J acob was glad to see his breakfast waiting for him on the table. He was also glad Mrs. Sommers wasn’t there. Washing his hands with a cup would be too difficult to explain to her. Since he arrived at the Matthews’s home he’d hidden the fact that he was Jewish. Idy had told him that the outside world didn’t always take kindly to Jews. Jacob figured if Queen Esther could hide her Jewishness just as Idy on several occasions had told him in the story of Purim so could he. It made living at the Matthews’s place seem adventurous.
The Renards knew that he and Idy were Jewish but somehow they’d known that from the start. Maybe Idy had told them but like so many other things she had no memory of it. It still surprised him and Idy that in all the years they’d lived at the Renards Shabbos had always been a day off for them.
Jacob ate the bread and jam and drank the large glass of milk. It didn’t bother him that there was nothing hot to eat as he wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. Idy had told him that cooking wasn’t allowed on Shabbos. Another reason Jacob was glad Mrs. Sommers wasn’t present.
The door behind him opened just as Jacob finished the one part of bentshing he knew by heart.
