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Show Woodworth/page 256 want to talk. Who is he? How does he feel right now? What's it like for him to be a husband, or a father? Unlike her mother, who is still attached to her by some invisible cord, he can go places, or say things that surprise her. If she says something, what will he do? Most of all, she realizes, she doesn't want to see her father cry. "Did you remember to bring her things?" he says, looking up, and she remembers that they had left the over-night bag in the car. "It's in the car," she answers. She should offer to go get it, but the idea of going out in the sunshine, into the parking lot where traffic is passing on the road, where people are walking and talking, emersed in their own lives, terrifies her- Even though she hasn't seen her mother, she can feel her presence behind the door, feel the power that holds her strongly, too strangly to leave. She can hear a heart beat, almost as though she is caught in a womb. "It doesn't matter," Ned says. "Megan can get them in a minute." He picks up the magazine and folds it to another page. He is reading "High Lights." He feels awkward, too. Sit next to him. Talk to him. She doesn't move. What will her mother look like? What did she look like yesterday? Last year? Megan backs out the door whispering, "She's right here." The door is open. Everyone is waiting. Rags of people. No. Now it's everything good that can happen. Her body moves forward, almost without effort, as if the cord that binds them is elastic, slowly contracting. Inside the door she stops, leaning back against the cord, and closes the door. The echoing halls of the hospital are shut out, something |