Free Sotah by Naomi Ragen

There was no harm in helping hashgacha pratis along a little.
    “Will Aba be home in time?” Dina asked anxiously.
    “Your aba promised, so he will be home,” Rebbetzin Reich said with a conviction she didn’t feel. Who knew? Of course he would start home on time as promised. But maybe he would find an old man lugging a heavy basket from the shuk and have no choice but to help him home with it. Or perhaps there might be a hungry vagrant whom he would have no choice but to take to dinner. Rebbetzin Reich knew her husband. He was the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful person in the world. Everyone protected him from the slightest distress because he felt it so deeply. If he heard that the Jews in Russia were frightened of pogroms, or the Jews in Ethiopia were hungry, he would weep for half an hour, wondering perhaps if he had done some transgression that had weighted the scales of justice in the heavenly court toward punishment for the Jewish people. He didn’t consider himself a separate human being, but a part of a great whole. The Jewish people were a body. When some part of that body ached, Rabbi Reich moaned.
    And so his wife couldn’t bear to bother him with unpaid bills, with clogged drains, with broken beds and the need for warm sweaters; with mortgage payments due and water bills overdue. The girls were her allies, keeping their small woes to themselves or sharing them with her.
    “Of course he will be here soon.” There was a short silence in the room. “And if he is a little late,” Rebbetzin Reich allowed, “well, we all know that what he does will earn us all extra merit. And Mr Breitman will understand.”
    “ Aba can always meet him when he brings you home,” Dvorah soothed. She had been through this more times than she wanted to remember. Sometimes her father’s absence when her dates came to pick her up made an odd impression, but most of the time it didn’t really matter. The boy just assumed he was off somewhere studying. Sometimes they were even relieved to be spared, if only temporarily, the traditional paternal grilling, which took place long before they knew if they wanted to pass.
    “Besides, Yaakov is coming with Abraham. It’ll be fine.”
    Dina nodded, then suddenly sat down on the bed, the skin of her legs bitten by nervous cramps. The excitement was almost unbearable. She wanted to cry. She wanted to be alone. She never wanted to be alone. With him.
    The doorbell rang. Mrs Reich jumped up to answer it. Chaya Leah charged into the boys’ bedroom, her job to keep them from stampeding over the young man and scaring him away. Dvorah took her sister’s warm, nervous hand and the two girls sat on the bed, shoulders and heads touching lightly as they listened for sounds in the next room. They heard Yaakov’s voice, pleasant and friendly, and then a deeper tone, very masculine but not overbearing. Dina squeezed her sister’s hand. Dvorah patted her helplessly. “It’s time now,” Dvorah said.
    “Just a few minutes more! What if I have to go to the bathroom! I’ll just die.”
    “No, you will not. He will probably take you to the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. That’s where they all go, all the shiddach dates. You will simply excuse yourself. There is a bathroom downstairs on your right,” she said with calm authority, hoping it wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t be right to leave him sitting in the lobby by himself. “Now, let’s go.”
    She saw his back, straight and slim, and the deep, dark velvet of the skullcap that sat on thick auburn hair. Her mother’s face seemed to lift in pride as she pressed her lips together in a little encouraging smile. Yaakov jumped up and made the introductions. Dina saw Chaya Leah standing behind the slightly opened door to the boys’ room, staring. She flushed, reminding herself to murder Chaya Leah.
    But maybe not. The blush just made her that much prettier, she saw as she looked at Abraham Breitman’s shy, appreciative eyes. He stood up when he