“Oy, the poor little girls,” Eva wailed, wiping her eyes with a damp handkerchief. “Who will care for them, the poor things? Not even a year has passed since they lost their mother, and now their aunt has abandoned them as well?”

*******

After two tragic deaths in the family and a vitriolic shivah call, Bette and Anna Hacker’s mother, brother, and stepmother are gone. Their father, Philip Hacker wants to protect his remaining children and fill the void of his own emptiness, but struggles with both.

And then the Moses family moves in next door. The effect that the two families have on each other’s lives is something no one could have foreseen…

By Ruti Tanenwald