"It's how a bone sets if you have a bad break and don't get a
cast. Crooked."
"Jesus," he said, giving it another squeeze. Now that he knew what it
was, he thought -- or perhaps fancied -- that he could feel how the
unevenly splintered pieces of bone mated together, met at a slight angle
and fused together by the knitting process.
"She made me a sling, and she fed me every meal and brushed my teeth. I
had to stop her from following me into the toilet to wipe me up. And I
didn't care: She could have broken both of my arms if she'd only
explained the photos to me, or left them with me so that I could go on
investigating them, but she did neither. She hardly spoke a word to me."
She resettled herself against the pillows, then pulled him back against
her again and plumped his head against her breasts.
"Are you falling in love with me?" she said.
He startled. The way she said it, she didn't sound like a young adult,
she sounded like a small child.
"Mimi --" he began, then stopped himself. "I don't think so. I mean, I
like you --"
"Good," she said. "No falling in love, all right?"
#
Auntie died six months later. She keeled over on the staircase on her
way up to the apartment, and I heard her moaning and thrashing out
there. I hauled her up the stairs with my good arm, and she crawled
along on her knees, making gargling noises.
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