He heads back upstairs to get an orange from the fridge and sees a magnet featuring Rivi’s kids with Penina’s son. Maybe you do owe Penina answers?

Everything around him is a bomb, ready to be detonated, and Gabe needs to leave this house, this silence, before he’s swallowed by it.

He calls Hillel, who is only too happy to help. “I’m out on a Shomrim patrol right now,” he says cheerfully. “Want to ride along?”

Gabe slides into the car when it pulls up, relieved at the distraction. “Is there a lot of crime here?”

“Nah.” Hillel casts a cautious eye around. “Lenape Falls is quiet, especially in the frum areas. But people feel more comfortable knowing that we’re out there.” He grins at Gabe. “Enjoying some peace and quiet with the family out?”

“Yeah,” Gabe lies. “I might even get to work on an article for SAPIENS Magazine that I’ve been pushing off.”

“Sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll read this one.” Hillel laughs. “Although I probably won’t understand half of it. But I love being able to point to your articles and say Hey, I know that guy! Really baffles the people at work, who can’t imagine anyone frum in those places you go to.”

Hillel’s mention of work reminds Gabe of Penina again, and he’s about to ask something about her that’s none of his business when Hillel says suddenly, “You figured out anything else about your father’s secret brother?” They’re driving near the Jewish cemetery, and Hillel squints out at the mausoleum as Gabe recoils.

“Uh. No. Not yet. You haven’t heard anything new from the investigators either, right?” Rivi is their contact person, but if she’s gotten any news today, she hasn’t mentioned it to Gabe. There have been three text messages from Rivi today.

Can you make sure I unplugged the toaster oven?

Shortly after, Unless you want to use the toaster oven.

And then, an hour ago, Don’t forget to double-lock the door before you go to sleep. That last one is classic Rivi, a little burst of worry for her baby brother who has been living alone perfectly well for six years.

“More testing. Sounds like they’re close to some answers, though. I’m sure they’ll update you when they have more info. It’s pretty wild, huh?” Hillel turns the corner, passing close to the mausoleum, when he stops short. “Hang on. Did you see that?”

Gabe peers out of the window. He’s leery of getting too close to the cemetery, ever-conscious of the fact that he’s a Kohein, but he can see what’s caught Hillel’s attention. There’s movement in the dark, right near the mausoleum. It might be a nighttime visitor or the cemetery caretaker. But Gabe doesn’t see any flashlights. A visitor with nothing to hide would use a flashlight, right?

“Could be an animal.” Hillel pulls over.

Gabe’s experience tells him otherwise. “No. Look down.” A shadow stretches across the grass, cast far by the streetlamps outside the mausoleum. It looks human to him. “Someone’s out there.”

“Could be some teenagers trying something. That’s happened once or twice.” Hillel ducks out of the car. “Hey! Anyone out there?” he calls. Gabe stays in the car, too close to the cemetery to step out, and he watches as Hillel shines his flashlight into the gate. He walks around to the front, his flashlight beam sweeping over the cemetery, and Gabe squints at the mausoleum, trying to spot the figure again.

But there’s nothing there, the shadow is gone, and Gabe waits in tense silence in the car until Hillel returns. “Gate’s locked,” he reports. “And there doesn’t seem to be any other way for someone to have gotten in. I called the cops, but I doubt it’s anything to worry about.”

“Yeah,” Gabe says, but he feels uneasy, and is almost relieved to return to Rivi’s house when Hillel finishes his patrol. Almost. Hillel feels so removed from all the things that are wrong in Gabe’s life that being around him is like sitting in sunshine as the rain pours around him.

It’s still too early to sleep, and Gabe doesn’t remember what he used to do to pass the time. Read? Write?

He reaches for his phone as though there might be someone to call. Manaus is an hour ahead, too late to call a work buddy, and he isn’t usually a big chatter, anyway. Maybe he will sit down and work on that article.

Instead, his fingers scroll down his list of contacts, and he hesitates when he sees where he’s stopped. Penina. He’s still feeling guilty about their exchange last week, the way that he bolted when she demanded answers from him. He should have deleted the number years ago, but now it taunts him, demanding the apology she deserves.

He sets the phone down. Picks it up again. Hits Call. It rings and rings, and Gabe thinks that Penina will just ignore it — except then she picks up, her voice wary. “Hello?”

“Penina?”

“Who is this?” Penina, it seems, has deleted his number.

“It’s… uh… it’s Gabe. Sorry to bother you.” He can nearly feel the air cool over the phone line. “I just wanted to apologize for the other day. Last week, I mean. I should have said something on Shabbos—”

“You really shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have wanted an audience for that.” She sounds terse but not entirely hostile, and Gabe decides to plunge onward.

“No. I mean, yes.” He’s saying all the wrong things. “I didn’t just mean for last week. I need to apologize for… for the way that I left six years ago.” Silence. Gabe swallows. “When I broke off the shidduch—”

“Broke off implies that you did something to end it.” Now she’s definitely shifted to hostile. “Not that you ran away and left Rivi to do it for you.”

He remembers the mess he’d been in when he’d gone. He’d forgotten to pack half of his things, hadn’t even said goodbye to Rivi and her family. Abba had driven him to the airport, and he’d said, in that slow, sad voice of his, Are you sure that this is what you want? Abba had liked hearing about Penina, had been pleased that Gabe had been so happy.

Gabe hadn’t answered him. This is a great work opportunity, he’d said instead.

Abba had clasped his hand. It is. I am proud of all you’ve accomplished. He didn’t say things like that often, and when he did express affection, it always sounded as though it was struggling to emerge through a veil of emotion. Gabe had shaken his father’s hand and left the car. Then he strode into the terminal and onto the plane and only processed what he’d done when he’d been 35,000 feet in the air.

“I was terrified,” he admits to Penina now. “The idea of trying to build a family was… it was overwhelming. I didn’t know how any of it worked. I didn’t know how normal people with normal families acted. You know that we were… we had an unconventional childhood.” He remembers Rivi on the train two weeks ago, her face fierce. It shouldn’t have gone that way.

“I’ve tried to understand how to do it right.” Penina is silent on the other end, her even breathing Gabe’s only indication that she’s listening. “I’ve spent years studying people — it’s why I wound up in anthropology, I think — and I still don’t feel like I understand them. I was so sure that I’d ruin us if we got married. I was afraid that I’d hurt you even worse if I stayed. But you deserve a better apology than this.”

Penina speaks. “Yes,” she says. It’s something he’s always admired about Penina: She knows her worth. She won’t equivocate now, won’t come up with excuses for others because it’s socially accepted for both sides to be apologetic.

Right now, on the other end of that brutal honesty, it feels gutting.

“Maybe you would have ruined things,” she says. “But you had no right to make that decision for me. You should have talked to me about it.”

But if he’d talked to her, she would have dismissed his fears, would have insisted that they’d be fine. Penina has always been more confident about Gabe’s stability than Gabe was.

“I was trying to protect you,” he says in a small voice.

“You were trying to protect yourself,” Penina scoffs. “You did what you wanted. I dealt with it. It’s all… it’s over and done with now. But don’t tell me that you were being selfless when you left,” she says, her voice steely and uncompromising. “Don’t pretend that your decision was about anyone but you.”

Gabe’s fingers tighten on the phone. “You have no idea how hard it was. You don’t know what I was thinking at the time. It was — I know it wasn’t what you wanted. But it was the only decision I could make at the time. I should have told you myself, that’s all. And I’m sorry I didn’t.”

This phone call was a mistake. He shouldn’t have unearthed all these old, bruised resentments. But there’s a part of him that’s glad about it, relieved that it’s all out in the open. That Penina is angry with him, and that he is bearing it.

It’s a first step, maybe. To atonement. To closure. Still, he wavers in the face of Penina’s cold fury.

“You should have,” she says, voice frosty. “And I shouldn’t have to be the one to explain that to you.” A pause; Gabe’s stomach roils. Then she only sounds tired. “Goodbye, Gabe.”

The phone disconnects.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 908)