Atarah emerges from her room and I drop a kiss on her forehead. She’s pale beneath the blush. The house is unusually quiet the other kids all at their cousins’. My sister has this thing for Succos sleepovers; tonight it’s a heaven-sent blessing.“Ready?”A nod.She’s going out for the first time tonight. The boy — a Yair Landstrom — sounded good through all our enquiries as we poked through the words to find hints of trouble or maybe even droplets of truth. A learner — not one of the sparkly insecure types who asks questions to make the rosh yeshivah frown in concentration and who has a small following of chassidim. The solid dependable type. Atarah needs that. She’s like Shalom. Besides I couldn’t bear the thought of her going out with some firecracker of a boy.I’ve got a show on tonight so I splurged on a cleaning lady and the house looks great. So great that I’m not even embarrassed when there’s a light tap on the door and in walksYairLandstrom hat set back on his head cheeks tinged with uncertainty. Sweet. He talks to Shalom in the dining room and then we usher the pair — couple? — out the front door. Atarah ducks back to give me a kiss goodbye. And then in a flash of dark brown hair and light peach silk she is gone for the night.