This story exists in a terrain between fact and fiction, love and rage. It is a kaddish, or lament, a final ritual of passage for my mother, Maxine Cronbach. It covers a span of nearly 70 years, during which the culture has drastically changed. Nevertheless, the world in which she grew up continues to resonate.
The poems at the beginning of different sections are my mother’s and marked with the initials she used, “MSC.” When she died, following her request I gathered her writings, some of which had been published in high school or college periodicals, some of which were typed, and some of which were merely scribbled out in pencil on bis of paper or the backs of envelopes, barely legible.
I was moved by the vulnerability, the shifts, the gradual stripping away of illusions in her life. But there was anger inside her that she never faced, even at the end. She and I never did resolve our differences. This story is an attempt to do so. Jean Cocteau wrote something to the effect that each reader reads into a work what lies in his or her own consciousness. I leave the story for you, the reader, to interpret, and hope it may touch a chord of understanding.
– María Espinosa