The Fisherman

by John Langan

Outside her sister’s radius, Clara is relaxed, forgiving, and even funny. To Lottie’s surprise and embarrassment, she’s learned that her mother has a great talent and memory for dirty jokes, which she never fails to indulge while they’re making long breads and pastries. It’s won her popularity with most of her fellow workers, male and female, with whom Lottie has been shocked to see her mother enjoying the occasional cigarette. “You don’t tell your father,” Clara said to her when she first spied her puffing away. The thought hadn’t even crossed Lottie’s mind, since she was sure Rainer would never believe her. She wouldn’t dream of imitating her mother’s behavior. She’s pretty sure that Clara’s new-found liberalism doesn’t extend to her oldest daughter. But once her initial surprise has faded a bit, Lottie has found that she likes this Clara better than the one who made her time working at her aunt’s an exercise in extended misery. She still misses her old mother, the one she had in Germany, who sang bits from Mozart operas in a high, ringing voice as she went about the house, but she’s come to seem more and more distant to Lottie, a pleasant ghost.