There had been no good way for Esther to convey her concerns to Fannie without pushing her away. So, when Fannie had stood before Esther and Joseph in the living room, waiting anxiously to hear what her parents thought of the match, they had stuck to practical questions of common concern. Esther asked when the couple intended to marry, and Joseph wanted to know if Fannie planned to complete the second year of her secretarial degree. Florence took the opportunity to ask whether she should begin to call Isaac brother. “Isaac should suffice,” said Esther, without taking her eyes off her older daughter. It was much later that night, after the girls had gone to bed, that Esther realized she’d failed to give Fannie her congratulations.
By the time Ederle was ready to enter the Channel waters, Fannie’s wedding preparations were well under way. Joseph insisted they hold the ceremony, which would be a small affair, at Beth Kehillah. There was some conversation about a luncheon at The Breakers, but Esther decided a hotel reception would be ostentatious and potentially uncomfortable for Isaac since his family was not of means. She insisted that there was nothing the matter with holding the luncheon at home and that the gefilte fish they’d buy at Casel’s was every bit as good as what they’d find on The Breakers’ menu. Esther could tell Fannie was disappointed but she cheered considerably when Esther suggested that they take the train to Philadelphia to purchase Fannie’s wedding dress at Wanamaker’s.
Ederle landed on a small beach a few miles north of Dover, England, at approximately half-past nine on the night of August 6, and the wires lit up as scores of American journalists transmitted news of the accomplishment back to a country that had been collectively holding its breath. Florence had been glued to the radio all day, yelling updates from the living room as they came in. Eventually Esther stopped pretending to attend to her daily chores, found some socks that needed darning—usually a task she saved for the evenings—and joined her.
Europeans, asleep in their beds, had to wait until morning to learn that the Channel had been conquered by a woman but, in Atlantic City and elsewhere in the United States, Ederle’s accomplishment made the evening radio programs.
When the news broke, Joseph was home but Fannie was out running errands. She arrived back at the apartment to find the family exuberant but gave them only the briefest of greetings before hurrying back to her bedroom to get ready for an evening out with Isaac. Esther watched Florence thump down the hallway after her: “Fannie! Trudy did it! She made it!” From where Esther sat on the sofa, she could hear her elder daughter reply with a brief, “Yes, I heard.” Something about the emptiness of that response made Esther’s chest begin to hurt.
Within two weeks, Fannie was married and had moved into Isaac’s apartment. Esther told herself it couldn’t be helped—the slow dissolution of the girls’ relationship. Fannie was busy learning to make a home, and after she had Gussie, learning to be a good mother. Florence was years away from any of that. She was still young enough to love being at home with her parents, to ask for penny candy after dinner, and to treat the Ambassador Club swim tryouts like they were preliminaries for the Olympic Games. Esther had told herself that one day, when the girls were older, their age difference would matter less. Florence would get married and have children, and Fannie would be there to offer advice on the best way to burp a baby or remove a stain from a shirt collar. Maybe, eventually, they would rediscover each other. She pictured two old women, walking the Boardwalk arm in arm. That they would never get the chance to come back to each other, to start again, was inconceivable to Esther, even now.
Gussie and this new baby would also be seven years apart in age. Was it an unlucky number? As Esther stood in a hospital room, watching her elder daughter seethe with resentment toward a sister who could neither make amends nor fight back, she prayed that Fannie would be able to knit her children’s lives together more neatly than Esther had managed to.
“Have you been to the beach much?” Fannie asked Gussie, obviously trying to change the subject.
Gussie looked at Esther.
“Not much,” Esther said. “It’s so crowded this time of year.”
“Anna goes,” Gussie offered.
“To the beach?” Fannie asked.
“I suspect the girl’s trying to teach herself to swim,” said Esther. “She won’t confirm it. Just lurks about.”
“That’s not true,” said Gussie.
“What’s not?” said Fannie.
“She doesn’t lurk. And she’s not teaching herself to swim.”
“Then what’s she doing?” asked Esther.
“Stuart is teaching her to swim.”
Esther started to say something, then realized she didn’t know what to say. Stuart? Really?
“Why wouldn’t she just ask Florence to teach her?” Fannie asked Esther. “Are Stuart and she an item? Doesn’t Stuart have a thing for Florence?”
Esther flushed. She could feel herself losing control of the conversation, of Gussie, of the secret.
“I couldn’t say,” said Esther, trying her best to look not only uninformed but uninterested. She stood up and grabbed for her handbag. “What I can say is that I need to get your daughter home to her lunch. Gussie, give your mother a kiss good-bye.”
“It’s so unfair,” Fannie whispered into her daughter’s hair. “I didn’t even get to see you twirl your baton. Bring it the next time you come?”
“My baton?”
Enough was enough. Esther grabbed Gussie’s hand and yanked her from the bed.
“Don’t keep her away so long next time,” Fannie shouted after them as Esther herded Gussie out of the room and into the corridor.
Esther waved a hand in the air, threw a “See you tomorrow” over her shoulder, and shut the door behind her with a louder bang than she’d intended.
It wasn’t until she and Gussie were down the stairs, through the lobby, and out the hospital’s front doors that
