Excerpt: Selma remembers her mother

by DRM

Her mother was so pre­cise, so exact in her man­ners and her words. There were sto­ries, Selma remem­bered, of Rebecca wash­ing out the family’s mea­ger cloth­ing by the ship’s rail, while her two lit­tle daugh­ters sat qui­etly back against the smoke­stack. They were some yards away from their mother, who had ordered them not to shift an inch. She spoke in brusk, direct Yid­dish: Selma, just four, under­stood that her mother was a seri­ous woman. She could see her stand­ing at the rail. She twisted a light smock between her fists. The droplets of water dis­solved in the wind. Some bright flecks, crys­tals of water, hung on the wool of her sweater. Her back was stiff, the line of her shoul­ders square and sturdy.

The quiet mem­ory was swept away by a clat­ter of voices as a group of young girls came rac­ing down the gang­plank, chased by two young men with blan­kets thrown over their arms. Selma paused and looked into the air. Her nos­trils flared. She cocked her head slightly, lis­ten­ing past the lilt­ing laugh­ter and rau­cous jibes, to noth­ing, a still­ness. She was ele­gant. She held her pose. The gang raced away. The gang­plank was empty, the dock quiet. Selma felt the vigor go out of her, her shoul­ders cave down and the curve of her spine press in on her­self, as if she were hollow.

Selma is on the Bermuda Princess. It is 1932. The roar­ing 20’s have come to a close. Ted Kaplan has mar­ried. Selma is feck­less, unset­tled, rest­less. This is her first cruise, but the excite­ment has gone. The ocean trip brings back dim mem­o­ries of her mother.