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Show Moon - 203 "Me. You've created me here, over and over again. And not just me. Everyone. It's good." She can keep her head up, even with the tears streaming down, as if she's a big enough person now to cry as naturally as a bird calling from the top of a tree. David is surprised, she can tell, not sure what to make of this. Then something allows him to gather her into his arms. She thinks this is a way he's never before held a woman-without sexual desire, without self-pity, without need for himself. When he moves away, he says, "I want to give something to you." He reaches behind a canvas and pulls out a charcoal portrait of her mother, framed under glass. "I did this without her knowing. I was going to give it to her." Her mother is sitting at an easel wearing a smock. Her face is in profile, lips pursed, chin thrust outward. Her hair is braided and wound on her head in a coronet. Her hand grips a stick of charcoal and is poised above the paper as if trembling, unsure, eager. "Keep it for us," David says. "This is how we'll both remember her." They stand silently a while, gazing at the drawing. Then he lights a cigarette and his eyes begin to look everywhere else. She knows it's time to go. He doesn't ask to see her again, though he asks for her address and reminds her to send him the slides. Aunt Gloria listens to my story. She admires the charcoal drawing with an eloquent nod of her head. It occurs to me to wonder why, since he was on speaking terms with Gloria, he hadn't tried to reach me himself. But no, I'm not |