Florida

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SHE WAS ON HER knees and rubbing her back against parts of the house and backing into corners and sliding out from under curtains, rump polishing the floor, and she was saying, “Sit with me, Alice.” She was saying, “Talk to me. Be a daughter. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” She spoke uninflectedly, as if thinking of something else — the dishes to do, drawers to line, clotted screens to clean out with a toothpick. Handles missing, silver gone, and a Walter in the next room unwilling to leave!

Bitch, bitch, bitch, the sound the broomsticks made against the floor in Mother’s nettled cleaning and talking to herself, asking, “What am I doing? What does it look like I am doing?”

“You are stupid,” I overheard Walter say to my mother. “You’d be better off dead.”

And Walter was as smart as any professor; he was the first to admit it, saying to my mother, “Why are you so stupid?” Stupid about composers and who was playing. Stupid about motherhood and about how much money she had. Why didn’t she know, why didn’t she plan ahead? Why was it always up to him to think it out for her? Walter sat in the armchair and sipped at his whiskey and held out a hand no one took.

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