Gitty and Esther

“Mommy what does self-righjus mean?” 

Gitty took one last drag off her cigarette before stabbing it out in the styrofoam cup that held the sludge from Esther’s hot chocolate.  “It’s like your father, not letting us see each other more than twice a month, and not letting you live with me because I refuse to wear a wig and skirt, and keep Shabbes”, she wanted to say, but instead: “it’s self-righteous, and it means, you think your way is the only right way to do something.”

She watched as her daughter tried to select a color for Yogi’s picnic basket from the crayon fragments scattered around her on the floor, before settling on purple.  “So what do you think you’ll want for dinner mameleh?  I bet we can have pizza delivered to our room, you want pizza?”

As she passed the bay window on the way to the phone, she surreptitiously parted the vinyl curtains and scanned the motel's parking lot for the familiar white vans. 

While the two waited for their dinner to arrive, Gitty lit another cigarette, and studied the gas-station map,  while Esther continued to color Yogi.