It was not an outright lie … but it was deceptive. Intentionally deceptive. It crawled under his skin through a twitch in his knuckles, like the same muscles he used his tongue to twist evil with were attached, too, directly to his hands.

If he disowned the child, and it was with him it saw its future, then was it not lashon hara to declare them not his? Even their childhood rabbi had frowned upon labeling a child a mamzer.

But if he pursued his truth, his sodomy might (no, would) come to light. The Hebrew of Sodom had long been debated, but even the most gaping-headed rabbi would think twice before coming to the defense of someone who had gotten himself into such a public debacle.

Fortunately for Uriel, Zechariah was too busy having a midlife crisis in his twenties to notice his plate.

“Her name is Sonia,” he said, slowly, picking each and every word with Talmudic attention. “I met her once before I learned.”

And maybe morbidly poetic attention.