g the audience at Dan's play; he recommended that he watch with me-two pairs of eyes being better than one. But at the time I was mainly thinking about my mother; I was already beginning to get angry with her for never telling me who my father was. Mary Beth Baird, who had once pleaded to be allowed to kiss the Baby Jesus, glared with jealous loathing at Barb Wiggin, who must have been an exceptionally strong stewardess-in her time in the sky. The tissue that hung from die stumps of his arms was as filmy and delicate as gossamer-as fine and intricate as old lace.
It was a fast attack, concealed in a flurry of flying hay; you had to be a Joseph-or Barb Wiggin-to know what happened. My grandfather was dying, and perhaps this focusing of my grandmother's attention distracted her from demanding of my mother what the family had demanded of Aunt Martha: a college education. I was getting my hair cut in my usual place, near the corner of Bathurst and St. evidenced between them onstage; it was the only time or place I ever saw Dan be hateful to my mother.
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