“But I thought you wanted to marry him.”
Jane wiped her eyes and looked at Ben Cohen, into whose office she had been surprised to find herself walking ten minutes earlier. After the awkward moment with Walter she had quickly excused herself and fled the Carlyle House, leaving a smirking Miriam Ellenberg and a shocked Walter to watch her retreat. She had first driven to her own home, only to find it overrun by yet another of Beverly Shrop’s tour groups. Next she had gone to the bookstore, but the presence of Ant’s van had forced her to turn around.
That’s when she’d found herself driving in the direction of Sukkat Shalom. She hadn’t even realized she was going there until she pulled into the parking lot. She’d almost turned right around again. After all, she had met Rabbi Ben Cohen only once. She really knew nothing about him, or he about her. And yet she’d gotten out of Lucy’s truck and entered the synagogue as if some other force were controlling her actions.
Now she was seated once more in the chair across from the couch, staring at the Pollock hanging on the wall behind the rabbi. Ben Cohen, dressed in jeans and a shirt the color of cornflowers, waited patiently for her to speak.
“I do,” she said, sniffling. “That’s why I came here in the first place, right?”
“You tell me,” Ben said.
“It is,” said Jane. She hesitated. “Well, because of Miriam, anyway.”
The rabbi nodded. “You wouldn’t have come otherwise?”
“Why would I?” Jane replied.
Ben shrugged his wide shoulders. “I don’t know,” he told her. “Why would you?”
“Stop doing that!” said Jane.
“Doing what?”
“That!” Jane said. “Answering everything I say with another question.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” said Ben, one side of his mouth lifting slightly, as if he were trying very hard to remain composed.
Jane snorted. “Very funny.”
Ben laughed. “You obviously haven’t met many Jews,” he said. “Or therapists. But we’re getting off track. Walter asked you to marry him. You said no.”
“I said I can’t,” Jane clarified.
“Can’t,” said the rabbi. “However, you’ve known all along that it would come to this. Which, by the way, brings us back to why you came here in the first place.”
“Oh, I know,” Jane said, her frustration audible in her voice. “But that was before.”
“Before?” Ben said. “Before what?”
“Miriam,” Jane replied. “Before Miriam. When she was just his mother I could handle her. The idea of her. The reality, however, is not at all agreeable.”
“A lot of women clash with their potential mothers-in-law at first,” said Ben. “It seems to come with the territory.”
Jane shot him a look. “Are you married?” she asked.
Ben surprised her by looking away. “I was,” he said. “My wife died giving birth to our daughter.”
Jane felt terrible for having asked the question. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Ben held up a hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “You’re not prying. You thought I had no experience with mothers-in-law.”
“No,” Jane objected. “I just … well, yes, that’s what I thought.”
The rabbi laughed. “As it happens, my mother-in-law is a wonderful person,” he said. “And my mother loved Naomi very much. But I’ve heard stories.”
It was Jane’s turn to laugh. “I imagine you have,” she said. She paused before asking her next question, afraid she might cause Ben pain by voicing it. “Your daughter,” she said. “Is she …” She fumbled for her next words.
“She’s six,” said Ben. “Her name is Sarah.”
Jane was suddenly overcome by sadness. She felt a tear slip from her eye. She wiped it away, but another soon followed. She couldn’t help but think about her own family, particularly Cassie. How she missed her sister. How she longed to have her there to confide in and to laugh with, to say “Do you remember when?” to, and to just be quiet with.
“Would you like a tissue?”
The rabbi’s voice jarred Jane from her thoughts. She realized to her horror that she had been crying freely. Her cheeks were damp, and her nose was running. “Yes, please,” she said, sniffing.
Ben located a box of tissues and handed it to her. “There’s a Jewish proverb,” he said. “ ‘What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.’ ”
Jane blew her nose. “In that case, I seem to be having quite a good scrubbing,” she remarked.
“My people specialize in grief,” Ben said. “If they awarded degrees in it, every Jew would hold a doctorate.”
Jane laughed as she dried her face. “My people are just the opposite,” she told Ben. “Our upper lips are so stiff they prevent us from smiling.”
“How did we get here?” asked Ben. “Oh, yes. Your potential mother-in-law and how the reality of her is far worse than what you’d imagined.”
Jane sighed deeply. “I expected her to be protective of Walter,” she said. “But honestly, she’s like something out of an old Norse legend—or Grendel’s mother. Oh, and you should see her little dog, Lilith. She’s adorable, what with having only three legs and all, but what a little monster.”
“Lilith?” Ben said. “That’s interesting.”
“Why?” asked Jane.
“In Jewish folklore Lilith is the name of Adam’s first wife,” Ben explained. “Supposedly she left him because she found him weak and stupid. Some stories say she was a demon with the feet of an owl, and that she came at night to suck the blood of children. Essentially, she was the world’s first vampire. If you believe in that kind of thing.”
Jane considered this information for a moment. “And do you believe in that kind of thing?” she asked the rabbi.
Ben shrugged. “Who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t?” he replied. “The world is a strange and wonderful place.”
Jane nodded in agreement. “So Judaism allows for the existence of vampires?”
“Among other things,” said Ben. “Some people say that Lilith was actually trying to suck the souls out of her victims, not just their blood.”
Jane felt herself growing uncomfortable. More than once during the past two hundred years she had wondered about the state of her soul and what had happened to it when she died and was reborn. She’d never had anyone with whom she could talk about such things. Now she wondered if she dared.
“Assuming she really was a vampire—or whatever—do you think Lilith had a soul?” Jane asked.
Ben got up and went to a bookcase. He returned with a small book, its covers stained with age. As he flipped through the pages he said, “There is a Jewish poet—a philosopher, really, although those two often go hand in hand—named Solomon ibn Gabirol. Lived in the eleventh century. He wrote a number of poems about humankind’s relationship with God. My favorite is called ‘Kether Malkuth.’ A large part of it is devoted to the nature of the soul.”
He stopped at a page and ran his finger down it. “Here we are,” he said. “Listen to this.
Ben shut the book. “I love that idea of the soul being indestructible,” he said. “It endures despite everything.”
“But it also has that bit about an unclean soul wandering in wrath and anger,” Jane pointed out.
“Which brings us back to Lilith,” said Ben. “Some scholars would argue that her soul, being unclean, is what caused her to turn into a demon. A vampire, if you will. Her bloodsucking is simply her attempt to steal a clean soul from someone else. But that in itself makes her own soul even more unclean, and so she can only be purified by being destroyed and allowing her soul to come back in the body of another, to have another chance at redemption, if you will.
“That’s kind of a lot to put on a three-legged dog,” Ben said as he stood and returned the book to its shelf.
Jane suddenly felt very cold. She had long ago decided that she no longer had a soul, that whatever had existed in her had departed at the moment of her transformation. Now Ben Cohen was suggesting that perhaps she was wrong about that. Not that anybody really knows, she reminded herself. It’s all a lot of guessing.
Still, she was shaken.
“So now that we’ve determined that you’re facing Grendel’s mother and her vampire dog, what are you going to do about it?” Ben asked.
Jane shook her head. “I was hoping you would tell me,” she said.
“I think you need to figure out what exactly it is that upsets you about her,” Ben suggested. “I don’t think it’s just the fact that she’s Walter’s mother. There’s something else going on.”
“If there is, I don’t know what it is,” Jane told him.
“Keep looking,” said Ben. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I suppose so,” Jane said, standing up. “I should go speak to Walter first. He probably thinks I’ve gone mad.”
“We’re all mad here,” Ben said. When Jane looked at him he added, “Sorry. It’s from Alice in Wonderland. Sarah’s favorite book. I’ve read it so many times I’ve memorized most of it.”
“She sounds like someone I should like to know,” Jane said. Then a thought came to her. “If you don’t think it’s inappropriate, would the two of you like to come to dinner at my house?” she asked. “You could meet Grendel’s mother for yourself.”
Ben hesitated.
“I know,” Jane said. “You don’t normally socialize with people you counsel. I think, however, that we’re becoming something of friends.”
The rabbi smiled. “I believe you’re right,” he said. “And in that case, I accept.”
“Excellent,” said Jane. “How about tomorrow night?”
“As it happens, we’re free,” Ben replied.
“Good,” Jane said. “I’ll expect you at six.”
She wrote down her address for Ben, inquired after Sarah’s likes (hamburgers) and dislikes (anything involving celery), and returned to the truck. She got in and sat there for some time thinking about things. The whole question of her soul and its status was upsetting her more than she cared to recognize. But her more immediate problem was Walter and, to an only slightly lesser degree, Miriam.
She took out her cellphone and dialed Walter’s number. Part of her hoped he wouldn’t answer, but he picked up after only one ring.
“Where are you?” he asked, sounding anxious. “I’ve been trying to call you for the last two hours.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jane. “I must have turned the ringer off.”
A silence stretched between them like a thin, tight wire. Jane knew that, having caused the problem, it was up to her to make the next move. “We should talk,” she said. “I don’t suppose you can get rid of your mother?”
“Not permanently,” said Walter.
Despite the tension, Jane found herself laughing. “How about long enough for lunch?” she said.
“I think I can manage that,” Walter said.
“Meet me at the bookstore in half an hour,” said Jane. “We can go from there.”
“All right,” Walter said. “I love you.”
Jane bit her lip as tears came to her eyes for the second time that day. “I love you too,” she said.
As she drove to the bookstore she fought back feelings of panic. So much was going on in her life—and going poorly. She felt out of control, and that in turn made her want to retreat. Part of her longed for the quiet, secure life she’d had before Constance had come out and turned everything upside down.
But it was too late. Now she had no choice but to face her new life and all of the challenges it was presenting. Your characters manage to do it, she reminded herself. If they can, you can. After all, you’re the one who told them what to do.