never experienced scorn or hatred. Yet it was as if the humiliations and oppression Mama and Zayde had suffered had been lying in wait to ambush me. All it took was venturing beyond my narrow accustomed world, glimpsing myself as someone who belonged at the airport might see me.
My uneasiness lingered when I was back among my family. Harriet had pooped, but Mama hadn’t brought a fresh diaper, never imagining we would have to wait so long. Harriet stank and fussed, and Mama made Barbara and me take turns holding her. I tried to get excited again about the airplanes taking off and landing, but I just wanted to be somewhere else. Or even, like Barbara, someone else? I glanced at Barbara, who, even though she had to hold Harriet, was standing a bit behind us, keeping her distance from the fence. The way she had chattered about “Mummy and Daddy” and lied about having flown … if I tried to do that, I would choke on the falseness. As always, I marveled at—and envied—my sister’s audacity, her chutzpah. This time, though, something else stirred in me. True, I couldn’t play a role like my chameleon sister. With every inch of my skin, every thought that crossed my mind, every word I spoke, I was Elaine Greenstein. And I was glad of it! I felt the integrity (even if I didn’t have that word for it at the time) of being utterly myself, and it gave me an extraordinary sense of power; it was a way I would feel years later in courtrooms when I was at the top of my game. And Barbara—for a moment I saw past her facility at shapeshifting to her need for it … and I felt sad for her.
All of these thoughts fled, however, when a new set of lights appeared and someone shouted, “It’s Chicago!”
“Mollie!” Mama called.
The plane landed, then jounced toward the fence and shuddered to a stop. Men in coveralls wheeled over the metal stairway, and from inside the plane a uniformed arm flung open the door.
The first passenger to emerge was a matronly lady in a lumpy brown suit and green hat. My eyes skimmed past her, but Mama screamed, “Mollie!” And the matron turned into a girl as she dashed down the stairs, yelling, “Charlotte!” and not caring that this wasn’t the casual yet dignified way in which everyone else descended from planes. Mollie kissed Mama’s fingers through the fence and hurried through the gate. Then she and Mama embraced, both of them laughing and weeping.
Finally Mama introduced each of us. “Elaine,” Mollie said and gave me a kiss. “Your mama sent me the letter you wrote to the newspaper. I’m so proud that you’re fighting for justice.” She said a different special thing to Papa, Barbara, Audrey, and even Leo, and she cuddled Harriet (and didn’t wrinkle her nose at the smell) while we waited for her bags. Up close, Cousin Mollie looked a lot younger than when she’d first stepped from the airplane. She had springy dark hair like Mama’s (and mine) that poked out untidily from her stylish green fez. And her brown eyes sparkled with energy.
When we got home Mama showed Mollie her room and said, “I hope you don’t mind if Elaine sleeps on the cot.”
“Mind?” Mollie clapped her hands. “It’ll be like you and me, Char, when we were girls.”
Oh, the wonderful talks we were going to have! The secrets I would share with the heroine of Mama’s Chicago stories. But Mollie stayed up late that first night talking with Mama in the kitchen, and the next morning when I woke up, she had already left. That evening, Mama made a feast for Mollie’s first dinner with us, and we waited an hour and a half before we finally gave up on her and ate. But she stayed out until long after I was asleep. When I awoke the following day, she was gone again.
It was like that all week. The same blazing energy that drew me to Mollie kept her working for the union from sunrise until midnight. In the morning, she left by six to talk to people on their way into the factories. Every evening, she attended a meeting or strolled around the Mexican center of Olvera Street—most of the dressmakers were Mexican—or visiting workers in their homes.
I tried going to bed early, hoping to wake up and talk with her when she got ready in the morning, but as