Esther stood by the head of the table next to a three-tiered stand of sterling silver on which chocolate sandwich cookies and mini slices of sponge and honey and apple cakes sat glowing, waiting for an eager hand. On each of the six round tables reserved for the guests who had spent the night, there were already platters of salty herring, hard-boiled eggs, and waves of farmer’s cheese and yellow American on slabs of thick black bread.
Sally, dressed in a hot-pink-and-yellow caftan, drifted over to her daughter and hugged her so tightly the girl feared she might faint. Sally then kissed her hard on the cheek, her Helena Rubinstein lipstick leaving a bright-pink imprint that Esther casually wiped away with the back of her hand.
“The kallah! The kallah is here!” she enthused, using the Yiddish word for “bride.” And as she surveyed Esther with a keen eye, she said, “What a beautiful outfit you have on. You look like a princess!” Esther smoothed the folds of her ivory wool suit and patted the large rabbit’s-fur button at her neck.
“Mama, how could I not look fine? You’re the one who checked all the Spiegel’s catalogs, insisting I wear only white!” She laughed, but Sally’s smiling face suddenly shifted to a picture of concern.
“Oh, my dear child, I have forgotten. Your first night as a married woman, your first night with a man. How are you this morning? I mean, are you well?”
Esther laughed again.
“Yes, Mama, I’m well. In fact, I feel more than well!”
Sally sighed, relieved, and released the hold on her child.
“That’s good. Now where is that husband of yours?”
Jacob and Zalman were standing by a large coffee urn, balancing white-and-gold china cups on matching saucers as they waited for the coffee to brew. The two, it appeared, were engaged in animated conversation, Zalman shaking his head and shuffling his feet. Jacob prodded Zalman’s chest with his forefinger. Fortunately, Esther thought, he seemed to show no sign of last night’s anxiety. Noticing her out of the corner of his eye, Jacob brightened and beckoned her to him.
Esther walked over to the two men, loving the way Jacob wound his arm around her waist.
“Have you met my beautiful wife?” he said, beaming, as he swept the palm of his hand over the length of her, from the top of her head to her feet, as if she were the rarest of diamonds. In truth, she was enjoying this.
“Yes, my good friend; in fact, I have met her a number of times,” Zalman answered, seeming to forget the heated exchange the two had had just a moment earlier.
Esther lightly touched the fur button at her neck.
“Please, why don’t you two take your coffee and have a seat?” she said, and, winking at Jacob, “I see there are even a couple of bottles of champagne on our table.”
Zalman looked at Jacob quizzically, and spontaneously each placed the dainty cup and saucer on the table, substituting them for the flute-shaped crystal.
Two hours later, after the last cloth napkin had been folded and the tables scrupulously wiped clean by the white-jacketed busboys, Esther and her new husband said loving farewells to her parents and Uncle Abraham and Aunt Rose, who looked small and uncomfortable in their winter coats, each one holding a large paper shopping bag filled to the brim with bagels and fishes, not to mention the cold victuals from the night before. Esther’s brother Menashe motioned for the two to follow him to the car outside, where he would be escorting them back to their apartment in Brooklyn.
Esther stood by and watched as her father opened his arms wide so that Jacob could fall into his warm embrace. How odd but how wonderful, she thought, as she realized that Jacob, in a matter of hours, had become one of their own—family. As the young couple held hands in the elevator on the way back up to their suite, a lump formed in Esther’s throat. A significant part of her life had just come to an end.
Of course, rationally, she knew that she wasn’t taking a final leave of her mama and papa. She’d be seeing them again in six short days when the couple returned home from their honeymoon in Niagara Falls. After that, Jacob would join her in the bedroom of her family’s spacious apartment, at least for now.
Still, an emptiness occupied a space in her heart. She was about to embark on a new and mysterious chapter of her life when all else that she had known was falling away like leaves that had been clinging to a tree before the snow. But as she packed the white nylon lingerie set into her suitcase and caught a reflection of Jacob’s profile in the mirror, she reasoned that endings also mean beginnings, the business of building a future, a new life. After that, the emptiness in her heart slipped slowly away like a final leaf, and she tried not to think of it again.