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swiveled around on the piano stool and with her hands on her knees stares vacantly at the front window. Slowly, almost magically, her face freezes with horror. The window is six panes high. From its top a shade dangles like a loose eyelid and its bottom lip is chunky with potted plants. In Mamie's world, as in dreams, reality is a frightening thing. My mother suddenly has an idea which results in my father hauling a trunk full of clothes down from the attic and opening it in front of Mamie. "See, Mama," my mother says, sifting through dresses, scarves, and frilly blouses, "these were all the pretty things you used to wear -- remember?" In an instant Mamie slams the trunk shut, but a stocking hangs out like a tongue. In the next instant Mamie rips it out by the roots. 
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As if to punish her, we leave her alone, filing into the kitchen where the strong afternoon sun sets fire to the floor. "She'll be all right," my father says. "Just give her time to come around." "She's beyond us," my mother says in a voice so dry that I ache with a sudden thirst. We both ache, and my mother draws two tumblers from the cupboard. "Me too," my father says, watching water rumble from the faucet like a loose rope. Refreshed, but still hot, unsettled, my mother turns on the fan whose butterfly wings whir furiously, chopping off all other sound. The whirring seems to suck the three of us into a vacuum, so that our noses touch and stick. It is only through sheer force of will that my mother raises her hand and pure luck that the blades don't scatter her fingers. She plucks the metal  |
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