With Molly wrapped snug against her chest, Esther let herself into her parents’ overstuffed apartment. She sidestepped around the tall ceramic cylinder packed tight with umbrellas, Pop’s walking stick, and a fishing pole with the frayed line in knots. Mama always apologized about the crowding, sorry that they couldn’t afford a house, even after Pop opened his own shop. Whatever savings they managed were spent sending the girls east to camp every summer.
Esther lingered in the long hallway Pop called the gallery. Every inch of wall space was covered with images: childish drawings in plastic frames, art museum prints curling at the edges, Mexican bark paintings, and the intricate woodcuts of coal miners or farm workers that Bernie’s widow sent every Chanukah.
She stopped in front of her favorite painting, a framed print by an Italian artist she’d never heard of. Rows of grim-faced workers walked straight toward the viewer, like they meant business. In the front row, a barefoot woman in a long skirt carried an infant. Growing up, Esther liked to sit on the floor against the opposite wall, hugging her knees, and look up into the woman’s unwavering eyes.
Rosa used to tease that the woman was her fairy godmother. “If you love her so much, what’s her name?” Rosa asked when Esther was eight or nine. “Hannah,” Esther had answered, having no idea where the name came from. But it sounded strong, like a pioneer. Rosa laughed and made the cuckoo sign, pointer finger circling her ear. “Hannah’s not an Italian name,” Rosa said, but she didn’t rag Esther about her again.
Now, Esther touched Hannah’s determined chin. Did she worry that her baby would be hurt if their protest got violent? Did Hannah have someone—a mother or a husband or a sister—to watch the kid if she were arrested?
Who would take care of Molly, if she were arrested?
Forcing herself away from the painting, Esther paused at the kitchen. In March of third grade, when their grandmother Leah moved in, Pop pushed the sofa into the kitchen so Leah could use the living room as a bedroom. Leah took over the bathroom too, filling the bathtub with live carp to make fresh gefilte fish for Passover. When Rosa complained about having to wash up at the sink, Pop’s eyebrows bristled and he made them sit at the kitchen table and listen up. Grandma Leah was born in Russia, he said. When she was sixteen, her father was forced into the Czar’s army and there was no food. He starved to death and Leah joined a secret cell to overthrow the Czar. Her twin sister Tovah was frightened that she’d get the rest of the family killed, but Leah argued that the peasants should own their land. Tovah adored her sister and joined the group, standing guard while Leah and her friends printed anti-government leaflets.
“A printing press was as subversive as explosives,” Mama told them. “One night, the Czar’s guard caught Leah with pamphlets stuffed under her coat. It was February, freezing cold, just a few weeks before the Czar’s soldiers gunned down hundreds of protestors at the Winter Palace.”
“Wow,” Rosa had said.
“What happened to Grandma?” Esther asked.
Their grandmother was convicted of treason and exiled to Siberia. The girls loved the part of the story about how Tovah smuggled her sister out of the labor camp, in the bottom of a cart filled with firewood, pulled by their uncle’s nasty-tempered mule. Esther studied the world map on her classroom wall; there was no way they could have traveled that far by mule cart. But Mama insisted. “That’s how Leah came to America.”
“Your grandmother was a freedom fighter,” Pop said. “You should be proud.”
“Where’s Tovah now?” Esther asked in a small voice.
“There was typhus on the boat,” was all Mama said.
“We gave you Tovah as a middle name, in honor of her,” Pop added.
If only Grandma Leah were still alive. Maybe she could’ve helped explain to Mama and Pop what happened today. Esther rubbed Molly’s back through the wrap cloth and entered the living room where her parents sat in deep silence on the sofa. The blank television was still pinging as the tube cooled. Mama’s cheeks were shiny with tears.
“What were you thinking?” Pop asked without looking up. His hands lay in his lap, palms up, his arthritic fingers stiff and stained with shoe polish.
Esther stood facing her parents. “The cops were beating people. It was horrible and we had to do something.”
“The cops are often brutal,” Pop said. He looked up for a moment, then back down at his hands. “But I taught you girls to plan, to think, not to act crazy on some cockamamie impulse.”
Esther wanted to explain that she hadn’t wanted to do it either, that it was all Rosa’s fault. But the sisters always stood together. “Rosa thinks it’s an opportunity to educate people about Vietnam.”
“Rosa thinks? What do you think?” her mother interrupted, jabbing her finger toward Esther’s chest. “You have a baby. What about Molly?”
Esther hesitated. How would Rosa answer? “Isn’t this what you guys always taught us?” she asked Pop. “When we see something wrong, don’t we have to fight to change it, to make things better? Like you did when you fought for your union?”
How could Pop not understand?
He shook his head, hard. “We taught you girls to anticipate the effect of your actions. Not to act like hoodlums, assaulting an officer.”
Molly squirmed and whimpered. Esther patted her back and jiggled side to side to comfort her.
“We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We had to stop the cops from beating innocent people.” She wasn’t good at this. Rosa was the one who argued with Pop.
When she and Rosa were younger, their family was all on the same side. Mama and Pop sent them to Loon Lake Camp every year to enjoy New England summers with other kids from left-wing families, kids like Allen and Jake. But when Rosa started college, she began quarreling with Pop about everything, from the revolutionary potential of students versus workers, to black power and guerrilla theater tactics. Mama and Esther tried to make peace between them, but they failed and the arguments raged. These days, when they were all together, Esther tried to redirect dinner table conversation to Molly, to what she and Rosa had been like as babies. It rarely worked; instead Pop and Rosa continued to fill the room with their loud voices until Esther and Jake made excuses about Molly’s bedtime and escaped.
“Feh,” Mama said. “All you’ve done is hurt that policeman. And yourselves. And Molly.” She paused before adding, “Tell Jake I can watch the baby while he’s at the hospital.”
“We will do what we can to help,” Pop said. “But you’re in big trouble this time.” His fingers clenched and unclenched. “Unless Rosa’s lawyer boyfriend is pals with the judge.”
Pop’s right eye fluttered. Was that a wink, when he mentioned the judge? Esther searched her father’s face. Maybe secretly he was on their side, but couldn’t let Mama know because she was just too scared?
“We’ll call your cousin Joel,” Mama said. “He’s a lawyer downtown.”
“Allen is a great lawyer, Mama, and he’s political. It’ll be all right.”
“Sometimes you can’t make it right. You shouldn’t have gone to that demonstration. You should have stayed home with Molly.” Mama’s voice was raspy and raw, her words dragged over glass shards. “Your Pop’s right. This is big trouble.”
Esther knew better than to talk back when Mama was in her dire-predictions-of-doom mood. No matter how innocent her sentence started out, somewhere between a daughter’s lips and Mama’s eardrum the words ignited and blazed. Usually Rosa was the flammable sister.
This time, maybe Mama was right.
Halfway down the block from the bus stop, Esther spotted the police car in front of her apartment. She hesitated, briefly considered turning around and—doing what? Running where? Two cops stepped from the cruiser and blocked the sidewalk, holding their billy clubs two-fisted, horizontal across their bodies at holster level. For one wild moment, Esther imagined they might twirl them like batons, toss them into the air like the girls on the high school team and catch them with split-second precision. Get real, she told herself. They’re much more likely to smash your head with the wooden clubs. She swallowed a nervous gulp, circled her arms around Molly, pulling damp warmth against her chest, then walked toward the policemen.
The taller officer rested his left hand on his holster. “Esther Green?”
She nodded, pointed to his gun. “You don’t need that.”
He didn’t move his hand. “You’re coming with us to the station.”
“I have to nurse my baby.”
“Should’ve thought of your baby when you attacked that cop.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. “Please?”
His partner shrugged. “You’ve got ten minutes. And we’re coming in with you.”