There were a lot of kitchen rules. The meat and everything-else cookware and utensils were not to be used interchangeably. Beef had hard to comprehend exclusions, that he seemed to finally settle for explaining with “no cuts past the shoulder. And no brains. Not even if the Rabbi himself scooped them out.” He declined broccoli outright because of bug concerns, and often scrutinized every pocket of a berry before it touched his lips.

Zechariah’s anger was not overt, per se … toward Mr. Benjamin. There were certain looks cast his way (mostly in the brows, but occasionally a pinching of the lips) when his standards were not met, but he did not sneer, scold, humiliate and outright threaten the way he did with Rose.

Why was he so tolerant toward Mr. Benjamin? It was Rose. It was 99.9% about pissing off Rose.

“There you are!” Zechariah smiled, turning to face him with hands clasped behind his back.

Zechariah was in a good mood: Rose was in trouble.

“Guess who has a child on the way, Mr. Benjamin?”