I puffed on a joint to slow my growing irritation. As the grass soothed my jitters I thought about parenting in a way I had long forgotten. I thought about the unceasing demand to park my personal needs in the back of the bus. Rebecca’s death had completely overshadowed memories of dirty diapers, wet beds, late night crying jags. Marriage with Chana had been a real attempt to share our lives, our child, our work. But sitting at the table battling my impatience reminded me that a lot of that sharing had simply meant a perpetual stream of housework.

Instead of throwing me, the revisionist thinking actually helped stem my annoyance. I considered bourbon but went brew instead. The house was completely dark because I kept the lights off. Not for protection; the lights were off because it was comfortable to sit in the black, sip my cold beer, and think about the way my life had really been, not the way I usually painted it.

Yakov’s insistent finger on the doorbell sliced through my head like a bloody Texas chainsaw. I hopped from the chair and nearly ran to the building’s front door.

“You have a heavy hand, my boy,” I said, leading him back downstairs.

“I walked around to the alley but didn’t see any lights. I thought you left.”

“I haven’t budged since your call,” I said reassuringly.

“Why were you sitting in the dark?”

He was reluctant to enter the unlit rooms so I pulled the lamp chain. “Come inside for a moment. I want to get my things. Aren’t you cold just wearing that suit?”

“I don’t think about the cold. Why can’t we stay here?” he complained to my back. “I told you I didn’t want to go anywhere else.”

I didn’t want to add to his tension with my concerns. “We’re not going far. Just upstairs to my father-in-law’s place. If I sit here any longer I’ll go nuts.”

Yakov looked thoughtful. “Your apartment is still not safe, is it? That’s why the lights were off and why you’re taking me upstairs?”

“That’s not why the lights were off. It is why I’m taking you upstairs. I don’t think there is any danger. But as long as I’m responsible for you I can’t take chances.”

“You are not responsible for me,” he flared. “No one is but me, and Hashem.”

“Hashem?”

“God.” He spoke a very quick sentence in Hebrew or Yiddish then blurted out, This is an incredible mistake. I should never have come here.”

I stopped gathering my cigarettes and keys, turned, and took my first real look. His face was pale and exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept. A slight tremble danced along his lower lip and he kept pulling at the strings that ran down his pant sides.

“Well, I don’t know whether you made the right decision or not,” I said gently. “But you’re here and we might as well go upstairs while you decide.”

Yakov nodded stiffly. I thought he was afraid to trust his voice. I resisted a temptation to place my hand on his shoulder as I passed by. I didn’t know what clawed at him, but I did know he’d resent any hint of condescension. Yakov deep-breathed to regain his composure as I led us up the hall steps. I made sure not to turn around until we were inside Lou’s apartment.

“Do you have a preference? Kitchen? Living room?”

“Which room looks most like yours?”

“The kitchen.” I smiled. “Does that mean we go to the living room?”

“No.”

I walked toward Lou’s kitchen, Yakov in tow. Despite the empty oven, the room was fragrant with the delicious smell of a bakery in overdrive.

“Somebody was cooking here?” Yakov asked once we were seated at the table.

“Lou was baking.”

“My coming has sent him from his house?”

“Stop being paranoid. He’s delivering the goods to a friend upstairs and cooking with her. You’re not putting anybody out.”

“Lou is your father-in-law?” he asked as if he had just understood what I’d said downstairs. “I didn’t know you were married.”

For the second time that night I spoke of my past. And for the second time, spoke of it without my usual quake, tremor, or defensive shell. I wasn’t exactly eloquent, but my relative ease andhis recognition of some parallel experiences proved settling. For both of us.

“I didn’t know any of that about you.”

“I don’t talk about it very often.” Or as well.

“I still don’t know if I belong here,” he said.

I looked at his shiny black suit, his quarter-inch crew-cut, his earlocks. I looked at his faded open-necked white shirt, his black velvet yarmulke. “Belong, you don’t,” I said with a grin. “But that doesn’t mean being here is a bad idea.”

“I don’t know,” he answered shaking his head. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth.

“Neither do I. And won’t, unless you tell me what’s going on.”

His trace of a smile disappeared. “I’ve been worrying about my father.”

I waited, but he sat silent.

“Simon, the lawyer Roth,” I teased, “called me today.” I thought it was today; my days were still running together. “Except for the paperwork, everything is okay for your dad. He has absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Your friend is a good lawyer?”

“I told you, he’s the best.”

Yakov stood up and paced the kitchen, moving his lips silently all the while. If my news dented his anxiety, it sure didn’t show.

“Yakov, your father has nothing to worry about. Do you hear me?”

He stopped his silent chanting but kept walking back and forth. “I hear you. My father no longer has that to worry about.”

“What else is he worrying about?”

The boy stopped pacing and rocketed me with a withering look. “You have no conception of our Yeshiva’s loss! No idea of the weight that has fallen on Reb Yonah’s shoulders. We have become a community in disarray.”

He surprised me by calling his father Reb Yonah. “Of course your Yeshiva is confused. No one anticipated Rabbi Dov’s death. You have to give it time to settle. Your dad is a smart man. As soon as things get back to normal, he’ll realize how much he needs you.”

Yakov returned to the table but stood behind his chair. “I’m having a terrible time sleeping,” he said.

I waved toward the chair. “I can tell. Why don’t you sit down?” I lit a cigarette and waited while he decided. Good old Lou. A reformed smoker, he still left an ashtray on the table. “Are you having trouble fitting back in with the rest of the students?” I asked once he was sitting.

“No, no”—waving his skinny hand dismissively—”I’m not here for any of those reasons.”

“Then why, Yakov? What’s got you so upset?”

He rubbed his hand across his face and left it in front of his eyes. “Do you remember our discussion about the Never Agains?”

“Sure.”

“Well, the Yeshiva is starting one.”

“You mean your father is finished setting it up, don’t you?” I asked softly, making certain there was no recrimination in my tone.

He kept his hand over his eyes and nodded.

“Why does this keep tearing at you, Yakov? Your father has wanted them around for a long while.” I stopped, then added with a smile, “Even the last time we talked you didn’t think the Never Agains were a totally lousy idea.”

“It’s not them exactly.” He stood up again, grabbed the back of the chair to steady himself, then walked toward the kitchen door. For an astonished second I thought he planned to keep on going. But when he got to the door he leaned face first into the frame, and started to sob.

I walked up behind him and placed my hands lightly on his shoulders, half expecting him to shrug them away. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned back against me.

“I think my father was involved in the Rebbe’s murder,” he cried out between sobs.

Though some of my mind catapulted into furious activity, I forced the rest to stay in the eye of the storm. I hugged Yakov closer, kept my arms around his chest, and rested my chin on his velvet yarmulke. We stood like this through his tears, through his long, tortured gasps of breath, through the shudders and shakes of his skinny body. We waited until he was steady enough to walk and I was able to talk through the cacophony in my head. We may have been there a long time.

I walked him, hand in mine, back to the table. My cigarette had long since extinguished itself so I lit another. It wasn’t going to be my last.

“You’re hitched to a heavy piece of luggage there.”

He nodded.

“Been carrying it long?”

Another downcast nod and more silence.

“Does your suspicion have anything to do with your father’s diamond business?”

He kept his eyes on the table. “No. I don’t know, maybe.” His head tilted south but he glanced at me from under hooded eyelids. “What do you know about his diamond business?”

“Only what you told me. I just don’t know what else to ask.” Truth was, I was torn about asking anything. I wanted to comfort him. To absorb the fear and dread from his scrawny body and add it to my own. I was older, bigger, and suddenly aware of extra room. I wanted to find guiltless words to explain “projection,” grant permission for his anger, blow away his tears. I wanted to send him home relieved, a well-adjusted Hasid looking forward to the rest of his Hasidic life.

Trouble was, there might be something to what he said.

I told myself the kid would rather have the truth, wherever it led. Then I told the truth to myself. I was the one with the preference. I was the one who needed to know.

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re frightened.” Maybe I’d get lucky and be wrong about my hunch.

“I almost said something to you about it in the library.”

“It seemed like there was more on your mind.”

“My father has known people from the Never Agains for many years,” Yakov began. “He and the Rebbe argued about his association all the time until the Rebbe finally forbade it.”

“Where did your dad know them from? They didn’t have a group here.”

“He met them in New York. Through his trading.”

“How could Rabbi Dov forbid it? He didn’t follow your father to New York.”

“The Rebbe would know. Anyway, my father wouldn’t lie.”

I let the irony of his conviction pass. “He continued traveling to New York for business?”

“No. He stopped trading. He’d never done much to begin with. Every once in a while, that’s all.”

I waited as he gathered his thoughts. “Maybe a year ago some of the Never Agains visited the house. I was sent to the Yeshiva. Very soon afterward there were more arguments between my father and the Rebbe.”

“You think they were arguing about the Never Agains?”

“I know they were. The White Avengers had begun to terrorize us and my father was beside himself. One time, the Rebbe told me about a particularly big fight. The Rebbe was still upset and I think he forgot who I was. My father wasn’t supposed to meet with the Never Agains but during this past year he ignored the Rebbe’s command.”

“More visits to your house?”

“Not that I know of. Telephone conversations. But many.”

“And you’re certain the conversations were with Never Again people?”

He nodded.

I waited for him to continue but he sat silent, finished.

I felt disappointment for me and relief for him. His admission hadn’t given me any new avenues to explore after all. Well, if he couldn’t help me, I could still help him.

“Yakov, I know your relationship with your father is extremely difficult, especially now when you need him the most. I think your worry comes out of that difficulty. You’re angry at him and your anger has you thinking the worst. He might have desperately wanted the Never Agains to be a part of the Yeshiva, might have started talking to their people again, but Sean Kelly murdered Rabbi Dov. Not a stranger, not someone from the Never Agains, not your father. No one knows why Kelly did what he did. But he did do it.”

“I know it was that monster Kelly who shot the Rebbe,” Yakov whispered hoarsely, his voice brittle with tension. “I know it was Kelly. This is why I’m so afraid. My father had dealings with that schvantz!”