Colin from Neiman HVAC and Plumbing showed up the same day, as promised. He found a clogged heat exchanger in the Shechter’s boiler. It took him five minutes to diagnose, five minutes to fix, and five minutes to get the boiler working again. As a precaution, he checked the pressure relief valve, which was mounted on the side of the boiler. He pulled the handle tight, using extra force, not realizing that he jarred the spring-loaded plunger. The internal mechanism was knocked out of place, and the valve slid shut, with a final, definite click.

Unaware, Colin wiped his hands on the sides of his pants and went upstairs to report to Mrs. Shechter that her boiler was up and running again, in perfect order.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Rena greeted Eliyahu as he came home from work.

Eliyahu was exhausted, wrung out from the endless pile of invoices on his desk which he was tasked with investigating, paying, and then filing for Greenwald Medical Billing. He wanted nothing more than to eat supper and collapse on the recliner. But he understood Rena-speak. So he said, “Sure.”

But first, supper. He ate alone, to the backdrop of Rena’s urging Shmuel into the bath, “It’s hot now! Feel how cozy the water is.”

Finally, Shmuel was in bed, the other children in the playroom. “Let’s go,” Rena said, grabbing her coat.

“How bad is it?” Eliyahu spoke in the shorthand of parents in crisis everywhere. “As bad as November?”

Rena shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets. “Not that bad. Not yet.”

“But….”

“I spoke to Gila,” Rena said.

Eliyahu knew that Yaelli’s therapist was wonderful. She made time to take Rena’s calls. But with the months of treatment, and the regular phone consultations, they still had not made progress.

“She said there’s not much more she can do for Yaelli,” Rena said. “Gila feels like Yaelli needs more. She said it’s time to consider a more comprehensive treatment plan.”

“What kind of treatment plan?” Eliyahu could feel a headache blooming in his temples.

“Gila said there’s a terrific program, run by a frum group of therapists at Thrive Wellness Center,” Rena said. “It’s a full-day program, five days a week. Very intense work. It’s outpatient, so Yaelli could still be home.”

The wave of Eliyahu’s headache reached a crest and then receded. Home, Yaelli could still be home. That was something. He glanced at his wife. Could Rena be feeling hopeful? Was it possible this Thrive had the answer? After all the time and money spent trying all these different modalities, could this really address the root of the problem?

“I think this could really work,” Rena responded to Eliyahu’s unspoken question. “I think we should do it for Yaelli.”

“Would Yaelli be willing to go?” Eliyahu asked.

“I think so. She’s hardly in school anyway. As long as we don’t tell anyone where she’s actually going.”

“Sounds good,” Eliyahu said. “How much does it cost?”

Rena fiddled with her scarf. “It’s two thousand dollars a week. For four weeks.”

Eliyahu sucked in his breath, and the headache was back, stronger than before.

“I know,” Rena said. “Maybe you could talk to Mr. Greenwald….”

Eliyahu was silent. He was too embarrassed to tell Rena the subject of last week’s meeting with his boss. How his boss had refused him a raise. How he’d begged for something beyond his 40 hours a week in Accounts Payable. “Some kind of opportunity….”

Mr. Greenwald had offered him the mail room, a narrow hall in the back of the lobby that was crowded with boxes and papers, in a perpetual state of disarray. “Since Mrs. Cohn retired, the mail room is a mess. She used to keep it organized, made sure the mail went into everyone’s boxes, that we were stocked with stamps, envelopes, whatever….”

Mr. Greenwald was willing to offer Eliyahu five thousand dollars to keep the mail room in order. Eliyahu had willed himself to say, “No, thank you” in a measured tone. He left his boss’s office, shaking with humiliation and impotent fury. A mail guy. That’s what Mr. Greenwald thought of him. That he was just good enough to be a schlack shammash.

It was a pity offer, too shameful to accept, too shameful to tell Rena about.

Eventually, Eliyahu said, “I just can’t, Rena. There’s no way… I can’t.”

Rena sighed. “What about Tomchei Tzedakah?”

“I can try,” Eliyahu said. The nonprofit organization was already subsidizing Yaelli’s appointments with Gila. But even that required Eliyahu begging, calls from the rav, calls from the principal, just to get the $125 a week for a therapist. Another $1,875? It may as well have been a million.

“Can we ask Abie for the money?” Rena suggested.

“No. I’m not asking him for more favors,” Eliyahu said. “We’ll have to figure it out ourselves.”

The next day, Yaelli refused to go to school. She had an 11 o’clock therapy appointment, and Rena didn’t have the strength to fight with her about going to school for only two hours. She got the rest of the kids off and said Pesukei D’zimra slowly and carefully. Rena was just sitting down to her coffee when the sound hit — a deep boom, as if a giant fist was thudding against the house. The floor beneath her feet gave a shudder, and she heard a faint hissing come from the basement.

Carefully, Rena opened the door to the basement and crept down the stairs. The faint glow from a high basement window cast just enough light for her to see the glistening spray shooting from a pipe connected to the boiler. Steam swirled in the air like ghostly tendrils, making the room feel like a sauna gone horribly wrong.

The boiler stood at the far end of the basement, its front panel now askew, barely clinging to the warped metal frame. A fine spray of water, mixed with something darker — oil? rust? — gushed out of a hairline crack in the tank, pooling rapidly on the floor. The smell of wet metal and burnt plastic stung her nose as Rena inched backward up the stairs.

“Ma?” Yaelli called from upstairs. “What was that?”

The boiler gave a sickening groan, almost alive in its misery. Water creeped outward, spilling over stacks of boxes, lapping at the treadmill, the bookcases. Suddenly, Rena was moving fast, she ran up the last few steps, grabbed the phone and punched in “Abie Neiman.”

“Abie! It’s the boiler! It blew up or something. There’s water everywhere!”

Everyone in shul was hocking about the Shechter’s basement. How many inches of water had it been? How long did it take for the Neiman guys to fix it? And most important, how much damage? How many precious items were lost?

Eliyahu’s friends took a vicarious thrill as he listed the losses. The treadmill, the couch, the bottom shelves of the bookcases. A box of albums with photos from the pre-digital days, which could never be recovered. Of course, the carpet was ruined, and who knows the state of the flooring underneath?

“Are you documenting this?” asking Golding.

“Sure, for the insurance adjuster,” Eliyahu said.

“Your guy knows what he’s doing?” Weiss winked. “Can he help you make an extra couple thousand?”

“Yeah,” Golding chimed in, “You can start your kids’ chasunah funds.”

“Heh,” Eliyahu snorted. As if he could think that far ahead.

“You know you can sue him,” Weiss said.

“Sue who?”

“The plumber. If he made a mistake that caused your to boiler blow up, he’s liable.”

“Sue the plumber?” Eliyahu said. “It’s Neiman, my wife’s brother. You can’t bring a lawsuit against your own family.”

“You could,” Weiss said. “My teenage cousin was in a car accident a few years ago. My uncle was driving, and he sideswiped a semi on the highway, totally my uncle’s fault. My cousin sued for damages and made thirty thousand dollars.”

Golding whistled. “Thirty thousand dollars? Not bad.”

“He sued his own father?” Eliyahu said.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Weiss explained. “L’maaseh his father was the driver and he was liable.”

“What about insurance premiums?” Golding asked. “Didn’t the father’s rates go way up because of the lawsuit?”

“I guess they did the math,” Weiss shrugged. “The payout to the son was worth it for the father’s premiums to go up.”

“But…” Eliyahu was bothered. “He got up in court and accused his own father of being negligent? A bad driver?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Weiss snorted, “I bet the whole thing was settled. A couple of lawyers in a conference room. And the kid walked out with thirty thousand dollars.”

For the rest of the day that last line of conversation is what stuck in Eliyahu head. “The kid walked out with thirty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand dollars.”

Eliyahu and Rena met that night, with a stack of forms to fill out for the adjuster.

The remains of dinner were still on the table. The kids’ plates, with the crusts of chicken pot pie piled at the edge. Rena’s and Eliyahu’s plates, scraped clean. Yaelli’s place was empty.

They went through Proof of Loss forms, trying to estimate the value of the items in the flood. Then Rena slid another piece of paper on top of the stack. The application for Thrive Wellness Center.

“We have to do this. Yaelli needs this.”

Eliyahu stared at the numbers on the bottom of the page: $8,000.

“I’ll squeeze in more hours at work. I’ll babysit on Sundays. I’ll rob a bank….” Rena’s voice broke.

Eliyahu looked at his wife. He may as well tell her the options. If she was willing to commit a felony, would she be willing to sue her own brother?

Rena’s answer was yes. Immediately, a desperate and unequivocal yes.

“It’s your brother,” Eliyahu said.

“It’s our daughter.”

Weiss was happy to refer Eliyahu to his cousin, who told him that Mr. Meyer was an excellent attorney, a frum guy who “chapped the matzav.” He would even be willing to advance Eliyahu the money, as a no-interest loan, if he was confident in the case.

“This looks like an open and shut case,” Meyer said. He thumbed through the documents from the adjuster with the printed pictures of the damage. “Clear negligence. The HVAC technician failed to perform his work with a reasonable standard of care, which directly caused the boiler explosion and subsequent damages.”

“We’re suing the tech? I thought—” Eliyahu started.

“No, it’s the company’s responsibility,” Meyer interrupted. “Neiman HVAC and Plumbing. The company has to oversee their workers, with the duty to perform their work safely and competently.”

“I see,” Eliyahu said. There was no easy out here. “Look, the company is my shvogger. My wife’s brother.” He paused for comment, but Meyer had seen enough that he didn’t react to the statement.

“I have to do this,” Eliyahu continued. “It’s just going to be a little tricky….”

“Look, if I were you, I would be up front. Tell your brother-in-law you’re going to file. Better he should hear it from you,” Meyer advised.

This conversation needed to be face-to-face, Eliyahu knew. Luckily, Rena’s cousin got engaged later that week and the vort was on Motzaei Shabbos. Eliyahu decided to seize the opportunity, right there among the cubed fruit cups and miniatures.

“Abie, can I talk to you for a minute? Privately?”

“Sure,” Abie said.

Abie walked with Eliyahu to the edge of the room, near the coat racks. “What’s up?

Eliyahu told him about the lawsuit in the most even voice he could muster. He forced himself to make eye contact. “It’s not personal,” Eliyahu said.

Abie stared at his brother-in-law as his cheeks shaded to a dark pink. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Rena and I discussed it. It’s something we have to do.” Eliyahu glanced over his shoulder to where his wife was standing alongside Abie’s wife, scooping salad onto a plate. He looked away.

Abie’s face was beet red now, and the cup in his hand crunched noisily.

“Excuse me,” Abie muttered to Eliyahu, and headed to the stairwell, without looking back.

There was radio silence between the Shechters and the Neimans after that night. No phone calls, no texts, no discussions at all. Rena had not told her parents about the lawsuit yet, though she wondered how much longer it could stay quiet.

Two weeks after the papers had been served Rena was shopping in Le Petit Bebe. It was not her usual haunt, but she had a gift card, there were some items on sale, and Shmuel was outgrowing his Shabbos outfits.

It was Dassa who saw Rena first, as she glanced over from the rack of new arrivals. She was holding two frilly dresses in her hands, and she turned to the saleswoman. “Just a second, Julia. Can you hold these for me, please?”

“Sure, Mrs. Neiman,” and with practiced familiarity, Julia slid the hangers from Dassa’s hands.

“Rena,” Dassa said as she approached her sister-in-law. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Rena dropped the leggings onto the table. “I just…” she stopped. She did not need to excuse herself to Dassa. Not now and not ever.

“How could you?” Dassa said, quiet and cold. “How could you do this to Abie? To our family?”

“It’s not personal,” Rena said. “It’s business—”

“Of course it’s personal!” Dassa exclaimed. “Don’t be so naive. Everything in business is personal. You’re hurting Abie’s reputation!”

Rena said nothing.

“And for what?” Dassa said. “You’re doing this for what? For money?”

Rena clutched her purse. Inside was the intake form from Thrive. Yaelli had started there today. She was doing this for Yaelli. But she’d promised Yaelli that she wouldn’t tell a soul.

“You know, I never thought you and Eliyahu would do such a thing,” Dassa said slowly, as if thinking aloud. “All for money. It’s just money.”

“You know,” Rena mimicked Dassa’s tone, falsely ruminating. “It’s only people who have plenty of money who use that expression. It’s just money. That’s how rich people talk. You’ll never hear it from a poor person, who’s running themselves ragged, trying to scrape their way through the month. You’ll never hear them say, ‘It’s just money.’ ”

Shocked by herself, by her sister-in-law’s horrified stare, Rena dropped the leggings on the table and stalked out of the store.

Eliyahu had to take off work for his next meeting with the attorney. Mr. Greenwald wasn’t happy, he made a snide remark about, “People who say they want to get ahead and then sabotage their own success.” But the boss said it under his breath, low enough for Eliyahu to pretend he hadn’t heard it.

He’d become adept at pretending not to notice things. The whispering about him in shul. The neighbors in the grocery who nudged each other when he walked by. Weiss, who wanted all the credit for the idea, kept bugging Eliyahu for updates. “Nu, how’s the soon-to-be gvir doing? Did you order your private jet yet?” But Eliyahu ignored him, too.

The only way he could get through this was to narrow his focus to the people that mattered. Rena, working and driving Yaelli back and forth to Thrive every single day, too exhausted to serve supper beyond fish sticks and frozen pizza. Yaelli, who seemed different, like they were moving in the right direction.

“It’s worth it,” Eliyahu told himself. It’s all worth it.

Mr. Meyer ushered Eliyahu into the conference room and sat down across from him.

“We’re making good progress,” Meyer said, opening the file folder. He walked Eliyahu through the line of reasoning they would present to the judge. Breach of duty, that Colin had damaged the pressure relief valve in a clear violation of industry standards. Causation, that the boiler had exploded because of Colin’s mistake, not due to any preexisting issue. Damages, that the Shechters had suffered measurable harm, including repair costs, property damage, and emotional distress.

“I was in touch with the defendant’s attorney,” Meyer said. “Nate Richman. A good attorney, very aggressive. But he knows we have a strong case here. Richman already started making noises about a settlement.”

“A settlement?” Eliyahu asked. “You mean no court case?”

“That’s what Richman wants,” Meyer said. “But not us. If this case goes to trial, you can get so much more. Once the judge hears this case, you’ve got compensation for repairs, lost property. The judge may even tack on punitive damages.”

“Punitive damages?”

“Yeah, financial compensation beyond the standard damages,” Meyer explained. “If we can prove Colin was particularly reckless.”

“But he wasn’t,” Eliyahu said. “Colin was just a guy….”

“Uh uh,” Meyer held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t you argue for the defense. This case is about you. Getting the most money you can means painting the other guy as bad as possible. That’s how you win.”

“Oh,” Eliyahu said.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Meyer peered at his client.

“No, no,” Eliyahu said. “Of course not.”

Rena’s mother called to check if they were going to the siyum.

”The siyum?” Rena echoed.

“Yes, Abie is doing Amud Yomi now, and they just finished Bava Basra,” the senior Mrs. Neiman’s voice was shimmering with pride. “They’re making a siyum Monday night, at Bistro Belle. I’m sure Eliyahu knows about it. Dassa couldn’t decide whether to invite kids or not. The party room holds a hundred people, but when there are kids running around, it’s just a different atmosphere. Did Dassa call you?”

“Uh— no, Dassa didn’t call me.” Rena managed to unstick her jaw. Her mother still didn’t know. She didn’t know about anything. She didn’t know how bad things were with Yaelli, how desperate Eliyahu and Rena were, how angry Abie and Dassa were…. They’d been trying to protect her parents. But Rena knew it was a false security, because word would reach them, eventually.

And then what was Rena going to do?

BY the time Eliyahu left Meyer’s office, it was 4:45, too late to get back to the office, too early to daven Minchah. He had a pocket of time with nowhere to go, so he just drove. There were tens of thousands of dollars coming his way. What this was really all about. Dollars and cents. He had weighed the balance, the cost to Abie and his family, versus the benefit to Yaelli and his own family. The math made sense.

And yet….

Without realizing it, Eliyahu found himself across town, in the neighborhood where his in-laws still lived. He tapped the brakes, slowed his car to a crawl as he drove past the modest colonial where Rena grew up. The iron railing on the front porch, badly in need of a paint job, where he stepped out with this girl he knew from the start would be his wife. The paved driveway, where he stood at his vort, handing out chassan cigarettes. Abie had been part of that chevreh, his new brother-in-law, his new buddy, slapping him on the back, wishing him mazel tov.

They’d gotten along great back then, when life was fresh and open, when a million possibilities that lay in front of him, in his new life with Rena.

He glanced at the file folder in the front seat, the edges of Meyer’s paperwork stuffed under his tallis bag, a hidden and disgraceful thing. Eliyahu gripped the steering wheel as he passed the corner shul where his Shabbos sheva brachos had taken place, where Abie had stood up and given a derashah about “unzere chassan….”

Eliyahu pulled into the shul parking lot. His chest tightened. He wanted to hold onto the stoke the fire of desperate need that had fueled him for the past few weeks. But sitting here, surrounded by memories, all Eliyahu could feel was doubt.

What was he doing?

This was only the beginning. The silence and resentment now a thin sheet of ice that would only grow thicker over time. Eliyahu twisted the ignition, turned off the engine. He rubbed his face, tried to collect himself. A car pulled up next to him, then another. It was time for Minchah.

Eliyahu davened on autopilot, muttering the words, soundless and thoughtless. Until Modim. Then he forced himself to slow down. “Modim anachnu lach….” Thank you, Hashem, for Yaelli, thank You, Hashem, that she is finding healing.

“Sim shalom, tovah, u’brachah…” Eliyahu stopped. Tovah and brachah he could ask for. But shalom? How could he ask Hashem for shalom, when he was actively doing the opposite? Eliyahu’s mind raced. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the page. He dimly heard the guy next to him shuffle for Kedushah, he echoed Amens along with the Kaddish. He glanced up, noticing someone staring at him. Quickly, Eliyahu flipped the page to Aleinu. Was the guy staring because Eliyahu was not participating? Or could he see on Eliyahu’s face that something inside of him was broken in two?

“I can’t do it,” he said to Rena later that night. “I’ll call Meyer tomorrow morning. We can file for voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit. It’s early enough, there’s no court date yet.”

Rena looked at him, and then she nodded.

“The money will come from somewhere else. I’ll go into Greenwald tomorrow.” Eliyahu paused. He may as well go with radical honesty. “I’ll go into Greenwald again. The first time, a couple of weeks ago, he offered me the… the mailroom. To be the guy who organizes the packages, straightens out the mail. Like Mrs. Cohn used to do. I turned it down.”

Rena’s eyes softened.

“I’m going to do it,” Eliyahu said. “It’ll be awful. But it’s an extra few hundred dollars a week.”

There was new math now. Thrive was still an item in the budget. But it had to be balanced by the cost of Eliyahu’s relationship with Abie, Rena’s relationship with the rest of her family. Added up, you come to a different bottom line. On the balance, Eliyahu’s pride in not taking the mail room job was too high a cost.

Eliyahu called Abie that night, before he could lose his nerve. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Would Abie even pick up his call? Then—

“Yeah?” Abie’s said.

“I have to tell you something,” Eliyahu said.

“Me or my lawyer?” Abie asked. “Because Nate Richman says I shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”

“About that,” Eliyahu pushed ahead, forcing the words out of his mouth so they tripped over each other. “I’m not — I stopped — I mean, I’m not doing it. I’m not suing you.”

“I see,” Abie’s tone was still cool. “And what brought about this change in legal strategy? Did you find someone else with deeper pockets? Some other hardworking professional to drag through the mud—”

“I made a mistake,” Eliyahu interrupted him. “I was wrong.”

There was silence on the other end. Eliyahu went on, “I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry. I thought I was — I was trying to be a good father. But I messed up. I felt like I was stuck…. I was desperate. So I did a desperate thing. But I was wrong…. Please Abie, can you say something? Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Abie said. “I’m listening.”

Monday, on the day of Abie’s siyum, Rena’s mother called again.

“Do you think I should wear the black top with the fringed scarf? Or the sequin one?”

Rena knew her mother was feeling pressure from the mechutanim. Even after all these years, Dassa’s mother could still induce a slight fashion panic before a family event.

“Not the sequin one,” Rena said. “Look, Ma, I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

“You’ll miss your own brother’s siy um?” Mrs. Neiman asked.

How could Rena explain? They were going to move on, Eliyahu was going to do what he could to mend things between them. But Rena was still too shaky to face Dassa.

The parking lot at Bistro Belle was full. Eliyahu hadn’t  told Rena he was coming. Yaelli had asked to go shopping for a new sweater and Rena was distracted with planning a shopping trip after so many months of Yaelli not wanting to go anywhere.

Now, he pulled up his tie and squared his shoulders as he entered the glittering hall. The first person he saw was Dassa. His sister-in-law stood at the door, smiling brightly as she graciously received mazel tov wishes. She caught sight of Eliyahu and her smile faltered. Eliyahu raised his hand in a hesitant wave. Dassa’s mouth pressed together into a perfect straight line, and she turned away.

“You knew this wasn’t going to be easy,” Eliyahu muttered to himself. He forced himself to step into the room, toward the men clustered on the other side of the hall. He saw Abie next to the carving station, his arm around his chavrusa.

Eliyahu locked eyes with Abie. Despite the fact that he hadn’t slept, that he was emotionally exhausted, and in a vague mental haze, Eliyahu was glad he’d come. He was glad to see Abie celebrate his success, surrounded by well-wishers and supporters. Watching Abie greet another man with a warm handshake, Eliyahu forced himself forward, to move past the shame. Forced himself to get in line, to shake Abie’s hand and wish him mazel tov. The touch of his shvogger’s palm was brief. “Thanks for coming.”

Eliyahu nodded a quick hello to Rena’s parents, and then he went home. His step was lighter, as if he’d excised a painful part of himself, cut it out and thrown it away. He smiled to himself as he walked in the door.

“How was your shopping trip?” he greeted his family. “Let me see what you bought.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 934)