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However, Yousep did not lie to his parents. He did not tell them the truth, to be sure, and it was a distinction trimmed more finely than the width of any of his hairs.
    “ I’m surprised Mr. Reisman did not tell you, I have seen the man suspected of the crime in the shop street. He lives in the basement under the stoop, across our window.”
    Yousep’s mother clapped her hands in shock and prayed under her breath as he told them of asking about the man he saw on the curb.
    “ Mr. Reisman did not think it well to know such a man; he does not know the man’s name. But, he is only accused. It is not proper to decide what we do not know, is it?”
    His father sat in thought, and did not speak quickly. It was his way when conversations were of deep, or troubling subjects. He often would sit silent, after reading an article in the news about the war, before he would comment with his opinions. His father was a man of many opinions; he just took very great care with them. When he spoke, it did not soothe either Yousep, or his mother.
    “ You are almost a man, Yousep Kogen. Sometimes the world is not a safe place for a child, and we must accept, the shop neighborhood is such an unsafe place. You cannot be a child any longer, on your walk, at your work, or-” He paused to look carefully at his son, “or on your way home. We cannot keep you from your work, though our care for you makes us wish we could. A man’s responsibilities are yours now. Trust your heart, judge as you need, to stay safe.”
    Yousep looked at the fright in his mother’s eyes, and held out his hand to her. She did not say anything; it was not her place, her son was no longer a child to them.
    He had just been told he was a man.
    He would soon have received his kippah and tallit, so near to his coming of age; she had been saving them since his mitzvah, waiting for the day of his confirmation at the synagogue. The confirmation would have to come the Sabbath; he had just taken his new place in the family.
     
    Father said a simple prayer, that his son be given a man’s judgment and courage. That he be safe as he traveled in an unsafe place, God protect him.
    Yousep said a silent prayer of his own; no dreams that night - fright, shame, and longing, did not belong together, in anyone’s dreams. But he did not know, he already was given his dream, the one he was to have that night, and would have every night as well. Yousep had been given his dream, to have forever, when he prayed for the rain to stop, and their eyes to meet. He would see those eyes, and their tears, every night when he closed his own.
     
    He lay in bed, long after the house quieted to sleep. The street outside his widow was quiet as well. He lay in his bed, with a bit of moonlight in his eyes, and he thought about what happened to him that day on the walk.
    Why did he fear she might rush into the street? She had not moved to do so. Why did she weep, why did it stir him the way it did? Of all the ‘whys’ he could ask himself, the one that stirred him in the strangest way, making him restless to the point of leaving his bed; why was she looking to see him, exactly the way he looked to see her? That ‘why’, she, and only she, could answer for him. When he left the window and returned to bed, it was to finally sleep, but begin the dream.
     
    A surprised shop owner greeted his clerk at the door the next morning. Yousep wore his kippah. There was a hint of the tzitzit tassels on his tallit under his coat as he entered. Here, into Papa Reisman’s shop, walked Yousep Kogen the young man. It seemed a strange outcome to the sudden fright of the morning before, but the look in Yousep’s eyes indicated he understood the changes to be very important.
    He walked directly to the counter, and apologized for behaving like a frightened child the day before. Papa simply offered his hand to his clerk and said it was unimportant, there was good work to do, and it was a blessing Yousep, the young man,