Holly

asperity.

jejune,

It makes her think of a documentary she saw about Bob Dylan. A folk singer from Greenwich Village in the sixties said, “He was just another guitar player trying to sound like Woody Guthrie. Then all at once he was Bob Dylan.”

“What’s the name of the loser boyfriend?” “Tom Higgins.” She wrinkles her nose. “He worked at the shoe store out at the Airport Mall.

Microwaving kills most nutrients, it’s a known fact. No wonder so many Americans are so unhealthy; that kind of cooking should be banned by law.

Once the liver has been fully awakened, that is, and calf’s liver triggers that awakening. Human liver would undoubtedly be even more efficacious, but that would mean taking two people each time, one to donate a liver and the other to feed on it before being slaughtered, and the Harrises have decided that would be much too dangerous.

She walks home in a daze, thinking of the last thing Olivia said to her. “Gifts are fragile. You must never entrust yours to people who might break it.” She doesn’t say who she might be thinking of, and Barbara doesn’t need her to. She has what she needs and doesn’t expect to return to the Harris house again.

Olivia reads Barbara’s poems and has Marie make copies of every one, and when Barbara comes again—not every time, only sometimes—she will tell her to make a change or find another word. She always says the same two things, either “You were not present when you wrote this” or “You were the audience instead of the writer.” Once she tells Barbara that

“Old age is a time of casting away, which is bad enough, but it’s also a time of escalating indignities.”