“That shows your father. Always getting things wrong but in a way right as well. I tell him he should have been a lawyer instead of a journalist but he runs of to write papers like you,” she explained. Jenny had been fond of her father’s passion for the written word and probably had influenced her own passion.

“Then what was it?” Jenny pressed. Her mother sighed.

“Why do you want to know this, Bubeleh?” Her mother stopped the dusting and stared at her from across the room. The firelight played off her features casting a shadow over only half her face. Jenny found it as she had always seen her, knowing only half of what was there waiting for the rest to come out of shadow.

“Because it is a part of you,” Jenny explained. Her mother took in a breathe and shook her head. She relented in body action and turned her back to her and started dusting. She began to speak her voice low, unwavering, as if revealing some deadly secret no one must overhear.

“It was Cherem,” she explained. Jenny was shocked. Her mother hadn’t left the Temple she had been kicked out of it. She found herself exhausted all at once believing she would collapse. She moved herself into a chair and stared blankly into the fire.

“Why?” she breathed, a whisper running from her lips. “What did you do?” She couldn’t fathom what her mother, of all people, could have done to upset the Temple in such a way that she would be excommunicated.

Her mother responded very matter of factly as she continued to dust the nick nacks on the shelf. “The 6th offence. Refusing to abide by the decision of the court. I would not agree to it so they placed me in Niddui. They called me back to court, I would not relent so I was sentenced to Cherem and have been so ever since. This is how things are done,” she explained listening to Jenny’s gasp.

“They kicked you out because you disagreed with them? Over what?” Jenny questioned. She could feel the frustration building up inside of her. She knew there had to be more to it than that.

“It does not matter,” her mother explained. Something told Jenny there was a well deeper than what had been presenting itself but her anger was growing to where she was slowly beginning to care. She wanted to reach out to her mother and shake her for information. Then it struck her.