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Show "No more, please--" "Open." He closes his eyes, opens his mouth, receives another strip of liver. "Again." But a violent gagging gasp escapes him before she can put the fork into his mouth, and he finds himself in tears. She leaps up from the table, drags him into the bedroom. In the bedroom, beside his bed, is a rocking chair, and on the chair, arranged in an exacting pyramid, is the family of bears: stuffed plush bears, ten of them, ranging into exact graduation from the smallest baby bear to an enormous grandfather one. "Move the bears," she says. The boy tilts the rocker forward, so that the bears slide out onto the floor. The mother freezes, looms absolutely motionless. The boy is still crying, but his crying dries in fear. He knows what she wants. Slowly, he bends over and picks up the closest of the bears; a middle-sized one, and places it upright on the bed. Then he takes another, a very large one, and puts it at the far end of the bed, then another, the next in size, and so on, until he has got the entire row of bears, precisely graduated, placed upright on the bed. "Good," says the mother. She sits down in the rocking chair, pats her lap. "Come here." He is crying again, but he knows this time it is alright. He sits in her lap and forces himself to put his head on her shoulder; she places her |
