my grandfather, Tom, the bespectacled insurance agent, master amateur magician, renowned rose breeder, and champion gin rummy player, took me to the park to feed the pigeons. He was sitting on a green bench, tossing seeds from a bag to the birds, which were flocking around his feet. He kept saying, “Look at the birds, Rosanne!” and I thought to myself, with a sharp clarity that I now spend most of my waking hours trying to recapture, Oh, I am supposed to pretend to be excited. I am supposed to act like a child. And so I did. I squealed obligingly, feigned alarm at the gathering birds, and
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