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Show Moon -197 A silence. I rush into it. "It's all right if you don't want to see me. I'll understand completely." "What?" I'm in my stride now, businesslike, ready to put him at ease. "Let me give you some information so you can decide if you'd like to meet me." I hurry on. My mother's name was Anne Adams." "Was?" "She died seventeen years ago." Another silence. I pick up a stone from the kitchen counter, lift it into the sunlight, and discover a little cove filled with crystals. He says, "Anne." "She took an art class from you. I guess you had a drinking problem, which believe me I understand. James Wright married her. I was born too soon. My mother didn't tell me until I was seven, which my mother considered to be the age of reason." Silence again, then, "Seven seems to be your number." He's trying, I can see, to sound flippant, and it's a cover. "Do you want to think about it? Whatever you decide is all right. You don't have to see me." "Stop! My God. Of course I want to see you." Why "of course"? I reach into a shaft of sunlight over the sink, stir up sparkles of dust. "Can you meet me?" he says. "How about in an hour?" He gives me directions to a coffee shop, and after he hangs up I stand awhile) the receiver in my hand. Aunt Gloria comes into the kitchen, barely contained in a faded |