" From the fireside and the kitchen, prayer and weeping. She tried to imagine dropping into grief. She pictured it, like letting go of a rope. To crumple with sorrow, fall at someone’s feet, beg mercy? But these things required belief that mercy existed in the world. She was nineteen years of age and could no longer bend her mind to believe in the comforts embraced by others. The fire had forged them both—she and her brother—into brittle instruments. Should she bend, she would break. She struck the tears away with the backs of her hands. No star remained now to navigate by. Isaac had been her last. "

― Rachel Kadish , The Weight of Ink