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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 106 He wore a black duster coat, his blonde hair long in his face and stringy as though he'd walked in from a torrent. He had a blonde beard streaked with red. His mouth was pale and thin and set hard, but the lines around his eyes and brow were soft and warm. He stood over the crib whispering something to Cleo, and when Angie walked by, he looked up at her. It was Patrick. His shock of blonde hair had grown half down his back, and the beard was new. The face was lined and leather-hardened, and the hairline had receded. Decades older, but it was him. It was only a second. When she looked again he was gone. Cleo was fast asleep. Cleo's name had been chosen before she was bom. Shortly after Angie watched the pointillist map deciphered by the doctor-the cold jelly lubricating the hump of her beneath the impersonal hardware-the pronouncement had been made it would be a girl. To Angie the image on the screen had been nonsensical and the magic of seeing her unborn daughter had been overshadowed by her increasing discomfort with the pregnancy. Her body was intolerably hot all the time and she suffered insomnia. She combated this by watching infomercials long into the night, stark naked. She would spray herself down with a water bottle and lie on top of the covers glistening like an enormous shucked snail. Angie's mother hated the name, but Angie had researched it and was quick to supply its ancient etymology: from the Greek kleos, meaning glory. Really, Angie named her daughter after her favorite late night fortune-teller. Her mother had always been a generous dispenser of uncherished advice. She had told Angie not to breastfeed, it would rain her breasts and no man would want her after |