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Show A PROPER INTRODUCTION-22 A PROPER INTRODUCTION LaGuardia Airport shares Long Island with Shea Stadium, and today, of all days, is the World Series. Since my father's call to hurry to Chevy Chase, three Washington shuttles have taken off without me. Now that I'm finally on board a DC-7, my purse keeps slipping off my lap and a strand of my hair, long and straight as i t is, is caught on a coat button. A woman across the aisle reaches over, touches my arm, and asks, "What's the matter?" I yank hard on the hair and tell her, "My mother is dying." The hair breaks and some of it is left knotted around the button. She nods and pulls an enormous black leatherbound Bible out of a briefcase by her feet. Her wrist is so slender I wonder how she can l i f t it with one hand. "You can heal her," she says. Her eyes seem to stare into me. "My mother had Hodgkin's disease and I healed her." She doesn't blink. I think of how l i t t le I've done for Mother. I haven't even seen her for the past several months. Sure, there were reasons-my job in a writing camp for the summer, my search for a new apartment when I returned to Manhattan. But there was another reason, though I don't like to look at i t , having to do with the way |
