Volcano Watch

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Twice, the mayor of my hometown gave me advice.

The first time was when she joined my third-grade class on a snowshoeing trip to chop a Christmas tree. She was nobody’s mom — just the town’s busybody mayor who volunteered for everything. Her name was Georgette Simonies. Call me Georgia she’d boom to any kid who addressed her otherwise, and since she was barely five feet tall, kid-size, we could do that. Out in the wilderness that day, I got myself lost. Trees suddenly thick, shrouded. That snow-blanket silence. Georgia was the one who found me. Next time wear a bell, she boomed.

The second time Georgia Simonies advised me, I was eleven. My little brother Henry had recently died. He had hemophilia, wherein the blood refuses to clot. He’d gotten sicker that year, bleeding out again and again, and my parents stockpiled pressure bandages and I fed him pureed broccoli to replace the lost iron, but his luck ran out when he bumped his head and bled into his brain.

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