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Show ii/oodworth/2 57 intangible, powerful and comforting like diving under a wave, is shut in the room with them. Her feat subsides to a background throbbing. "Hi," she whispers. The Venetian blinds are down and shut so lines of light filter down dusty slats and diffuse in the room. Her mother is a dark form, just barely visible behind the crib-bars of the hospital bed. She is being fed from an inverted bottle that hangs above her, the glass catching and reflecting one beam of light. "Marty?" her mother asks thinly, and she moves forward, careful in the darkness not to upset furniture. Moves forward, gently drawn by the elastic. "Marty," her mother says again, struggling against her casts. Marty collapses against her breast. It's just a dream. Only a nightmare, she wants her mother to say. Her mother's heart beats against her ear, muffled by the bandages. Then, nervous that she might upset the intravenous bottle, Marty straightens. The bed is too high to sit on the edge so she leans over the railing, smoothing her mother's hair back from her brow. "How're you feeling?" she asks. Her mother smiles stiffly. "Embarrassed," she says. "Embarrassed at making all these doctors and nurses,and your father and you girls niake such a fuss over an old drunk like me." "You're not a drunk." Her mother smiles again, the smiles drifting all over her face drowsily. "I don't know, Marty," she says hazily. "What's a drunk?" No. It isn't possible. She drinks. So does everyone. Drunks lie in gutters, stumble red-eyed in subway stations. |