Only once did she approach Jacob, days after her meeting with Zalman at Wolfie’s. He had just closed on a large property in Midtown Manhattan, one that would bring in a good income in rentals for years to come, and Jacob was in a good mood. To celebrate, she cooked his favorite, a brisket with roast potatoes and green beans, its aroma filling the house as he walked in the door. Instead of a perfunctory peck on the cheek, he embraced her with a passionate kiss on the lips. Esther thought it might be the right time to have a conversation.
As Jacob sat scooping up the last forkfuls of brisket, which, he commented, fell apart just like butter, Esther felt her stomach surge. She knew she had to take this moment before she chickened out.
“Jacob, I am so proud of you! How far you have taken the business. And I know Papou would have been proud too.”
Jacob smiled as he licked his lips. “I would like to think so.”
“He would have been so very proud!” she repeated, afraid of the next words that waited on her tongue. He pushed his chair away from the table.
“Jacob, you’re such a good man, a wonderful man! But I know you are still hurting. I know you must miss Zalman. Can you not reach out to him, see how he is? Just a few words only.”
Jacob was standing now, as he turned toward her, a shadow over his face where only seconds earlier brightness had been. It was an expression she had not seen in a long time.
“Why are you bringing this up, Esther? Have you seen him, met with him?”
“N-no, of course not,” she lied.
He looked at her then, into her wide blue eyes, and finding no falseness in them, said in a low voice, “Don’t ever mention his name again.” He turned from her and went into the living room.
As Esther cleared the last dish from the table, she knew that she had no choice but to abide by Jacob’s words. She’d never speak his name again. And if one day Jacob decided to look for his old friend, it would be his decision. Not hers.
The days settled into a quiet monotony as Esther threw herself into a redecorating project with the help of Florrie, who more than ever before had become a fixture in the home, sitting at her elbow as Esther pored over reams of wallpaper peppered with orange-and-yellow sunflowers, holding the other end of the tape as Esther measured nearly the entire width of the living room for a new royal-blue velvet couch that would be free of its restrictive plastic coat. The flimsy tables were replaced by sturdy tan end tables that sat unmoved, like silent toads facing the new broad picture tube, this time a Sony, encased in its own highly polished black lacquer cabinet. Outdoors, the rumble of poured concrete could be heard for blocks as sweaty workers drinking cans of Coca-Cola replaced the front sidewalk. Even the backyard was excavated, the swing set unceremoniously now gone, the dwindling garden eradicated, replaced by lush hedges. All changed, except for the two trees: the golden apple tree that stood towering above the chaos, and the giant oak, a relic of the past and a reminder, at least for Esther, of what could have been.
And when she was done with the outside, Esther found new projects, glad that her mother had taught her the elements of home decorating, how planning and shopping could fill the time. She would carry stacks of glossy magazines on home decor, traveling into Lower Manhattan warehouses for a glossy metal-and-white Formica wall unit on which to stack Jacob’s prodigious collection of Elvis records and her prized Beethoven symphonies. A furry shag rug in a dazzling blue that felt like pure cotton when she walked barefoot, an austere grandfather clock whose hourly sonorous melody echoed the passage of time, fresh Dacron curtains that matched the oat color of the grass wallpaper that now liberally dressed the walls in the living room. An orange papasan chair in the corner struck a comical note, and a lava lamp spewing yellow-and-blue bubbles, an optimistic element. And beneath it all, individual gleaming tiles set into the concrete floor, upon which each table was decorously adorned with plastic flowers. Shelves were erased, faucets updated, all transformed until Jacob no longer recognized any of it, if he had bothered to notice as he removed his wrinkled overcoat each evening, placed his hat on the small foyer table, and crawled upstairs. All transformed except for the black baby grand that sat in the corner of the living room, just where it was placed on that first moving day. Unplayed. Unchanged.
Nights Florrie returned to her husband, Sid, who seemed now more than ever a part of the big-armed chestnut recliner that had appeared in place of the tattered aqua corduroy one. As for Esther, she became marvelously inventive in the kitchen. Each night, dinners were transformed into a different exotic land. Mondays, instead of tired meat loaf, there was beef bourguignon, and on weekends, her special arroz con pollo, and a sugar-filled pineapple upside-down cake. And finally, when Esther was done moving and changing and transforming, she lay down in the new king-size bed with crisp white sheets and the gray-and-yellow afghan sewn by the mother-in-law she never knew—the one memory she had of her. She placed her hand on Jacob’s arm and traced the dark hairs with her finger. Always he would take that hand in his and wind it around his neck. Wordlessly, he would set his lips upon hers, and they made love. In this way, she knew he was still her husband.