rabbi was wearing. Sam’s little brother was seventeen now, nearly eighteen.
Coco followed Sam out to the kitchen, where massive amounts of food were being prepared and put on trays, all of it kosher.
“No BLTs?” Coco whispered to him and he laughed.
“Ssshhhh…my mother can hear through stone walls.” As he said it, an attractive blond girl approached them, wearing no makeup and visibly pregnant. Coco knew instantly it was Tamar from the way she looked at Sam, and she thought the young woman’s hair looked stiff and odd, and she realized that she was wearing a wig, like the other Orthodox women. His mother’s was stylish and she had it done by her hairdresser. Tamar’s was unflattering and more obviously a wig, and it shocked her. It made her realize how different Sam’s life was now. He was steeped in Orthodox Judaism, with his mother, brother, and wife all Orthodox, even more so since his sisters had defected. His father had been the least Orthodox of all. She knew Sam had dreamed of being in a Reform synagogue when he was younger, or none at all. He had never been religious. She saw that he was wearing a black velvet yarmulke while they sat shiva for the next week.
He put an arm around Tamar when she came to stand next to him. She looked shyly at Coco in her chic black dress. Coco was as thin as she had been before the baby. Sam introduced them since they had never met before.
“Hello, Tamar, how are you feeling?” she asked, referring to the pregnancy. She felt guilty, knowing how ardently she had tried to dissuade Sam from marrying Tamar, and she didn’t feel any differently seeing her now. She didn’t seem like the right match for him, with her strict Orthodox traditions he didn’t believe in, and the ugly wig, which didn’t look natural. She wondered if Sam’s daughters would have to wear them too, if they had any. And the boys yarmulkes. She was sure they would. According to Sam, Tamar kept a strict home. Like only the most religious Orthodox women, Tamar shaved her head and only took her wig off at night when she went to bed and then covered her head with a scarf. Only Sam was allowed to see her without the wig, for modesty. She wondered if Sam wore a yarmulke all the time now to please his wife, and hadn’t told Coco.
“I feel better now,” Tamar answered Coco in a small voice. “I was pretty sick in the beginning, though.” She was five months pregnant, and was wearing a shapeless black dress that was too long for her. Everything about her seemed so colorless and dull. There was nothing exciting about her, but that was what Sam said he wanted. Stability, someone solid.
On his own, Sam was so much more sophisticated and worldly, and modern, but not with Tamar at his side. All Coco could see now as she looked at him was that he was trapped, stifled by traditions he didn’t like, surrounded by people who wanted to hold him back, and married to a woman who wanted to surround him with children he wasn’t ready for. She wanted to grab Sam by the hand and run out the door with him to freedom. He had given it up to marry Tamar because she was a “nice person.” That didn’t seem like enough. His sacrifice seemed larger than life to Coco, personified by his drab wife.
Coco stayed for two hours, talking quietly to Sam, and then said goodbye to Mrs. Stein. Tamar was sitting next to her. She looked like her daughter as they sat there. There was a small amount of sweet kosher wine being served, and everyone at the table had a glass. She and Sam had gotten drunk on a bottle of Manischewitz once, at fifteen. He stole it after Shabbat, and walked to her house carrying it in his jacket. It tasted like grape juice to Coco, and she drank too much of it and Sam had to sneak her into the apartment without her parents seeing them.
Sam rode down in the elevator with her to get her a cab, and they stood on the sidewalk talking for a few minutes. The memorial at the synagogue was the next morning.
“Does she wear a wig all the time?” Coco asked him, curious, and he nodded.
“Except in bed with me. It’s considered modest. No one is supposed to see her