She blinked in shock as she tried to remember the last time Akiva’s mother had visited them, and drew up blank

Akiva  hadn’t realized how much he missed luxury eating until he was inside Smoke & Embers and he found himself letting out a breath. Had he been holding that breath for six months?

He nodded at the host.

“Meeting Mr. Frankel?” The man gave a slight bow and motioned for Akiva to follow him.

Menashe was sitting in a private booth, nursing a very red cocktail.

“That is not neat scotch,” Akiva said by way of hello.

Menashe looked up, straw still in his hand, and Akiva saw his baby brother, drinking chocolate milk at the milchig island in the Frankel estate.

Twenty-six-year-old Menashe grinned. “Nope. It’s the fruitiest, bubbliest cocktail they had.”

Akiva nodded at the waiter who had appeared out of thin air. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“Very good, sir.”

Menashe fist-bumped him, and they grinned like second-graders.

“So.” Akiva put his elbows on the table in a way that would have scandalized Bubby. “Veibish drinks aside, why on earth have you invited me here, aside from treating me to a night out?”

He waggled his eyebrows, trying to lighten the obvious message that there was no way he was paying for a meal at Smoke & Embers at this point in his life.

Menashe held out the menu magnanimously, Akiva smiled and cracked it open.

“Because,” his little brother said, “I just had to spend a weekend upstate, time I did not have, because people have been filling Ma’s head with ideas about me and my marriage. And”—here his voice became steel, but Akiva could hear the tremor inside—“it has to stop.”