Reuven started to tell her that a doctor couldn’t do much for a broken toe no matter what-news that always delighted his patients. He started to tell her to come to the office in the morning if she really wanted to get it examined. Instead, he heard himself saying, “Remind me of your address, and I’ll come over and have a look at it.” His father blinked.

“Are you sure?” the widow Radofsky asked. Reuven nodded, a useless thing to do over a phone without a video attachment. After he gave her assurances she could hear, she gave him an address. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes’ walk away; Jerusalem was an important city, but not on account of its size.

“A house call?” Moishe Russie asked when Reuven hung up. “I admire your energy, but you don’t do that very often.”

“It’s Mrs. Radofsky,” Reuven answered. “She thinks she’s broken her toe.”

“Even if she has, you won’t be able to give her much help, and you know it perfectly well,” his father said. “I don’t see why you didn’t just tell her to come to the office tomorrow morn…” His voice trailed off as he made the pieces fit together. “Oh. Mrs. Radofsky. The widow Radofsky. Well, go on, then.”

After grabbing his doctor’s bag, Reuven was glad to get out of the house. His father didn’t mind his paying a professional call on a nice-looking widow. His mother probably wouldn’t mind when his father told her, either. What the twins would say-no, he didn’t want to contemplate that. At romantic fifteen, they thought he was a fool for not having gone to Canada with Jane Archibald. About three days a week, he thought he was a fool, too.

He had no trouble finding the widow Radofsky’s little house. When he knocked on the door, he had to wait a bit before she opened it. The way she limped after he came inside showed why. “Sit down,” he told her. “Let me have a look at that.”

She did, in an overstuffed chair under a lamp, and held up her right foot. She winced when he slid the slipper off it. Her fourth toe was swollen up to twice its size, and purple from base to tip. She hissed when he touched it, and hissed again and shook her head when he asked her if she could move it. “I have broken it, haven’t I?” she said.

“I’m afraid so,” Reuven answered. “I can put a splint on it, or I can leave it alone. It’ll heal the same either way.”

“Oh,” she said unhappily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“I’m afraid so,” he repeated, and tried to make her think about something besides his inability to help: “What’s your daughter doing?”

“She’s gone to sleep,” the widow Radofsky answered. She wasn’t easily distracted. “Why did you bother coming here, if you knew you wouldn’t be able to do much? You could have told me to wait till morning.”

“It’s all right-it might have been just a nasty bruise. It’s not, but it might have been.” Reuven hesitated, then added, “And-I hope you don’t mind my saying so-I was glad for the chance to see you, too.”

“Were you?” After a pause of her own, she said, “No, I don’t mind.”