The young moneylender had not been a good match for Leah. Everyone told her so, from her father to her friends. He was a solitary and angry youth, and was sure to grow hateful and jealous in his age. Perhaps he could provide for her, but it would be better for her to marry a respected man of the community who would be a good husband and father than a man so unstable and with such a temper.
His courtship had been clumsy, making enemies of her other suitors and stumbling over his words in a way unlike his usual eloquence. And yet, she gave him her turquoise ring, her favorite of any bauble, in exchange for nothing but a kiss.
"I will marry only you," she had whispered as she pressed the ring into Shylock's hand. "If my father denies me, I will live unwed until his death, waiting for you. If I am disowned, I will happily live without all I have known save you. If I am forced to marry another, we will run away together."
Shylock had smiled and shaken his head.
"Run? You believe there is life for us outside the ghetto? I had not known you to be so foolish."
"If I must give up my family, my faith, even my religion to be with you, I will." Leah laughed in her disarming matter. "If we have to turn Christian to find a place to live and a man to marry us, what of it? A little bit of sprinkled water does not change a man."
Of course, they never had to test any of Leah's desperate plans. Endless begging on Leah's part, along with hard work and an attempt to make friends on Shylock's, finally softened her father's heart. And though she was warned that the dark youth she loved so well would soon turn bitter and cruel, to her he stayed loving and gentle.
There were times when Shylock couldn't understand her. Leah loved the world as much as he shunned it, enjoying even the gentile festivities that drove him mad when they passed beneath their window. For her sake he would leave the window open, allowing her to have her fun with the costumes and revelry from afar. Perhaps it was because he could not understand the joy she found in life that he found himself so entranced.
Leah did not live to see her husband turn into the hateful and jealous old man her friends had warned her about. She died giving Jessica life, and it was a life of closed windows and quiet. The allowances he had made for his wife, Shylock would not make for his daughter. She was frivolous where her mother had been passionate, and no good could come from encouraging her. Shylock did not hate his daughter for taking away Leah (though he would come to hate her later), but neither did the love he had born her mother carry over to his child.
And of course, he lost Jessica as well- not to death, though he sometimes thought he might have preferred that. With Jessica's loss came the loss of the man her mother had been infatuated with- if she could have seen a monster ranting for his want of human flesh, her heart would have broken. She would have reminded him of the Torah's order not to take a man's coat from him on a cold night as interest. He might even have listened to her, and bid the theiving Jessica good riddance. (Or perhaps he would have been a better father and she would not have run away, but that is neither here nor there.)
When everything was gone- morals, wealth, employment, religion- what he most missed was Leah's turquoise ring. If he'd had it, perhaps he would have been comforted, and remembered her words.
A little sprinkled water does not change a man. But perhaps more time with her would have.