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She calls up to their rooms in her mind. She waits but no one calls back, no feet peek out as they round the stairs, no legs moving under full skirts, yellow shorts cropped at the knee. How long can she stand, her head bowed to listen, the banister dulled from all the hands that gripped it? Her bones slide in and out of joint as she sways, unbalanced, her blue eyes blinking at the quiet. She is the only one left. Her mother passing long ago, remnants of her stashed in dark corners of the house- dollar bills floating from the pages of a book, a stack of treasured stamps left brittle in her desk. She sleeps in the bed her husband died in. His hand outstretched, palm up, left where she had cradled it the night before. “Having babies was like playing dolls,” she tells me, “held them as much as I could.” For a while it was just my mother and her brother. Eventually my uncle came with red hair and eyes that cautioned you to handle him with care. Three rooms of toys, tennis rackets, shotguns, love letters ripped up and then taped back together. They took long road trips cross country, amazed by the interstate system and the new shining cars whistling with hope.
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