I looked down and saw the claw-footed tub wearing the red socks May had put on its porcelain feet. I smiled then; I couldn’t help it. It was the side of May I never wanted to forget. I closed my eyes, and all the best pictures of her came to me. I saw her corkscrew braids glistening in the sprinkler, her fingers arranging the graham-cracker crumbs, working so hard on behalf of a single roach’s life. And that hat she wore the day she danced the conga line with the Daughters of Mary. Mostly, though, I saw the blaze of love and anguish that had come so often into her face. In the end it had
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