* * *
It was late when Rabbi Levy dropped Esther off at the apartment but, even in the dark, she recognized the young man sitting on her front stoop.
“Do you know him?” the rabbi asked.
“Yes.”
The rabbi let the car run while he walked around to open Esther’s door and help her out. “I’ll collect you tomorrow at two.”
She nodded, unable to take her eyes off Stuart, who was still in his ACBP uniform. When he stood the streetlamp illuminated his face, and she saw that he’d been crying.
The rabbi’s car puttered away, and Esther motioned for Stuart to sit. Then she joined him. “Are Anna and Gussie upstairs?”
He shook his head. “When I got over here, Anna answered the door. I didn’t believe it was true until I saw her face.”
“How’s Gussie?”
“Confused, I think.”
Something about Florence’s friendship with Stuart had never sat right with Esther. It was her experience that boys like him, whose fathers owned hotels on the Boardwalk and not shops north of Arctic Avenue, went away to college and usually to the sorts of schools she and Joseph lambasted. Schools like Princeton and Yale that had, in the last several years, implemented strict quotas and new admissions standards to keep their classrooms from swelling with too many Jewish students. That he had joined the Atlantic City Beach Patrol as a lifeguard, and cobbled together a coaching career in the off-season, struck Esther as a move designed to infuriate his father as much as anything else. His father was worth infuriating—The Covington Hotel was one of several hotels that refused Jewish guests—but sometimes Esther wondered if Stuart’s friendship with Florence was just another way to get under his father’s skin.
It was Stuart who had encouraged Florence to apply to Wellesley; he had even taken the liberty of writing to Wellesley’s swim coach, a Miss Clementine Dirkin, on Florence’s behalf. Dirkin was apparently an icon in the Women’s Swimming Association, and Stuart had argued—quite convincingly—that Florence needed to go to a school where women weren’t relegated to synchronized swimming competitions, as was so often the case. At Wellesley, he promised, Florence would not just be swimming the 400, 800, and 1500 events but she’d be medaling in them.
Of course, it was Joseph, and not Stuart, who had taught Florence to swim. But for the last six years, ever since Florence had joined the Ambassador Club and then gone away to school, it was Stuart who had pushed her to swim faster and farther. He was always on the lookout for new races, always talking about the next big swim. Without Stuart, would Florence have swum the pageant swim? The solo swim around Absecon Island? Certainly, she wouldn’t have set her sights on the English Channel. Were it not for him, Esther couldn’t help but wonder, would her dear girl still be alive?
“I would have followed her in the boat.”
“I know,” she said, her voice as coarse as sandpaper.
“What was she doing out there on her own?”
Esther didn’t know what to say, how to begin to admit that her daughter had acted rashly.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t.”
Stuart wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands. “When will she be buried?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That soon?”
“Jews don’t wait.”
Stuart studied his knees. “May I come?”
Her inclination was to tell him no, that the graveside service would be for family only. If Fannie couldn’t be there, it seemed unfair for Stuart to be. But Esther could imagine Florence chiding her for her bad behavior. It was obvious that Stuart loved Florence, and Esther found herself wondering if her daughter had known. Perhaps she had even loved him back. Sol and Frances Goldstein, who lived around the corner, had sat Shiva for their eldest daughter when she married a goy, and at the time, Esther hadn’t so much as batted an eye. Treating a daughter who was alive and well—and even happy—like she was dead, all because she’d married outside the faith, felt suddenly preposterous.
“We’ll go to Egg Harbor at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“The City Cemetery?”
“No, Beth Kehillah.”
A passing car backfired, and Esther jumped.
“One of the guards told you?” she asked.
“Word spread fast that there’d been a drowning at States Avenue.”
“Does everyone know it was Florence?”
“Some of the guards do. Why?”
“We don’t want Fannie to know,” said Esther. “Not after what happened last summer.”
“I see,” said Stuart, although it was not entirely obvious to Esther that he did.
“Will you help?”
“I can talk to the guys if you want.”
Esther considered the offer for a moment before she answered him, “Would you mind?”
* * *
A lamp was on in Gussie’s room, and in the middle of the floor lay the canvas bag Esther had taken to the beach earlier that day. Alongside it was Florence’s bag, a prettier, pleated tote. The bag’s contents—a hairbrush, a towel, and several hairpins—spilled out onto the floor, and Esther stooped to pick up the items. When she had gathered them all, she allowed herself to let out a silent moan.
On the little cot, Anna and Gussie slept. The cot was barely wide enough for one of them. They fit side by side only because Anna had wrapped her arms around Gussie, tucking the small girl into the cave of her chest. Gussie’s dark brown hair splayed out in all directions and her mouth hung open. In the last year, she had grown taller and lost much of her baby fat but, asleep, she still looked young.
Esther thought about waking Anna to remind her that she’d be more comfortable in a regular bed. If Anna had been Florence, she might have absentmindedly rubbed her back, grabbed one of her hands, and pulled her to her feet, enjoying that groggy moment when her adult daughter leaned into her, needing her. But Anna was not Florence, and Esther couldn’t bear to have one more conversation than she absolutely needed to about the day’s events. The telephone call she had to make to Isaac was going to take all the energy she had left.
The sun porch was hot and stuffy. One window sat open but Esther pushed open two more. It was too dark to see the beach two blocks away but she could hear the waves crashing against the shore. The perpetual movement of the ocean had always soothed her, particularly during times of trouble, but now the sound left her feeling outraged. That the ocean could take something so precious from her, without even stopping its dance to acknowledge her loss, seemed cruel.
Esther studied the young woman who cradled her granddaughter. She didn’t like the feeling of being indebted to Anna, but she supposed she was nonetheless. Without being told anything, Anna had known to gather the family’s things, remove Gussie from the beach, bring her back to the apartment, and offer her whatever comfort she could while Esther and Joseph attended to the business of saying good-bye to Florence. Anna had demonstrated the kind of sure-headedness that Esther had always hoped to instill in her own daughters.
Last fall, when Joseph had proposed bringing Anna to the United States, Esther had felt powerless to stop him. Anna was the daughter of a woman named Inez, someone Joseph now told her he had grown up alongside in Hungary but whom he had, interestingly, never once managed to mention in twenty-nine years of marriage.