angry or hurt because of her.

She swallowed and blinked her eyes as she whispered “Maybe I should just go back to working at the Board of Ed. I never had all these problems there. I just did what I was supposed to and everyone was happy.”

Shaul took the dish from her trembling hand and began to dry it. “Hey is that the goal here? To have everyone happy with you? Look how much good you’ve done with the clinic. Taking on a leadership role comes with responsibility and it’s inevitable that not everyone’s going to be happy with your choices. That doesn’t mean you should stop.”

She scrubbed a spoon silently for a moment digesting this. “But what if they have a right to be upset? What if I made the wrong choice?”

“You mean what if you’re human?”

Despite herself she gave a little smile. “So you think I shouldn’t give up here but should figure out the best way to convince them?”

He placed the dried dish in the cabinet. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Yeah” she sighed. “But first they have to agree to come back to see me.”