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Show A PROPER INTRODUCTIONS mornings there was a serrated edge to her voice and she began to admonish: "It's time for you to learn who you are." Her hands would flutter around her face in warding-off gestures, and I couldn't tell if it was myself or some thought she was pushing away. "Find out what you really want." The sound cut. "Know what you can do, how you can be strong." I gradually began to avoid her, more and more, having no idea why. It was important somehow to be different from here-away, apart. In a way she was telling me to do exactly that, abandon her in order to find myself, but I felt enormously guilty about it. I think of a letter she'd sent me while I was in college in which she mentioned my growing interest in ideas and philosophy, and said, "we could have some wonderful talks now. Too bad we were never properly introduced." I place the photograph behind the semicircle of dancers, next to the hymnal on the marble-topped table. I don't quite approve of all this sentimental shrine building, but a person can't just vanish like that, with no connections at all. One needs traces. As I carry through my self-apppointed duties, church ladies ring the doorbell, offering pies and casseroles and polite condolences. Few have seen my mother in the past year. Laura greets them, accepting the offerings, giving our thanks. I'm glad. I can't. Dad sits in his easy chair. Sometimes great tears roll silently down his face, but I suspect that they are at least partially induced by the old-fashioneds. I imagine, in any event, that he is grieving in a separate universe for things I care little about. He'd tried to do things with me in the earlier years. For two or three years he took me on annual walks in whatever nature area was nearby. My favorite was our walk in the big ravine near the lake, when he carried me piggyback part |