“I think you have a better shot. I’ve got no sense of smell,” Penina says, laughing, and she disconnects with a brief goodbye. Gabe notices that he’s grinning. He clears his throat, takes a breath, and steps out of Rivi’s car to squint up at his old yeshivah.

When he was a kid, YNS was a squat two-story building with a few old basketball hoops. Since then, another floor has been built and a set of trailers are connected to the building to house an overflow of students. There’s a basketball court and a baseball diamond behind the fence beside the parking lot. When he walks into the main office he sees it’s been expanded to include a modern-looking waiting area.

“You signing someone out?” There’s even a security guard in front who pushes a clipboard toward him.

“Uh, no.” Gabe has pulled out one of his white Shabbos shirts for this, put on a jacket and suit pants like he was going undercover. Penina had suggested it, pointing out that he’ll get more answers in YNS if he doesn’t stand out. “I’m visiting my brother-in-law. He’s a fourth-grade rebbi here. Ezra Greenberg—”

“Sign in.” The guard looks bored and doesn’t give him a second glance. Another mark in the Penina is always right column.

The yeshivah hallways are quiet. Noise filters out from the beis medrash, but most of the boys are outside at recess. Gabe wanders down one hallway after another before he finally finds what he’s looking for.

The yeshivah has an array of framed class photos, forever on the walls where the boys had spent their childhood. Gabe finds Ezra in a few, standing beside classes of boys who look like they’re bursting with energy, just waiting to leap from their seats. Further down, he finds the grainier photos of the early 2000s.

“You’re over there.”

Gabe starts. Ezra is behind him, watching him with raised eyebrows. “Seventh grade, right? With the awkward braces.”

“That checks out,” Gabe says wryly. In one frame, his younger self stares solemnly at the camera. “I remember they weren’t covered by insurance. Abba didn’t think it was a necessary expense. Rivi sat down and lectured him for an hour. She had diagrams. I think Abba might have given in just to save himself from Rivi.”

“Sounds like Rivi.” Ezra smiles, but it’s a little wan. “Always fighting for something.”

Gabe isn’t great with people, but Ezra usually exudes such a calm contentment that even he can see that something is bothering him. “Are you okay?”

“There’s this case that Rivi wants to take,” Ezra admits. “I can already tell that it’s going to take over her life. And I—” He wipes the dust from a photo of Gabe’s third-grade class, where Gabe is staring off to the side, as he hesitates. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says finally.

“Rivi’s cases always take over her life.” Gabe’s only been here for a month and he knows that.

“Right. I know what I signed up for. And it’s always worked for us until now. You know that she was the youngest senior associate ever in her firm? And she did that when she was expecting. Twins!” Ezra lights up when he talks about Rivi, brimming with pride for her accomplishments.

But then his shoulders sag, and he looks troubled. “I don’t like to stand in her way. But this feels like it’ll be too much for her. She just lost her father. And the situation with my family has been… tense.”

“Oh, I’ve heard,” Gabe says, rueful. Rivi paces through the house at night, second-guessing every text she sends to her sisters-in-law. “She’s got plenty on her plate. Maybe it’s time to save Rivi from herself.” Rivi will shrug it off from anyone else, but she might listen to Ezra. “Tell her what you think. Communication is supposed to be helpful. At least that’s what I’ve heard from people who’ve tried it.”

Ezra laughs. Gabe shifts onward, down the hallway, and Ezra follows him, frowning. “What brings you here, anyway? And all dressed up, too.”

“I was afraid I’d see my sixth-grade rebbi. He might cry if he saw me in jeans,” Gabe says, deadpan. “I wanted to look at the pictures on the wall. Abba used to tell me that he was in one of the old collages, sitting on a ledge.”

Ezra softens. “Of course. That would have been the 1970s, right? Those are in the third-grade hallway.”

He leads Gabe up a stairwell to the next floor, and Gabe peers at the collages. There were no class pictures in the 70s, but each graduating class had put together a collection of pictures for the menahel. They’re now faded and dull with age. Abba was Class of ’74, the collage a mess of blurry faces and dim lighting.

“There.” Gabe finds the picture that he remembers. Two boys, sitting beside each other on a ledge on some class trip. They are dark-haired and cheerful, their faces hard to make out aside from their grins. “One of them is Abba. I never could figure out which. They look pretty alike.”

Ezra peers at the picture. “That one might have your nose. I’m sure there’s a better copy of the photo in their yearbook.” He lights up with boyish enthusiasm at the idea of a mystery. Gabe wishes that he could say something to him. Ezra would so love to be a part of their investigation. “The old yearbooks are all in the library. Come with me.”

The library is exactly where Gabe remembers it from childhood. “I used to spend every free minute here. I’d sneak in at recess and lunch,” he admits. “Made friends with the old librarian so she’d let me hang out here.” Ezra gives him a look, the kind that makes Gabe remember that Ezra is a pro at handling kids like the one that Gabe used to be. “I liked to read,” he says lamely. “And the quiet.”

“No surprises there,” Ezra concedes, pushing the door open. “Over here.” There’s a low shelf of yearbooks. Gabe pulls out the one marked 1974 and flips it open.

Abba hadn’t kept his yearbook. And when he turns to Avigdor Yosef HaKohein Cohen’s page, Gabe understands why.

Avigdor does look quite a bit like Abba. They have the same dark hair, the same light eyes, the same pointed chin that Rivi has. But their faces are unmistakably different. Someone who didn’t know either of them well might have mixed them up or believed that they were the same man. Even Ezra, peering over Gabe’s shoulder at Avigdor, doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong. But Gabe knows instantly.

This isn’t Abba. It isn’t a surprise anymore, but it’s still daunting to consider. Avigdor Yosef Hakohein, the boy in the picture, had been replaced with an imposter.

Below Avigdor’s name there’s a passuk from Mishlei and a quotable quote. His is “Has anyone seen Moish?”

“Who’s Moish?” Ezra wonders.

“Let’s find out.” There are three Moshes in the yearbook: Moshe Abramson, Moshe Dov Garfinkel, and the very lengthy Moshe Yehudah Chaim HaKohein Reichman. Two out of three of them are marked with a cheerful Out to Lunch cartoon where their photo should have been — only Moshe Reichman has a photo, light hair curling out defiantly from beneath his yarmulke — but under Moshe Garfinkel, the quotable quote is a matching “Has anyone seen Avigdor?”

“Your father’s best friend,” Ezra concludes. “Did you ever meet him?”

“Not that I can remember.” But Gabe’s head is spinning, searching for connections and clues in what they have so far. Penina had found a letter to Avigdor signed with an M, referencing the things that we’ve done. “They didn’t keep up, I guess. He didn’t come for a shivah visit.”

He needs to talk to Penina. “Ezra, I’ve got to go,” Gabe says, distracted.

“Right now?” Ezra looks taken aback, a shadow of hurt on his face.

“Yeah, something’s come up. I’ll see you later.” Gabe leaves the yearbook and Ezra behind and heads back to the stairs.

He passes on what he knows to Penina. “Moish Garfinkel. He was in Avigdor’s class in yeshivah. Do you think we could track him down? If nothing else, he might be able to give us some idea of what happened to Avigdor.”

“I’m on it,” Penina reassures him, and Gabe lets out a breath. He likes working with Hillel. Hillel is gifted with an easy personality and he always makes Gabe feel like he wants to be there.  He’s happy that he has him. But having Penina in his corner is a treasure. Yes, she’s efficient and reliable and straightforward in a way that Gabe, who struggles to grasp subtle social cues, appreciates. But she also takes him seriously in a way that no one else does.

He brushes aside the thought when he hangs up. Better to focus on something else.

In a burst of productivity, he works on an essay for a few hours, then decides to attempt dinner with seven-year-old Shimmy’s help. Together, they manage to burn some macaroni and add much too much salt to it, but they salvage enough to satisfy the twins and Meir pronounces it kind of edible.

Ezra pops one of Rivi’s prepared frozen chicken meals into the oven, with apologies. “I’m sure it’s delicious. I’m just not a pasta person.”

“You love lasagna,” Shimmy says suspiciously, and Gabe coaxes him to distraction with some Lego. By the time Rivi arrives home, the twins are in bed and Shimmy is in pajamas.

Rivi reads Shimmy a book, even though he can read perfectly well on his own, and then returned to the kitchen and tries the macaroni. “Please tell me the kids didn’t ingest this much salt for dinner.”

“Guess Gabe didn’t do much of the cooking when you were younger,” Ezra says, winking at Gabe. “We’ll make a chef out of him yet. How was your day?”

Gabe eats his chicken while Rivi talks about some case she’d finally resolved. “They settled, so I can finally focus on something else. That Boyd case, maybe.”

“Are you sure?” Ezra’s voice is cautious. Gabe pretends to be fascinated by the chicken. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I think it’s a bad idea. It’s too much right now.”

“Hmm.” Rivi doesn’t sound convinced. “I can look into it more. I can’t just say no when Sam Faber wants this so badly. Do you know what it’d mean for us if I made partner?” She sits at the table opposite Gabe, digging into her chicken. “I can handle it.”

Gabe glances up and sees Ezra leaning against the counter, face rigid with irritation as Rivi shrugs off his opinion. He’s staring at his wife, dissatisfaction tightening his mouth.

To Gabe, Ezra looks like he’s on the verge of snapping. But he stays quiet.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 915)