Sanctuary. Faye Kellerman
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Rina, how wonderful! You finally got your little girl! You must be thrilled!”
“I’m very lucky.” Rina noticed her voice had dropped to a whisper. The birth had gone smoothly but there were complications afterward. Hannah would be Rina’s last baby and not by choice. There was a long pause. Honey asked her if everything was okay.
“Just fine.” Rina tried to sound chipper. A strain since chipper wasn’t part of her normal vocabulary.
Honey picked up the slack. “So the boys must be big by now … teenagers.”
“Fourteen and eleven.”
“Isn’t adolescence so difficult?”
Actually, Rina found the boys easier the older they got. But she answered, “It can be trying.”
“Mendel’s turned into a very quiet boy. He’s lovely, but I can never tell what he’s thinking. And Minda is so moody. Everything I say, she jumps down my throat. We all really need this vacation. So you think you can put us up?”
“I’m pretty sure I can, but I have to check with Peter.” Rina paused. “Not that it’s any of my business, Honey, but Gershon doesn’t mind doing worldly things like going to Disneyland?”
Honey didn’t answer. There was background chatter over the line.
“Hello?” Rina asked.
“Sorry, I was distracted,” Honey said. “Gershon’s not coming. He’s in Israel. Didn’t I mention that?”
It was Rina’s turn to pause. “I don’t remember. Does he know of your plans to take them to Disneyland?”
“He didn’t ask and I didn’t say. All he knows is that I’m going back to Los Angeles to visit some old friends.”
“Very old,” Rina answered dryly.
“We’re not exactly ready for the glue factory,” Honey said. “Though sometimes it feels that way. Rina, it’s been wonderful talking to you. Thanks so much for everything. And if it’s too much trouble—”
“Not at all,” Rina said. “I’ll ask Peter and call you back.”
“Great. I’ll give you the bakery’s phone number. Just leave a message that you called and I’ll ring you back.”
Honey gave her the number. Rina wrote it down.
“When exactly are you planning to come out, Honey?”
“Soon. In two days.”
“Two days?” Decker looked at his wife. “She didn’t give you much notice, did she?”
Rina spooned yogurt into Hannah’s mouth. “Not a lot.”
Decker sipped his coffee, then took a bite of his turkey sandwich. Watching Rina feed their daughter, he was grateful for the peaceful interlude. His new assignment at the Devonshire station took him farther from the ranch each morning. But work was still close enough to steal an occasional lunch at home. He sat contentedly, smiling as Hannah smeared coffee-colored goop over her mouth … Rina was trying to keep her tidy but it was a losing battle—baby one, parent zero.
Decker’s eyes swept over the cherrywood dining table. Crafted in his bachelor days, it was too small for the family, the surface scratched and gouged. But Rina could be hopelessly sentimental. She refused to part with his handiwork.
“Who is this Honey lady anyhow?” Decker said. “I never heard you mention her name before.”
“That’s because we weren’t close.”
Decker finished half his sandwich. “So what’s she looking for? A free hotel?”
Rina wiped Hannah’s mouth. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why didn’t she call Evie Miller? She and Evie were as thick as thieves. If I were Evie, I’d be hurt.”
Hannah sprayed a mouthful of yogurt in Rina’s direction. Without pausing, she threw back her head and chortled with delight.
“Very funny,” Rina said. But she was smiling herself. “How come I can’t get angry with you, Channelah?”
“Because I’m too cute, Mommie,” Decker answered.
Once again, Rina tried feeding Hannah, but the baby grabbed the spoon and started to bang it on her high chair tray. Rina leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know why she didn’t call Evie.”
“Maybe she did. Maybe Evie doesn’t want her. The woman sounds a little odd.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say she was odd—”
“She doesn’t own a telephone?”
“It’s part of the ethos of the village.”
“The village?” Decker shook his head. “What’s wrong with living in a city or at least a town? Since when is upstate New York sixteenth-century Poland?”
“It’s a psychological thing, Peter. Blocking out the outside world. Less distraction. Easier to learn Torah.”
“They sure don’t mind asking for money from the outside world.”
“Everyone has to live, including scholars.”
“It’s possible to work and learn. I don’t believe in welfare for able bodies, Jews included.”
“The Leibben Chasidim are extreme,” Rina admitted. “Their Rebbe has some very odd ideas about kabbalah and how it relates to the messiah and afterlife. It’s considered very way out, not at all accepted belief.”
“Was Honey always fanatically religious?”
“Not at all. She grew up like me. Modern Orthodox. She had a big crush on John Travolta. I think she saw Saturday Night Fever ten times.”
Decker finished his sandwich and didn’t say anything. Rina poured a half-dozen Cheerios on Hannah’s high chair tray. The little girl dropped the spoon, stared at the O’s, then carefully pinched one between her forefinger and thumb, successfully navigating it to her mouth.
Rina wiped the baby’s plastic bib. “You’ve got the cop look in your eyes, Peter. What is it?”
“What do you think she’s really after?” Decker asked.
“An escape,” Rina said. “But so what? You know how stultifying the religion can be at times.”
“Really now?”
Decker was impassive. Rina hit his good shoulder—the one without the bullet wound. “Why shouldn’t Honey have an opportunity to cut loose?”
“You up for entertaining her?”
“Actually, Peter, I think it would be nice to have a little company. Someone to reminisce with.”
Decker smiled to himself. Could someone as young as Rina actually reminisce? Because she was young—twelve years younger than he was. Something Decker didn’t like to think about.
Rina liberated Hannah from the high chair and gave her to Decker. “So what should I tell Honey? Should I give her the okay to come out?”
“It’s up to you, darlin’. It’s okay by me.”
Decker bounced Hannah on his knee. She was a good-sized baby—tall and long-limbed with red hair and pale skin just like him. But feature for feature, she looked like Rina, thank God. The baby gave him a drooling grin of six teeth, tiny fingers going straight for the mustache. With little hands on his mouth, Decker rotated his mustache to his daughter’s glee.
He said, “I’m just wondering how you get from John Travolta to no phones.”
“How’d